Curmudgeon's Lair

The book came in just over 50k. It's the same length that most genre titles were published at back when I first started going to bookstores.

I am currently working on Blood Lies, book nine in the series and hope to have it finished by August. The rough draft is sitting at just slightly over 30k words and I suspect that it will be longer than Blood Hope. there are two more books in the series after Lies is finished.

I just passed the 50k mark on the final draft of Blood Hope. It's looking good. My editor likes what he has seen so far.

The Shadowed Princes and Kady's Vengeance are still sitting on the highest rated in dark fantasy list at Fictionwise. These things can be very ephemeral.

I hope to have Blood Hope finished by Monday and turned in for the final editorial go through.

I burned my breakfast when I lost track while working on a scene. I'm beginning to think that I'm back to the point of being able to burn water.

Johnny Horton is one of my favorite singers. These lyrics are very old. I'm listening to Johnny Horton sing it right now.

Now if you want to get the right idea, just put the words "legion of nitwits" in the spots that say the Bismark.

JOHNNY HORTON lyrics - Sink The Bismark


(Johnny Horton and Tilman Franks)

In May of nineteen forty-one the war had just begun
The Germans had the biggest ship that had the biggest guns
The Bismark was the fastest ship that ever sailed the seas
On her deck were guns as big as steers and shells as big as trees

Out of the cold and foggy night came the British ship the Hood
And evry British seaman, he knew and understood
They had to sink the Bismark, the terror of the sea
Stop those guns as big as steers and those shells as big as trees

We'll find that German battleship thats makin' such a fuss
We gotta sink the Bismark 'cause the world depends on us
Hit the decks a-runnin' boys and spin those guns around
When we find the Bismark we gotta cut her down

The Hood found the Bismark and on that fatal day
The Bismark started firin' fifteen miles away
We gotta sink the Bismark was the battle sound
But when the smoke had cleared away
The mighty Hood went down

For six long days and weary nights they tried to find her trail
Churchill told the people "Put ev'ry ship a-sail"
'Cause somewhere on that ocean I know she's gotta be
We gotta sink the Bismark to the bottom of the sea

We'll find that German battleship thats makin' such a fuss
We gotta sink the Bismark 'cause the world depends on us
Hit the decks a-runnin' boys and spin those guns around
When we find the Bismark we gotta cut her down

The fog was gone on the seventh day and they saw the mornin' sun
Ten hours away from homeland the Bismark made its' run
The admiral of the British fleet said "Turn those bows around"
We found that German battleship and we're gonna cut her down

The British guns were aimed and the shells were comin' fast
The first shell hit the Bismark, they knew she couldn't last
That mighty German battleship is just a memory
"Sink the Bismark" was the battle cry that shook the seven seas

We found that German battleship was makin' such a fuss
We had to sink the Bismark 'cause the world depends on us
We hit the decks a-runnin' and we spun those guns around
Yeah, we found the mighty Bismark and then we cut her down

We found that German battleship was makin' such a fuss
We had to sink the Bismark 'cause the world depends on us
We hit the decks a-runnin' and we spun those guns around
We found the mighty Bismark and then we cut her down

On a rocky beach, curled into a fetal ball around a bottle of whiskey, a drunk woke screaming in a desolation of the soul more deep than death. He had found himself this small corner, little more than a wedge of large stones last night when he realized the drink was close to overcoming him, rather than trying to make it home. Josh often did that. Eventually someone would come looking for him. They always did since Aejys took him in. The Vorgeni called him Josh the Sot, or more often simply The Sot and left it at that. No one else invoked as much contempt in the town as Josh.

Sand crusted his grey-brown hair and untidy beard. The bridge of his nose, crooked from a childhood break, was squarish and his chin was blunt like pushed-in clay. He reeked of whiskey and vomit, yet he pulled the cork and got another drag down, causing his stomach to heave again. Josh slapped at the cobwebs of images still lodged in his half sleeping mind. Demons on thin legs pranced through his thoughts and tore him with knives that left no blood in their wake. He twisted and howled again.

A voice echoed in his mind, "Once there were three brothers, Brandrahoon, Isranon called Dawnhand, and Waejonan the Accursed."

Josh screamed and howled, clutching his bottle, gulping at it. He raised his eyes and stared out at the waters, thinking how easy it would be to simply walk out far enough into the tide to let the undertow catch him, to let the terror end, to let it all be over. He straightened and started toward the water, feeling the fear draining out of him as he listened to the waves. Josh kept swigging from the bottle as he walked into the water. Suddenly, seemingly from out of nowhere, a group of children rushed around him and he hesitated.

"Grandfather is looking for you," shouted a little girl, her black hair in two braids and sand coating her buckskins.

Josh blinked and the lure of the water was broken. Yes, he thought, someone always comes looking. Before Aejys, it had been just Branch and his grandchildren and great grandchildren. The old Kwaklahmyn shaman had befriended him when he was a child. Now there were many watchers, as if they all recognized the despair in his soul. But his despair came from within. He had Aejys and others now who cared. So long as they were around he did not feel that void as keenly and could distract himself from his awareness of it. It was only there, pounding in his awareness, when he found himself alone.

Philbin is talking the same old shit. I made a long study on Age of Consent and patterns of courtship in non-western societies and I said that people would misunderstand the nature of those posts.

I have already answered it here.

http://cussedness.wordpress.com/2007/11/19/who-the-fuck-is-mike-philbin/#respond

I will up the date on it so this to today. I see no reason to go over it twice.

http://cussedness.insanejournal.com/14805.html

There is the post from which Philbin derives the quote about pedophilia.

I have a love for cultural and historical accuracy. Which was one, among many, reasons to pick that topic. I understood the risks in discussing it during these anxious times.

Feel free to post links to the material.

I expect to have the final draft of Blood Hope finished this week, baring unexpected circumstances.

i have been running behind again due to having had a bad cold that has held on for just over two weeks, but it finally starting to break up again.

I am certain that everyone is familiar with my temper. The only thing that comes close to matching me is a half-starved junkyard dog.

The roll call for the Legion of Nitwits is:

Lawrence Dagstine
Nickolaus Pacione
Nicholas Tillemans
Mike Philbin
Kristy Tallman

Small press authors whose egos are larger than their (non-existent) talent.

One in particular has been hassling me of late: Kristy Tallman.

I am copy-pasting this across my blogs to be certain that she sees it. She has labeled me many nasty things, including a "meth/coke addict." She did that because I discussed the fact that I have been clean for 20 years in comments at Rusty Nail.

Here's what GUD Magazine said about her novel All Soul's Faire

Kristy likes to make her betters appear small. So she posts that picture of me that i have on my website. Well, I’m in my mid 50s and there is no hiding it.

There is no way that I’ll ever look Kristy’s age again. But there is a new picture up at my website (it's at the bottom of the bio) of what i looked like at the start of my professional career. Amazons had just won the World Fantasy award for best anthology and I had sold a trilogy to a publishing company that i would later work for as an editor.

You will not see any of the hard-eyed meanness that you see in all of Kristy’s photos of herself.

My looks have faded with age, but you can’t take away from me the fact that I was attractive enough in my youth that Asimov kissed me. Nor can you take away my talent that has grown better over the years.

I want to challenge Kristy to go back to my website where she stole my picture from, take the worst piece of my writing she has found there, and compare it to the best piece she has ever produced. One full scene each.

There’s plenty to chose from, Kristy. There’s even a couple of typos if you look hard enough. So give it your best shot.

Come on, Kristy. Let me help you. There are two stories on my website that have some tiny flaws in them. I switched one story from first to third and did not manage to correct all the pronouns when I decided to alter the story from one to the other. The other story was switched from third to first.

And again, I missed it in two places. Now, I could go back and fix those, but I want to be fair about this.

Go on and grab them and show EVERYONE how much better you are than I am.

We could post both samples at a neutral spot and have an open poll posted.

You pick the samples, Kristy.

Dear fellow members --

In the last few days, Amazon has confirmed that as of April 1, it is requiring on-demand
authors and independent on-demand publishing houses to have their titles printed through
Amazon's own on-demand facilities, Booksurge -- or they won't be sold on Amazon. The big
red buy-it button will go away.

ASJA is investigating the situation and the possibility of joining any protest actions within
the industry. We will keep you informed. In the meantime, we suggest you read the material
on the links below and consider signing the two petitions, one of which asks the Washington
State Attorney General's office to investigate this action in light of restraint-of-trade
laws. (If you live in Washington state, please take particular note of this.) The other
petition basically tells Amazon "We noticed. We don't like it."

You may circulate this e-mail to non-member friends; in fact, the ASJA Board urges you to do
so.

Sincerely,
Salley Shannon, ASJA vice president and Advocacy Committee chairman

[Note: if you are interested in joining an ad-hoc committee on this situation, please write
me at VP@asja.org]

Wall Street Journal story: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB120667525724970997.html

Writer's Weekly page -- information clearinghouse:
http://www.writersweekly.com/the_latest_from_angelahoycom/004597_03272008.html

Petition to stop Booksurge requirement: http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/protectPOD/?e

Petition to the Washington State Attorney General:
http://www.amazontroopsurge.com/2008/04/write-government-about-amazons-illegal.html

________________________________________________________
PS from the Cuss: Please repost this statement and spread it around

authorsguild.org said...

Last week Amazon announced that it would be requiring that all books that it sells that are produced through on-demand means be printed by BookSurge, their in-house on-demand printer/publisher. Amazon pitched this as a customer service matter, a means for more speedily delivering print-on-demand books and allowing for the bundling of shipments with other items purchased at the same time from Amazon. It also put a bit of an environmental spin on the move -- claiming less transportation fuel is used (this is unlikely, but that's another story) when all items are shipped directly from Amazon.

We, and many others, think something else is afoot. Ingram Industries' Lightning Source is currently the dominant printer for on-demand titles, and they appear to be quite efficient at their task. They ship on-demand titles shortly after they are ordered through Amazon directly to the customer. It's a nice business for Ingram, since they get a percentage of the sales and a printing fee for every on-demand book they ship. Amazon would be foolish not to covet that business.

What's the rub? Once Amazon owns the supply chain, it has effective control of much of the "long tail" of publishing -- the enormous number of titles that sell in low volumes but which, in aggregate, make a lot of money for the aggregator. Since Amazon has a firm grip on the retailing of these books (it's uneconomic for physical book stores to stock many of these titles), owning the supply chain would allow it to easily increase its profit margins on these books: it need only insist on buying at a deeper discount -- or it can choose to charge more for its printing of the books -- to increase its profits. Most publishers could do little but grumble and comply.

We suspect this maneuver by Amazon is far more about profit margin than it is about customer service or fossil fuels. The potential big losers (other than Ingram) if Amazon does impose greater discounts on the industry, are authors -- since many are paid for on-demand sales based on the publisher's gross revenues -- and publishers.

We're reviewing the antitrust and other legal implications of Amazon's bold move. If you have any information on this matter that you think could be helpful to us, please call us at (212) 563-5904 and ask for the legal services department, or send an e-mail to staff@authorsguild.org.

Feel free to post or forward this message in its entirety.

As the situation with Joel gets hotter and hotter, i have begun simply forwarding his emails to Dwerenat and choosing not to reply to them myself.

I had intended to not tell Joel that I was starting a company until I was ready to launch. However, I did tell the following people about my decision: Phil, Tabi, Niwi, Nat, and Steven.

Then I got an IM about it from Daniel who had been informed by Niwi. Niwi, Joel, and Daniel are my core regulars at my chatroom. I naturally assumed that if Niwi had told Daniel, then he had probably told Joel. Niwi had not told Joel. He had told Daniel and a few close friends at Kingdom of Loathing. So I inadvertantly let the cat out of the bag to Joel. I had been planning from the start to give the position to Tabi once matters were far enough progressed.

I just went through my IM logs of my conversations with Joel. He jumped upon it with all four feet so to speak. He asked to be artdirector because he wanted the cred and started making propositions. He wanted to jump ship from Jean and wanted me to pay him $150 a month, which is $50 more than Jean is currently paying him.

I don't know where he thought I would be getting the money to do that as he is well aware that I have to do things on a quarterly basis because of my royalty periods. I told him to keep working for Jean.

He asked if he could do a post about it at DAZ |Studio community forums. I asked him if he thought Jean would see it. Jean has cycles and she was in one of her cycles that troubled me. I have known her since 1979 and I used to be married to her.

I thought it best to keep quiet until I could handle Jean and the project at my own pace. I had discussed it with a friend at sfreader, and I knew that it was not something that could be kept underwraps. I wanted to try and get some of my books reverted before telling jean about it.

After Joel asked for permission to make a small post, I also extended permission to Steven and Nat. I gave all three of them the same talk. It's early, it takes time, and so forth.

Of the three of them, the only one that failed to understand what I was asking for was Joel.

Had I not mistakenly assumed that Niwi had shared the news with Joel, as he had with Daniel, I would never have told Joel. Three times in the past I tried to include Joel in my projects and once I let him talk me into a project, a MUD, that I had no idea how to handle and he assured me that he was perfectly capable of doing it all. In the end, I spent several hundred dollars on the MUD and have nothing to show for it. I ended up doing 90% of the work which was a huge learning curve for me and took a lot of time from projects I had going that would and did make money.

The terms relating to the mud included giving Joel 25% of my royalties.

I am not going to go into the rest of the failed projects.

Joel always had his hand out asking for money, asking me to buy him DAZ add-ons for artwork that he never produced. Before it was over with I had spent over a grand on Joel and his projects and had nothing to show for it. This is a matter of public record. I have the receipts on the projects.

Joel's post at DAZ created a lot of unrealistic expectations as to how fast things could happen.

I had not wanted Joel in the first place; I had wanted Tabi. But at that time, Tabi was getting ready to leave for England.

I got Joel the gig with Renebooks. I persuaded Jean to buy his novella.

It turns out that Joel treats Jean as shabbily as he has always treated me.

I intend to hang this skeleton from the yardarm, as i do everything else. Sometimes airing it out helps to gain clarity.

Joel Wideman wrote:
> I never gave the passwords to a third party. Why are you telling
> people this?
>

Dwerenat wrote:

Just so you know, this is dwerenat, not Janrae. Janrae is sick of
hearing from you. I have all of the correspondence regarding this
issue. Let me refresh your memory. Do the words "Ask Tommy Tutone." or
"I dont have them anymore, Tommy Tutone has them." mean anything to
you? I originally thought you changed the words to some dumbassed
reference to that dipshit popsong from 1982 (Just the sort of drivel I'd
expect you to listen to). Then I thought about it and it turns out
you're even thicker than i originally thought, not to mention petty,
vindictive, well you get the picture. You see, until Janrae met me in
1996 she wasn't listening to anything but Classical and Jazz. She never
would have heard of tommy fucking tutone, so how the hell would she have
played into your cunning plan? Considering how many different
permutations of Tutone reference could be gleaned from the names of his
songs including the one in question (867-5309) I figure this just
another sad attempt at a mind game. Did you figure on getting someone
to waste time on a wild goose chase? Please.

This is getting stupid Joel. You are the one creating the friction
here, not Janrae. You're the one who's being an antisocial twatwaffle
about this, and everybody knows it. She posted the statement(s) because
considering all the BS you've put everyone involved through it was the
only safe thing she could have said to keep people away from those
addresses. Your behavior throughout this entire sorry affair has been
thoroughly Nick-worthy. Let's just clear the air here while I have your
attention. You are a self centered, immature, lying, passive aggressive
Jackhole. You need to grow the hell up, sweetie. And for the record,
asshat:

You did not quit, you repeatedly fucked up and got your dumb ass fired.
You were informed from the beginning that everything would be approved
in committee, I was there when she informed you of this. Are you going
to call me a liar too, Nicky?
No one was making decisions or having meetings behind your back, Joel.
You just happened to get your whining ass fired the day before our
second scheduled meeting which you were also aware of. We discussed
this during the three way chat we had in IRC. I guess you're on a first
name basis with selective memory loss, is that it?
Or are you just a narcissistic little man that always has to paint
himself as the victim?

Yes, you created those email accounts, but you created them for daverana
on Janrae's instructions, not for yourself. A little food for thought:
If you gave the email accounts to a "Tommy Tutone", and you did Joel,
why are these accounts still active. they didn't bounce the test mails
we sent. So either you or this tommy has the account and it's active.
Either way you look like a real shithole, boy. Very nice. You really
come off as the bigger person here. /sarcasm.

I've been asked to inform you that she has no desire to hear from you
again. Ever. Why don't you try acting like the evolved being you claim
to be and give up those emails, sport. It's not like you can put them
to any useful purpose anyway and it might make you look like less of an
asshole. But that's up to you. Either way it won't change much.
You're still a toad, and none of us need to hear from you again.

Love and Kisses

~The Old Monster~

Over the years, many people have tried to hold things hostage that were precious to me.

This included my daughter and my work and my career. Many times it involved threats to reveal things about me that most people would rather were kept secret.

My motto became this "I have no skeletons in my closet. They're all hanging from the yardarm."

Another skeleton has been added to my collection. I have withheld more information about Joel than I have made public.

In hanging this latest skeleton up to dry and allow the flesh to be eaten from its bones by the turkey vultures of the internet world, I had two purposes.

I wanted the public warned about what was happening so that the unwary did not sub to the compromised accounts.

However, I also wanted it public just how intransigent Joel has been toward my attempts to get it settled in private.

Over the years the internet has become a court of last resort for many and not myself alone.

I am writing this post to bring to light a bad situation and warn people about it.

Any and all email accounts that contain the word "daveranaenterprises" are not mine. Yes, they are the name of my company. Ironically, they were originally set up for me at my request by someone I trusted.

On February 28th of this year, I decided to start my own company Daverana Enterprises. Even though I informed Joel Wideman at the time that I had only started working to get the company going three days before we spoke, he asked if he could make a "small" announcement at DAZ | Studio forums about how we would eventually be looking for cover art. He told me that if i would give him the title of Art Director so that he would have the cred, then he would slush art for me.

What he did was to make a splashy bragging post asking for not just art, but fiction. I didn't even have guidelines up and I had not finished getting my site hosted. I had no email accounts set up to specifically deal with subs from people. i had only my personal gmail account set up.

I quickly became very worn out. Joel was frantically IM'ing me to answer all the questions that were being posted at DAZ and this consumed most of my time for several days that I should have been doing other things. So one night while I was very tired, i asked him to do me a favor and set up two gmail accounts artdirector.daveranaenterprises@gmail.com

and editor.daveranaenterprises@gmail.com.

I asked him to set them up FOR me. I told him to use the company name. He did so.

When we had our final falling out, Joel went and changed the passwords and security questions before I could. Then he passed them onto a third party. the accounts are still live.

Had he closed them down, I would have had no problems with that. Instead they are still live and claiming victims.



Janrae Frank wrote:

You changed the passwords and security questions for the accounts. I want those accounts back.

Joel Wideman said:

What do you mean "back"? I expended the effort to obtain them. That, and the emails sent to them, was my contribution. A contribution you made clear was unappreciated and unwanted.
Regardless, I no longer have the passwords. But if you really want them, ask Tommy Tutone.

Janrae Frank Wrote:

I have reported them to google as stolen and if they are not returned to me within ten days, I will speak to an attorney.

Joel Wideman Wrote:

Stolen? How do you figure? They were never yours to begin with. As you'll recall, _I_ created the accounts. According to Google, that makes them _mine_. You have no legal standing here. Even so, I don't have the passwords. I've already told you so. Threatening me is just a way to attack me. I haven't attacked you, I've merely distanced myself from a former friend.
You told me that when things get rough, Jean gets to thinking she's being attacked, and lashes out at people close to her. PROJECT MUCH?!?
--
Joel Wideman joel@joel-wideman.com http://joel-wideman.com/
http://www.daz3d.com/i.x/0/0/-/?refid=572895720

Joel Wideman Wrote:
see you're getting a little rattled, so I'll combine your recent emails and address them together.

1) I've removed the images featuring your characters from the sites which I control. Likewise, I expect you to remove my artwork from the sites which you control. I'll forget about the money you owe me for the one image. For any others, I do not offer refunds on commissions.
2) Google told you that, did they? Funny, they typically are slow to respond to such reports and when they do respond, it is with references to help files. What they actually say in their TOS however, is that one cannot transfer licenses without their written permission. That is to say, Google is as likely to remove the accounts as they are to give you the usual runaround.
Furthermore, I am not in possession of your property, however dubious that ownership may be. I do not use the accounts. I do not have any of my addresses listed as the secondary email. I do not have the passwords themselves.
3) You accuse me of treachery. The truth is, I'm not the one guilty of betrayal. That is what you did to Jean. Again, this is projection. All I've done is taken my ball and gone home. You know why? Because you tried to shit in my face and call it ice cream!
4) You speak of war, as if I have attacked you. I do not want war, Janrae. I wish to remember you as a friend who had a falling out with me, not as a bitter enemy.
I'm not going to engage in your type of war, either. I'm not going to make absurd threats of illegal acts. I'm not going to launch an unsophisticated smear campaign via a two-bit internet community. I'm not going to look for you posting about me under every rock on the internet then make some stupid whingy post about how you're picking on me and it's oh so unfair. That's not a war. That's an internet slap fight.
5) I know you want to hurt me. I don't really know why, but I know that you do. But you know who else you're hurting? Lilac. She's trying to stay out of it, but the more you attack me, the more you'll be attacking her. And she never hurt anyone.
Who else are you going to turn on? Who else are you going to hurt? Natalie? Stephen? I don't think you and me can be salvaged. In fact, as far as I'm concerned, there is no you and me. But do consider that you will not do well all alone.

(edited to add bolding so that the speakers were clear)

I know that a lot of you are waiting for this. It has been over a year since I wrote another Dark Brothers of the Light novel. Well, fear not, I'm getting very close to finished. Despite tossing out a great portion of my previous draft, Blood Hope is getting close to finished.

42,821 / 75,000 (57.1%)

Dane Jayce, who some of you met in the Sacred King novels and in the first books of the Dark Brothers series, returns, bringing revelations about the origins of the demon-eaters, the true nature of Isranon's opponent, Gylorean Galee, and the locations of secret laboratories that survived the previous godwar.

Okay, Coach.

You made your point. No more open letters. Just hostile opinions from me. I approached the situation in a polite manner and you did not. So now what you get is what you provoked with your hostility.

The old New Age belief that people can address an issue together in a civil manner is clearly wasted upon you.

When you enable evil, evil is what you get.

Pacione is pure evil.

Jesus threw the money lenders out of the temple. He would never have tolerated Pacione's behavior.

Remember the old proverb "Do unto others?"

Well, Pacione does unto others and gets it done back. That's the entire story. Nothing else, not even ignoring him for months at a time works.

And now you are contributing to this by supporting him. So therefore all the death threats he is posting on youtube, and all the persecutions he has heaped and continues to heap upon others is as much your sin as his.

You want to tell us what to do with our lives, and you assume that we are doing nothing good with them?

Physician heal thyself.

From everything that I have seen of your work, your faith, and your principles as an editor and human being, I think that you're (to use an old fashioned term) a real stand-up guy.

I am sending this for my own peace of mind more than any other reason.

Pacione spent years stalking and harassing my daughter. If he had chosen to leave her out of it, I would probably have long ago gone back to ignoring him. There is nothing so painful to a mother as watching someone attack her child in order to punish the mother herself.

Please, do not enable Pacione's behavior or other women like myself will have to watch this happen to their children.

Coach Culbertson, please understand that when we turn our backs upon Pacione, he leaps to abuse us in many ways. The innocent and the unwary are often his targets.

-- Janrae Frank

Kady's Vengeance is out at Fictionwise and when I looked this morning was #13.

Publisher's Blurb:

Kady Maguire made her husband a promise. If anything happened to him she would flee to their allies in Creeya and not return without an army. When a treacherous assault by Malthus Estrobian leaves Kynyr crippled and close to death, Kady keeps her promise. Now heads are going to roll, as Kady places Kynyr's legendary grandfather, Todd Sinclair, in command of her forces. Cooley Blackwood steps into his father's shoes and goes in search of Stoneriver who is leading an army into Red Wolf to provide reinforcements for Kady. Malthus' ally, Belgair Doherty has rallied the Thanes of Red Wolf to place Malthus' son on the throne. Yet, neither Kady nor Malthus are prepared to handle the situation when the ancient vampire Lord Hoon arrives.



The Shadowed Princes has been turned into the editor with everything fixed.

One of my critters has still not forgiven me for one of the turns in the plot.

I sent the first draft of Blood Hope, the next book in the Dark Brothers of the Light series to my editor, Steven Beeho. While I'm waiting for his feedback, I am working on the first book in a new series that I plan to show around to agents. "Sins of Innocence" is the first novel in "The Child Profane and Sacrosanct" series.

okay, i sell well, but apparently I'm a washed up has-been. Have a look at the flamewar in progress over at Rusty Nail and this thread there also.

Enjoy the curmudgeonry.

With the Lycan Blood series completed, I have begun to get myself sorted out on two projects.

The first is the anthology, Things Are Not What They Seem. I need to go through the submissions I have already accepted and make certain that contracts went out on all of them. I'm thinking that the best way to approach that is to create a new folder and sort the copies of the contracts into it. The second is to make certain that I still have copies of everything from when I started it originally. Some of this will mean comparing what I have to what Natalie has and making some lists of it.

Once that is finished, I will place all the stories I have received recently into a new folder and start reading them and getting in touch with people.

The second project is Blood Hope, the next book in the Dark Brothers of the Light series. I am hoping that I can finish the series this year. At this point I estimate that, including Blood Hope, there are only three books left to complete.

First, I am doing a read through of what I have written already. Making a list of what needed to be done helped me a lot with the final book in the Lycan Blood series. It kept me focused. So i intend to do that with what I have so far on Hope.

On a rant note, if I should ever sell the DB series to a print company, I intend to put my original titles back on the books. I really dislike my publisher's insistence upon two words titles that start with the word 'blood.'

Next complaint, is that I really hate the first line of the blurb for Kady's Vengeance. Maybe I'm being vain, but I think the blurbs that i write and send Jean are better than the ones she writes herself. And nine times out of ten, when she does use the one I write, she adds something to them that makes me wince.

The final volume of the Lycan Blood series is now complete in first draft. The Shadowed Princes came in at just over 70k words. By the time i smooth it all out, I expect that it will be somewhere between 90 and 100k words long.

Over the next few weeks, I will be concentrating on my anthologies, and getting contracts and payments out to people. Acceptances and so forth. I feel very good about it.

I am weary and very satisfied by the way the novel tumbled out. I wrote the final two chapters in a blaze of inspiration, feeling driven to keep going until I was too tired to think each day. But it's finished.

Once i wrap up the anthology, I will be back to finish the final volumes of the Dark Brothers series.