January 20

Next update February 8

First post of 2015, and – shocker! – it’s on time!

As those of you who read my last post know, 2014 ended on a down note for me. But I’m really looking forward to 2015! The first draft of Chaos Unleashed – book 3 of my Chaos Born trilogy – is finished. At this point we’re working on the map (hooray, a map!) and fine tuning the artwork for the UK cover. (Here’s the US cover, by the way.)

I’m also almost finished putting together my short story collection, which I’m going to be self-publishing. The working title right now is “A Minor Malevolent Spirit and other tales” – mostly because that’s the name of the first story in the book, and it’s one of my favorite titles I’ve ever come up with. Believe it or not, titles are hard. They can’t give too much away, but they can’t be generic. They have to be relatively short and easy to remember, but also unique enough that they stand out. It’s a tough line to walk, so if I have a title I like, why not use it as much as possible?

I expect “A Minor Malevolent Spirit and other tales” – or whatever it ends up being called – will be available for purchase in both ebook and paperback formats before the end of February. The collection will have 10 stories – 3 previously published works and 7 brand new tales. (Well, new in that you’ve never seen them. They’re actually stories I’ve been kicking around for many years.)

I’m also going to include a short introduction to each story where I look at it from a writer’s perspective; hopefully this will give readers a unique glimpse into my creative process. I wouldn’t call it a primer to writing genre fiction or anything, but hopefully someone out there will find my analysis interesting and helpful. (And if not, at least the stories are pretty fun!)

I’ve also just done a handful of interviews to start 2015 off right. Ten Minute Interviews posted a short Q&A with me, and I recently did a long (40 minute!) Skype chat with Kristian Harloff of Schmoes Know.

I’m also starting to put together my schedule for appearances for the coming year. As always, I’ll be in Vegas for the Super Bowl, but only because I’m a degenerate gambler. After that, I’m trying to work it out so I can be at Star Wars Celebration in Anaheim in April, and I might be doing a Star Wars Reads event in San Antonio in May. (Details are still pending, but as I lock them down I’ll announce it here and post it on my Twitter feed.)

I’ve also got a couple new projects I plan to start in 2015, but I can’t say much about any of them yet. I can promise I will be spending lots of time on the golf course and also cheering on the San Antonio Spurs as they go for the NBA repeat! So, business as usual, I guess.

Okay, that’s it for this update. Hopefully the next one will have some more info on my short story collection, and maybe even a small excerpt!