Hello once again, everyone. I would like to say that I have a great deal of news to share… but I don’t. I will have a great deal of news to announce in the next few weeks, but it has been an awfully long time since my last post. I find myself, improbably, with a slice of free time, so I figured I’d take this opportunity to tell you what little there is to tell, and give you a heads up on the things that are ju-u-u-u-u-st about to reach the point of announcement.
First, I’d like to take this moment to say that I’m officially going to be covering PAX East 2013 as Media once again. I don’t know how many fans will be in Boston attending the event, but if you want to meet up, let me know and we’ll try to arrange something.
Now for things that I really ought to wait to talk about, since updates regarding them are forthcoming. Tomorrow at 3:30 PM I’ve got a call with a different agent at Trident Media Group (the same agency who had initially been in talks to represent me). The last time this happened, I ended up getting matched up with a really helpful and enthusiastic agent who spoke to me on the phone a few times, met face to face once, gave some useful advice, then changed careers. It was educational, and led to the writing of the still not officially titled superhero book for NaNoWriMo. I’m anxious to see how this new guy compares, or if he’s even interested. I guess I’ll have a better idea soon enough.
Speaking of the aforementioned superhero book, remember that really cool cartoon-style bit of fan art I got a few weeks ago? (I posted about it in my “ARTS!” post at the beginning of December.) Well, I’ve been talking to the artist responsible, and he was enthusiastically interested in the stupid superhero idea. So much so that I decided to commission a few character pictures from him. Then a few more. In total, a dozen characters are getting the cartoon treatment. When the first group of four are ready, I’ll show them off, but I can tell you he’s done a great job so far. Some of my favorite non-Deacon artwork to date.
In other not-quite-news, the more I work on Lain Origin, the more I feel like it is going to outgrow a single novel. If you’re familiar with the character, he’s got a lot of history, most of which is entirely unexplored. I’ve got well over 100,000 words written, and he’s barely into adulthood. At this rate, around the 150,000 word mark I’ll be just finishing a big piece of his life. I’m probably going to try to tie it up into a tidy little package at that point and save the rest for a future novel. We’ll see, though. Doing that will prevent one or two popular and/or infamous characters from showing up in this installment, but will also get the book in your hands sooner and free me up for some of the other stories that need to be written. It also means I’ll have to start thinking about the cover of the Lain story. Time to write an email to Nick.
Last but not least, on Sunday I’ll be turning 30. It will be a day of much eating and laughing, and I may mark the occasion by publishing a few never before seen snippets of my current projects. Again, we shall see.
That’s all for now. Thanks for reading.
UPDATE 1: Based on my phone call, my agent status has not changed. He was helpful, and there are more discussions to be had, but it seems at the very least that I’m not quite ready for prime time yet. … Which means I guess that Super Hero book is good to go for self-publishing!