Back when we had our driveway redone, we had the construction crew extend it all the way around the house. The surface is hard pack gravel, so if I don’t consciously use the entire driveway during the spring and summer instead of just driving on the convenient front half, the weeds will come up between…
Category: writing.
Endings and beginnings
I always love being able to type those two words at the end of a draft, but it was both exhilarating and bitter-sweet to do it on this one. Nine years, eight novels, and almost a million words later, it’s not just the end of a single novel but the capstone on a storyline…
There and back again
I’ve been a little scarce here on the blog over the last two months. I’m running a little—okay, a lot—late on the latest Frontlines book because I have to fit a lot of action between the covers, and it’s turning out to be a little trickier than I had anticipated. But it’s coming along, and…
Passing temporal markers, Cap’n.
I just noticed that I have two anniversaries this spring. The first one is personal–it’s the 25th anniversary of my move from Germany to the United States. I moved here in May of 1996. I know that it’s technically a quarter of a century, but I don’t like thinking of it that way because it…
Frontlines 8, now with title!
Earlier this month, I started work on Frontlines #8. If I stick to my schedule (and so far I am), the draft should be complete by the end of July. I can’t give you a precise publication date for a novel that isn’t complete and turned in yet, obviously. But if all goes as planned,…
My morning brain fuel of choice
A lot of my writer friends basically live on coffee. I like it every now and then, but it’s not a daily thing for me. It’s what I get when I am grabbing breakfast while out and about, not what I make every morning to get going. At Castle Frostbite, we drink tea instead, and…
The Great Link has been upgraded
The Internet connection at Castle Frostbite as of last night: Not bad for a rural setting on a dirt road, right? Ah, BUT. The Internet connection at Castle Frostbite as of today: Those are legit 2021-level Internet speeds. The kicker is that the new provider is supplying ten times the previous speed on the download,…
Cellulose backups
These are the original handwritten drafts for “On the Use of Shape-Shifters in Warfare” (which ended up in Love Death + Robots on Netflix as ‘Shapeshifters”), and “Ink and Blood”, which was my first published short story ever. It seems that the stories of mine I like best all started out on paper and came…
Release date for CITADEL
There’s a new release date for CITADEL, the third book in the Palladium Wars series. It will be released in all the usual formats on August 10. Last year, I was on a two-novels-a-year pace, but then 2020 happened and it all went to hell. But this year has been absolutely fine for me so…
Crawling toward the finish line
Science Fiction grandmaster James Gunn has died. My career isn’t old enough for me to have met many of the old grandmasters of science fiction because most of them are no longer around. I did get to meet James Gunn at ConStellation in Lincoln, NE in 2017, where I was the Author Guest of Honor and…