The Whirlwind Continues

This week, I'm doing a presentation at Fyrecon titled "Structure, Outlines, and Other Things Pantsers Hate". Next week I'll be at the 20 Books to 50K writing conference in Las Vegas. I recently released Breakdown, book 2 in the Polecat Protocol series.

Add to that edits for book 3 in that series, assembling a Best-of anthology for the Planetary Anthology series, and editing two novels for a local small press, and I wonder when I'll have time to sleep.

Then there's the day job that runs 40-50 hours per week. I don't recommend a schedule like this since many people don't do well with so many irons in the fire. Sometimes I wonder how well I do at it. My problem is that I don't really know how to sit and do nothing. Relaxation means digging out a favorite project instead of a required project.

Such is the life of a creator. I love to build things. Woodworking, writing, editing, electronics, software, they all count as creative outlets for me. Those things all recharge my batteries so I can go out and socialize again.

What is your passion? If you're not sure, find something worth dedicating time to. Learn something new. Expand your horizons.

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Need something to read? I've got Science Fiction: The Polecat Protocol trilogy.

I've got Fantasy: The Riland Throne trilogy.

And I've got a bunch of short stories in anthologies, including this collection that's all mine:

Quills Conference

 I've had a week of recovery time now, so I figured I should report on how the League of Utah Writers Quills Conference went.

The coolest thing for me was to be awarded the first annual Emerald Typewriter award. The League added published short works to the writing contest this year, and I took top honors out of all the categories with my story Death by Misadventure, which appears in the anthology Unmasked: Tales of Risk and Revelation. (You can click on the book cover image)

Outside of that, I spent a lot of time either teaching classes or helping with the book signings of several of our special guests. I really enjoy teaching classes, giving back to the writing community that was so welcoming to me a few years back when I got serious about my writing.

In other news, my book Dicovery: Polecat Protocol Book One came out in both print and ebook, but I didn't have enough time to take a box of them with me to the Quills Conference.

Jericho Jackson looks forward to finishing one last job: a high-risk, high-pay mining gig on a tiny moon in a distant star system. A string of disasters throws the operation into life-threatening chaos as his team is cut off from outside contact. Even with their specialized training, if the power dies, his crew dies.

Shanna Percival, his teammate and one-time girlfriend, keeps their equipment in top shape, but her tendency to stick her nose where it doesn't belong turns up a mysterious cache of data that shouldn't exist.

Knowledge is power. Her discovery could be the ultimate key to overcoming the growing danger, but time is running out ...

If you've read it, I'd love to see a review. If you haven't, give it a look. I'm also looking for advance readers for books two and three coming out later this year, so drop me a line if you're interested in joining the team.

Yes, I'm still here

It's kind of funny that in February I mentioned that conference season was set to begin. COVID-19 had other plans, and I haven't been to a live conference since. I may not have a chance to mingle with fans and authors in person for the rest of the year, but health and safety are important. I'd hate to see COVID turn into a mega-con-crud infection.

For the League of Utah Writers, we moved both the spring conference and the upcoming Quills Conference in August to online formats. The Spring conference went well, and we've got some great guests lined up. This August I'll migrate from President-Elect of the League to become President, most likely for a year.

In other news, I'm actively working on a whole raft of projects.

• I'm working with an editor on my biplanes-and-gargoyles novel, due to be published later this year.
• I sent in edits for a Christmas ghost story about a week ago.
• I've got a story in a re-released Earth Planetary Anthology coming out next week.
• I just approved a proof copy of an anthology for the League of Utah Writers where I have a short story on the function of freedom, and need to send in an author bio today.
• Add to that the short-ish sci-fi novel (under 60k words) I'm doing first-pass edits on, and my cup runneth over.
• I've started to assemble a short story collection, pulling in several reprints and some never-published stories to round out the mix. Just today I realized I've got a short story due to be published in August that I'd failed to put into my spreadsheets, and it fits into the collection.

Later today I'll go outside with my family and cook burgers, then set off fireworks for Independence Day.

COVID has changed how I do things, but I've still got a task list longer than I can finish. :)

Quills 2019 Report

The League of Utah Writers just finished its 84th annual conference, renamed as the Quills conference last year. Since I'm the President-Elect of the League, I did a bunch of running around in the background. Luckily, I had a chance to catch a few of the awesome classes.

We had Michael Stackpole and Anne Hillerman visiting and teaching, along with several amazing out-of-state and local editors who took pitches. The majority of the teaching staff of about 35 people was made up of local authors, but that also included some folks who have been in the business for a while. I would name more of the awesome people who came to help out, but it's easier if I direct you to the league website to the Quills 2019 page. (The page may flip over to another conference or vanish eventually, but should be good for a while.)

Aside from all the other winners in the writing contests, it turns out that an anthology I edited, Put Your Shoulder to the Wheel (published by Immortal Works), won a Gold Quill award. I'm officially an award-winning editor!

We're already planning for next year, and we want to pull out the stops for an 85th conference in 2020, but before that we'll have a smaller locals-only one-day conference on April 18th. That one will be my responsibility, but we have a dedicated conference committee that knows what they're doing. They make my job much easier.

FyreCon 3 Report

I had a great time at FyreCon, held June 20-22. I had a busy schedule, consisting of:

A book signing.

• Some friends stopped by to chat and I sold some books.

Three solo classes.

• Senses Beyond the Big Five: Expanding Your Descriptive Toolbox
• Making Infinite Worlds in Finite Time
• Beginning Calligraphy

One team-taught class with Lyn Worthen

• Surviving the Slush Pile

A couple panels.

• The Future of VR and Video Games
• Robots, Androids, and AI

Now I need to update my presentations page. That's where I keep a record of what I've done, and when. This year I didn't teach anything on writing short stories, but the Slush Pile class covered a bit of the same stuff.

The Senses class was great fun, and was the first time I've covered that material. It was inspired by my panel at MisCon a couple years ago talking about the senses involved in violence.

Infinite Worlds went well, and was a lot of fun reviewing ways of building background information on a world to give the characters something to do, whether they're aligned, opposed, or surprised by some aspect of the world around them.

Beginning Calligraphy was great fun as usual. I've taught that class I think four times now (three at FyreCon) and it's cool to see people excited about an art form that doesn't see much attention.

Surviving the Slush Pile was a great chance to help new writiers find ways to get past the first round of gatekeepers. Once you have a fair amount of writing skill, success often consists of being professional and following instructions.

The VR and Video Game panel was me and Jay Barnson talking to several local game development veterans and a couple of teenagers interested in games. I think we avoided traumetizing them with war stories.

Robots, Androids, and AI with Martin Shoemaker was great fun. We talked about the scientific views on AI and how that's too boring for fiction in most cases.

I attended a handful of classes and spent a little time at our bookstore table selling books, but I spent a lot of time on the honored tradition of networking and hanging out with friends, often in the Green Room (which was not actually green).

This time around I was also representing the League of Utah Writiers, and spent a little time supporting our volunteers there manning an information table. We have the League's Quills conference coming up in August, so we're getting the news out.

Overall, the conference was a great success. Attendance was up, several of my classes were near capacity, and a great time was had by most. Problems with an elevator (not me), a low blood sugar incident (also not me), and other challenges were dealt with quickly and smoothly.

Guest Blogging for Cannon Publishing

I wrote a guest blog post over at Cannon Publishing to talk about how to find a new favorite author. They've included one of my stories in their Hundred Worlds anthology.

Give the post a look!

(They've been rearranging the blog links, so if that doesn't work just go to https://www.cannonpublishing.us and jump through the Blog link at the top.)