New Projects, New Hopes

Long time, no see, ye loyal few who remain subscribed to this beleaguered bulletin of frippery and faith. I have recently come into gainless employment as the senior editor of an up-and-coming tabletop role-playing game publisher, Darklore Publishing co., and thusly have been occupied with the curating of others’ work in preparation for our May 1st launch date. When our website is nice and refine, I’ll post the link both here and on its own page.

But, I still have my own projects and directives, and in collaboration with the wonderful Write Practice course, “Write to Publish,” (creation of Joe Bunting and Sarah Gribble) I have begun work on a new/old novella and short story assembly with the tentative title, “Hero is a Four Letter Word.” (Set in a certain sci-fi universe of mine for which I lack a decent name.)

I’ll cover the world-building aspects of the universe in another post, but suffice it to say that the 22nd century is no better than those that preceded it, even with faster-than-light travel, commonly-available nuclear power, and cloning (especially cloning). Our hero, Paddy, grows up in the shadow of his father’s dishonor – a deserter who abandoned his post as a system patrolman to save his family, dooming the rest of his colony to destruction at the hands of a band of alien raiders. Living in lawless Free-Space, he must come to terms with the sins of his father – and his own as he becomes intangled in deadly interspecies politics as the human nations wrestle over the fate of the aliens which have entered the political stage.

Hopefully, my pitch will improve.

For my readers of a praying inclination – I would appreciate a prayer for mindfulness. I’ve found myself distracted by petty materiality, old sins, vulgar things which I had thought I should never bother with again. I find it increasingly difficult to compel myself to heed God’s Word, to read and listen, feel, understand, obey, and pray. I know His truth, but my flesh does not obey – and I am guilty for its indiscipline.

But through God, I know all things are possible. By Him I was justified, and in Him shall I be sanctified.

Amen. 🙂

 

Excerpt from “Rest for the Wicked”

Posted a little later than I intended, but still posted!

This is somewhat old stuff, and more than a bit theological, but it’s the only complete scene I really have that I’m not working on for the book on hand.

Enjoy. 🙂

Barren Times

I’ve been a bit derelict, haven’t I? A whole semester ran me by without so much as a nod of a post.

I should be ashamed of myself. And I am (but only a little.)

For nearly three months, I scarcely wrote. I wrote one short story that I still haven’t gotten around to typing up. I added a chapter onto my STALKER fanfiction, and haven’t touched it since, even though the story really was going quite well.

And other than that, didn’t write a thing, except sloppy essays and some knavishly contrived plots for my Dungeons and Dragons campaign.

Until the last week, I was worrying I might never put out another story.

Then suddenly an idea came to life, God touched my forehead, and 25,000+ words spilled out onto the page. I have a novel now. Well, part of it.

And God willing, I’ll have a full one by the end of this semester.

The concept, for those interested, is a low fantasy set in 14th century Moravia / Bohemia, Slovakia, and Romania, following the adventures of the Teutonic knight-baroness, Kyreleis von Gottschalk and her companions various, as she searches for her missing brother, who left her and her plague-stricken mother nearly twenty years ago, while fending off the many enemies she’s made in her rather inglorious and unchivalric rule over the fief of Zmeyorod.

There is a series planned as well. The original outline, I discovered, was for a work of far too massive a scale for me to ever reasonably fit in one book. I mean this not arrogantly; I am simply really bad at planning.

I think I will post an excerpt in the next day or so.