Announcements!

Blog No. 85

Hello Readers,

It’s been a while since we’ve just chatted and I have some updates to tell you about.  The biggest and most exciting thing happening is that Christian (you may remember him from Adventure Worlds and his own blog (http://christianlaforet.wordpress.com/)) and I are working on a story collection that we hope to publish in the new year.  We have all the first drafts of our stories done and are nearly drowning in edits.  We’re still writing (I can’t imagine not writing at this point) but the editing stage is a time consuming, finger straining, stressful, demanding process.  Oddly, I kind of enjoy it, but that’s probably because we are still in the early stages and I have only gone over my stories a couple of times.  I’m sure when we hit round five I’ll be ready for this whole thing to go away.

Before the collection comes out, Adventure Worlds will be putting out our first zine.  I know I mentioned that at the beginning of the year, but we are finally at the place where I can officially state that it will be out.  Christian is almost done the cover image, I am all but finished the layout and all the stories are ready to go.  We still have to get a secret project finished for the zine and get our headers done, but we are really at the end on this one.  Once we got that logo finished it was all systems go.  This is one I’m really excited for.  It’s not as big as the collection (or even as applicable to my future as a writer) but it should be a big push for us in the community and hopefully it will draw more people to Adventure Worlds.

I am working on my own project.  It’s in the back seat now, but it’s moving along with the rest of the tasks.  I may have already mentioned it, but this is all about official announcements and I am officially announcing that I am writing book one in a series of novellas.  They are a linear space opera will all the great things that make space operas fun.  There are space ships, and fistfights, lasers, dangerous people, double crosses, rogues, and good vs evil.  It is based on a story I’ve been sitting on since high school and it really stinks of that youthful, ignorant exuberance.  Some of that is cool because it’s fun, but a lot of it needs to be reworked, so it’s all as fresh to me as it will be to you (which is awesome).  I am only working on it when I’m not working on the collection, zine, or blog, so it’s taking a while, but I hope to have it out before the end of the year.  That means publishing and everything, so we’ll see.

More importantly, Christian has a book that is actually coming out this August (or September, I am too terrible a friend to remember).  It is a collection of some of his solo horror stories and he’s publishing it with Cranberry Tree Press.  It’s super exciting and I’m totally jealous, but trying to be supportive.  He’s worked really hard on this and it is a representation of how he started to take writing seriously before I did.  Because this blog is all about me I’m going to have to put in my take on it – which is that it’s making me work that much harder, so it’s a good thing for both of us.  It’s called The Space Between Houses, so look for more information about it as the date approaches.  We are working on setting up a reading around October, where Christian will read from his new book and I’ll probably be reading something from the collection.

Don’t worry, Adventure Worlds is still cracking along.  We haven’t been spending as much time working on it due to all these other projects, but it is still a priority and we have plenty of content ready to go.  I don’t expect it will be going anywhere for a long time.  Christian and I have been going to other group meetings (Drink and Draw Windsor, Writers on Windsor, and others) and we hope that we will be able to get more submissions and content.  I still think the more the better at this stage.  Maybe except my novel.  I still plan on finishing it, but I really want to get the collection and novella done and published first.  Baby steps, get on the buss!  So that’s just a hint at what we have cooking right now.  I hope you keep reading everything we have to offer.

Sincerely,

Ben