Announcements

Time moves fast. You start writing in earnest in your early twenties, and before you know it you look around and you realize that you’re creeping up on fifty. It’s enough to make you want to move to a deeper gravity well just to stretch things out a bit. But then, of course, your subjective time would still be the same. Oh well.

As crazy (and difficult) as the last few years have been (hopefully visible from your side of the screen only in my relative scarcity from the podcasting and publishing scenes), they have been rewarding. Even kinda fun.

People always say “Time flies when you’re having fun.” This is a dumb idea. I can think of few things more likely to ruin my fun than looking for flies with a stopwatch in my hand.

Nonetheless, I’m now officially in the second half of my forties, and that has me looking around thinking “What do I want to have finished before my fiftieth year is up?”

I’ve been thinking about it since my birthday, and I got one thing right at the top of my list:

I want to finish—and get to market—my fiftieth book.

My bibliography currently stands at 37 books. 25 of those are on the market, the remaining twelve are somewhere in the publication process.

Their titles? Glad you asked:

The Auto Motive, a new fantasy Heinlein-style juvenile

The Wolf of Venus, a hard SF Heinlein-style juvenile (previously serialized here)

Behind the Hypnotic Toad, Clarke Lantham #10

Death Flight to Mars, a hardSF locked-room thriller set aboard the first colony mission to Mars

Reclaiming Your Mind: An Autodidact’s Bible

The Art of Agency: A Guide to Self-Ownership

Unfolding the World: A Guide to the Changing Epoch

The Briggs Defection (Joss Kyle #1)

The Hartman Gambit (Joss Kyle #2)

The Orinthal Deception (Joss Kyle #3)

Deep Characterization (Every Day Novelist #3)

And a new short story collection, as-yet-untitled

But wait! There’s more!

In progress, there are several other volumes:

Marking the Grey Dawn, a standalone near-future science fiction novel

Extinction Tango, the final volume in the Clarke Lantham series

The Secrets of the Heinlein Epic

A new Heinlein-style Juvenile, as yet untitled

Books 4-6 in the Joss Kyle series

Another new book in the Every Day Novelist series

Suave Rob #4

That’s a total of ten works-in-progress.

So to get where I want to be in my fiftieth year, I must:

Publish those twelve existing books

and

Finish those nine works-in-progress

and

Write a further four books

and

Publish all of them, and publish them well

All over the course of the next four years.

In a previous life, I’d have considered that an almost underwhelming goal, but since my time is now split between the usual writing and podcasting and boostrapping a farm and building a retreat center with my bare hands, it’s looking like a bit of a tall order to me.

So here’s me planting my flag in the ground:

I’m going to get to fifty by the end of my fiftieth year, and as I do I’m going to make it entertaining for you who follow along.

If you’re following this blog, you’ll get periodic samples and teasers of the works in progress, and announcements on the progress. If you want to join me with your own challenge and be part of the solidarity group, a modest donation will get you into the forum/discord server/etc.

Let’s face it, the 2020s are shaping up to be a hard decade, but hard times are where the artists that shape the future find their voices. I’m going to be forging my legacy in this crucible. Come along and watch—or, better yet, use me as an excuse to start forging your own!