Category: Announcements

Release: The Last Captain

Hot on the heels of last month’s release of “Either Side of Night” comes the second part of the Linear Cycle. Titled “The Last Captain”, it follows, logically enough, an officer of the Valtian Empire. If you read the first part, you’ll recognize him, but this story centers on him and his mission. The Touched are gone from Midra, but now the survivors are trying to rebuild their nation, and what’s a nation without a leader?

This second part of the series continues the dark atmosphere, but now makes it a bit more…mobile. Some might even say walking. It’s got action, it’s got drama, and it’s got zombies. Should be the perfect story, right? And it sets things up for future entries without, I hope, falling into a sophomore slump like some other Part 2s I’ve seen.

As always, you can click the link above to go to this story’s page here. You can also buy it at the Kindle store for only 99 cents, or, if you prefer, pledge at least a dollar to ny Patreon to gain access to it and the rest of the Linear Cycle.

Part 3, “Forged in the Fires”, is scheduled for release on June 19, 2017, so keep watching this site for more information.

Release: Either Side of Night

At long last, after months of writing, rewriting, editing, and “beta” testing, the Linear Cycle has begun. This set of 6 stories (call them novelettes if you wish) tells the tale of the Valtian Empire and its fall to the Touched, a horde of supernaturally animated dead that feeds off magical energies. The story opens with “Either Side of Night”, the tale of Dusk, a boy caught in the midst of this unfolding disaster.

This is probably one of the darkest stories I’ve written. It has a horror aspect in the zombie horde (though I specifically avoid both the term “zombie” and the phrase “walking dead”), and a kind of epic feel in later parts. I do focus a lot on the “negative” emotional aspects, probably more than in any of my other works. Pathos, drama, despair…they’re all here, and I don’t shy away from depicting some truly heartbreaking scenes. (Seriously. Reading the ending of the series without crying was actually harder than I thought.) But there’s a lot of hope buried in there, too. Yes, it’s the end of the world as we know it, but that doesn’t mean it’s the end of everything.

You can click the link above to get to the main page for the story here on Prose Poetry Code, or you can pick it up on the Kindle store for 99 cents. If you like, you can also get it from Patreon for about the same price; if you keep up your pledge over there, though, you’ll get access to my other works, including future installments of the Linear Cycle.

Keep watching for the second part of the series, “The Last Captain”, coming May 22.

Nocturne on Patreon

Today, April 21, 2017, marks the release of my latest novel, Nocturne, to supporters of my Patreon. For a pledge of only $3/month, you can download a copy in EPUB or MOBI formats, readable on your desktop, mobile device, or e-reader. (You can cancel the backing at any time, of course, but I’d prefer that you didn’t.)

What is Nocturne, you may ask? Here’s the blurb I wrote for it:

He is the Nocturne, and this is his story.

In a world where children are marked for life by the hour of their birth, one man breaks the rules. In Velin, those born in the dark, moonless night are perceived as treacherous thieves, while their brethren of the day are lifted up, glorified. But Shade entered the world in a brief window of darkness within the day, a phenomenon seen once a generation.

He is neither, yet he is both. Now, he must use the combination of day and night to solve the riddle of his past, but also to save the future of a people. Hunted by church and crown alike, the road he walks is long and lonely, yet he knows there is no one else. Only Shade. Only the Nocturne.

One of those searching for him is Kellis Matene, an inspector in training. Her superiors gave her the case of a man born in the night, calling on his fellows, urging action. A rebel, a traitor. As a king dies, a pretender emerges, and Kellis must solve a mystery. All she has to go on is a single name: the Nocturne.

It’s a fantasy novel set in a world of racial tensions, magic, and religion. At the intersection stands the Nocturne, an outcast who wields a power beyond any other man. I’ll be talking a lot more about the book in the coming weeks, because it’s definitely something I’m proud of. And I do plan on releasing it onto the Kindle Store in July, but we’ll see how that pans out.

2017: Resolutions for the new year

So a new year has begun. (By the time you read this, anyway. As I write, December is only hours old.) As you may have read the other day, I’m scaling back my quantity of posts here to make room in my “busy” schedule for more fiction. Assuming all goes well—it never does—I have quite a bit prepared for 2017, and more in the works. So let’s take a look, shall we?

New novel: Nocturne

This is the big one. Nocturne was my November writing project for 2016, and the month was a resounding success. Now, it’s time to see if the book itself will be. It’s a full-length novel, only the third one of those I’ve ever written. I like the characters, love the magic system, and find myself very drawn to the political interplay the story brings. I’ll admit, I’m biased. Hopefully, I won’t be the only one to like it.

Nocturne is also the first novel I’ll be putting through my new “pipeline”. The first finished draft will come out soon for Patreon supporters ($10/month). Then, after I’ve edited the thing into something coherent, I’ll put it out for the $3/month “serious readers”. Finally, once I’m confident of a release, it’ll go to the “casual” readers willing to put up a dollar a month, and also to the Kindle Store. I’m thinking $3.99 for the price there, but we’ll see.

The timeframe for Nocturne is pretty strict. I’ve already decided the absolute latest I can release it is August 21. That’s because the great solar eclipse of 2017 occurs then, and a solar eclipse is the defining moment in the life of the novel’s primary protagonist. That will be for the “official” release through KDP, but Patreon supporters will get it earlier. Right now, I’ve penciled in January 16 for the draft, April 21 for the supporters’ advance copy, and maybe somewhere in June or July for the final release. If that seems like a tight schedule, well, it is. On the plus side, I’m an indie. I don’t have the luxury of worrying about multiple back-and-forth rounds of editing, finding a slot at the press, working with cover artists, or setting up a publicity tour. So I can have a turnaround on the order of a few months.

Otherworld novellas

The Otherworld series is probably my favorite. It’s my worldbuilding playground, my sandbox for creating a setting, a language, a culture, etc. Oh, and the story’s pretty good, too. (Again, I’m biased.) I’ll be dribbling out the rest of the drafts for the series over the course of the next few months. Only once those are all out will I start work on reader releases, and I’m not sure if these will ever go on KDP. Maybe once I start Season 2.

Each of these runs about 50-60K in word count, and here’s my tentative schedule for the draft posts:

  1. Out of the Past — November 2, 2016
  2. The City and the Hill — January 6, 2017
  3. A Matter Settled — February 10, 2017
  4. Written in Black and White — March 24, 2017
  5. The Bonds Between Us — May 5, 2017
  6. Situational Awareness — June 9, 2017
  7. A Peace Shattered — July 21, 2017
  8. Long Road’s End — September 1, 2017

I’m also planning a series of Otherworld shorts, currently using the working title A Bridge Between Worlds. These will follow on from “Long Road’s End”, covering the intervening time before Otherworld #9, which hasn’t even entered the planning stages yet.

Linear short stories

The first three short stories in the Linear Anthology, “Either Side of Night”, “The Last Captain”, and “Forged in the Fires”, are already out on Patreon. The second half of the cycle will follow soon. I don’t actually have titles for these yet—as I write this on December 1—but they don’t take that long to write, so they shouldn’t be too hard. The dates I’m looking at for release are January 27 for Part 4, February 24 for Part 5, and April 7 for Part 6. And that’s it. I’m not planning on continuing the story past that at the moment, though I might come back to it down the road.

As for a few other details on this series, I’m still deciding. My original idea had been to release them separately on Patreon, then do a big collection (hence the name Linear Anthology) for KDP. Remember that Amazon has a cutoff for its 70% royalties: 99ยข books only get to collect 35%. I don’t feel comfortable charging three bucks for any individual story of this size, so I’d have to either combine them or settle for the lower royalties. Of course, if the Patreon thing works out, then less royalties won’t matter as much, and the cheaper release on the Kindle Store might drive more people to Patreon. It’s a lot to think about, and I don’t have the answer yet.

Other plans

If you’ve paid attention, you’ll see that I have at least three short stories planned for this year. Add in A Bridge Between Worlds, which will contain five more shorts, and that’s eight. And that’s only the beginning of what I want to do in 2017.

Let’s assume I’ve finished Nocturne by this time. As I write, I’m about 75% done with the first draft. Editing is a separate process, so we’ll ignore it for the time being. On top of those eight short stories, I’ll be doing another original novel in November, and I want to finish Lair of the Wizards, one I’ve been working on for a year and a half. The Otherworld “Season 2” collection would be a total of 8 novellas, probably adding up to half a million words. That might not be feasible, so I won’t put them all on the list. Maybe one or two. And then there’s a short story I plan on writing late in the year for all my loyal supporters…assuming I have any by that time.

So that’s the plan so far: 9 short stories, 2 novellas, and a novel and a half. All told, using some generous word counts, I’d call that about 400,000 words written. Throw in about 80-100 posts here on Prose Poetry Code, and you’re talking 500,000. It’s ambitious by any standard, but I have decided that it’s better to fail at unrealistic goals than to succeed at easy ones. Go big or go home, as they say, and I’m going big in 2017. I hope you’ll be along for the ride.

An announcement for the new year

So I’ve been doing this thing pretty regularly for a year and a half now. Except for a few illness-related breaks, I’ve been putting up three posts a week since the middle of 2015. I’m not complaining; I love doing this. But now that I feel like moving towards writing more original works of fiction, I’m not sure I can keep up the pace I’ve set for myself. See, I usually write these posts in one big batch at the end of a month, or when I have no other works in the, well, works. (For example, I’m actually writing this on October 4. Last week, I finished the final part of my Otherworld novella series, and I’m mostly killing time until NaNoWriMo.)

If I’m going to make a more serious effort at writing full stories, I don’t know if I can handle also writing 10-15 posts here. These tend to run about 1000 words apiece, sometimes far more—that’s basically 25% of my average monthly output that I could dedicate to other work. And honestly, I’m starting to run out of ideas for posts. I’m not doing as much coding as before. Really, my whole life right now is in a place I’d describe as…not the best. Fiction is my escape from that. The nonfiction I put up here just doesn’t have the same beneficial qualities.

So here’s what I’ve decided, looking at the three main types of posts I do on Prose Poetry Code, and then the ongoing series I’ve been running.

Code

Wednesdays have been my dedicated day for code-related articles. As I said, I haven’t done much in that area lately. I tried back in June to make a game, but you saw how that worked out. It’s not that I don’t like programming anymore. I still do, believe me. It’s more that I have other things on my mind, and the very analytical, very mathematical necessities of writing good code take me out of the moment.

For these, I’m going to drop back severely. I’ll probably only write 1-2 code posts per month in 2017, unless something big comes up. The field still interests me, and there’s a lot of fertile ground there, but the research and thought required to make a good post about programming each week just isn’t worth it right now. Maybe I’ll change my mind down the road.

Writing & worldbuilding

These are the meat of the site, in my opinion. The Monday posts are where I have the most fun, because they give me the chance to let my imagination roam free. Worldbuilding really is my favorite part of writing. If I lose it, then I’ve lost any reason to even have this place.

Therefore, I’ll keep Mondays mostly as they are. There might be a few more weeks off through the year, but rest assured that those will be for good reason: I’ll be writing something more important. In all, count on about 40 or so total posts about worldbuilding and general writing next year.

Languages and verse

Fridays originally started out as a way to showcase the art of conlangs. After all, language construction is one of the things that got me into worldbuilding in the first place. It’s only fair to give it the honor it deserves. Since then, I’ve been branching out a bit. Now, the last post of the week has become the time when I talk about poetry, song, verse, and music.

I’d like to keep that going, though maybe not at the same high level. I’ll probably take 1-2 Fridays off per month through 2017, meaning you’ll have around 30 total posts. Most of those will be conlang-related, but some will pick up the other topics.

Series

I do a lot of post series. I like them. They’re like chapters in a book, each building off the last or taking something in a new direction. I like the continuity. But lately it seems like all my posts are part of a series. There aren’t that many one-offs. So, for the coming year, I’m going to take a step back. For each of the main series I’ve got going, here’s my plans:

  • “Let’s make a language”: This was practically the reason I started the whole site. It’s not stopping in the near future. I’ve got plans all the way out to Part 27; at one part per month, that takes me through June. After that, it shouldn’t be too hard to come up with more ideas.

  • “Magic and tech”: Another one of my personal favorites, but I’m starting to run low on material. I think I’ll drop this back to one post every two months, or 6 for the year. Maybe, I’ll even have enough work here to write a novella set in the magical realm the series describes.

  • “Building aliens”: This one has almost run its course. I’ll let it, and then I think I’ll let it retire. Now, I’m not going to stop posting about aliens, so don’t worry about that. This is just the hard SF alien-making series that’s going away.

  • “Software internals”: There’s only so much more I can do here without getting way too bogged down in technical details, so I’m putting this one on hiatus. If there’s any kind of desire to see it return, I’ll consider it later on.

  • “Project SL”: The whole Social Liberty thing was a response to the election year. It won’t be back in post form.

  • “Assembly”: I love assembly language, but trying to debug code in a web-based emulator is annoying, even frustrating. If v86 gets better, I’ll look into starting it back up. (Really, what I need most is clipboard support.)

Never fear / Happy New Year!

I’m not abandoning this place. I’ve made a promise to myself that I wouldn’t let that happen. The quantity of posts will go down in 2017, but I hope that will be balanced out by a corresponding increase in quality. If I don’t have to worry as much about finding the material for three posts a week, maybe I can spend more time on each post that I do write. So even though it may not seem like I’m around as much, I’ll still be here. Now, let’s make 2017 the best year ever!

Happy birthday to me

You may have noticed there’s something new over there on the sidebar: a link to Patreon. Yep, I finally did it. Now, if you want, you can support my writing on a monthly basis, instead of the “whenever I put something out for sale” schedule I’ve been doing. And I hope you will.

I’m still working out the kinks, but here’s what I’ve got so far:

  • $1/month: This gets you basically anything I’ve put up for sale, like Before I Wake or any future novels. On top of that, I’ll throw in the occasional short story. Oh, and everything will always be DRM-free, so you don’t have to worry about that.

  • $3/month: Here’s where the real fun starts. For this much, you get not only my novel-length works, but also the short stories and novellas I’m not quite ready to put on, say, Kindle Direct. Even with those that I do end up selling, you’ll get them much earlier.

  • $10/month: This is quite a bit of money, and I doubt I’m as valuable as, for example, your Netflix subscription. But if you’re willing, I’ll definitely count you as one of my supporters. Literally. I’ll put you in the credits. And if that’s not enough, I plan on doing stories chosen by you. Starting at this level, you’ll get a full vote on those.

  • $30/month: The big one. While I could certainly add tiers higher than this, this is the limit both of what I feel comfortable asking (actually, that’s closer to $3 than $30) and of what I can legitimately do. If you’re giving me this much money, then you deserve a special reward. Therefore, anybody who contributes at this highest level will get 3 votes on my “supporter” stories. And they’ll get to appear in one of my stories. You know, a cameo. (If I’m feeling particularly generous, I’ll write some gruesome way for you to die or something. I don’t know.)

Now, you can absolutely put up more than $30 a month, but you don’t get any extra bonuses besides that warm, fuzzy feeling of helping somebody out. But even if you can’t quite afford that, every little bit helps. Every dollar you pledge is one that I didn’t have before. And I have to thank you for that.

(Note: Last year, I think I posted at 5:38 PM. If so, then I screwed up. I was actually born at 5:48, which unfortunately doesn’t have the same electoral significance. Oh, well.)

Free short story: “Miracles”

I’ve told a lot about the writing I do. Now it’s time to show it. “Miracles” is a little story I wrote in March 2015, and I’m posting it here as a free example of my work. Although it’s a little over 11,000 words long, I still consider it a short story.

Set in the 1730s, it’s a brief tale of a young brother and sister, Thomas and Mira, and their flight from England to the American Colonies. Crossing the Atlantic is treacherous, especially for a pair of twelve-year-old orphans, but they have to go. They can’t stay home, but can they outrun the dark secret they share?

Read it now

Continue reading Free short story: “Miracles”

Still recovering

I’m not quite over the sickness I described last week. I’m feeling a lot better, but not yet 100%. So, rather than force myself to come up with three new posts to fill out what should have been status reports on that game I was making, I’ll just leave the remaining Wednesdays in June empty. Code posts will resume on July 6, beginning with a new installment of Software Internals.

Godot game, part 2: Abort, retry, fail?

I don’t believe in fate. Problem is, fate doesn’t seem to care.

The week started off just fine. I got a bit of work done on the game late Wednesday night and early Thursday morning. Then, disaster struck.

For most of the next few days, I was almost totally bedridden, shivering and sweating in turns, coughing my head off, getting dizzy every time I stood up, and generally feeling awful. I figured it was nothing more than the usual allergy flareup of late spring/early summer at first, but as the days wore on, I suspected something more was afoot.

It was my mother’s idea to take me to the ER yesterday evening. I’m a poor, white man living in the rural South, so that’s effectively my only option, and it’s one I only like using as a last resort. When I go, it’s more to find out exactly what’s wrong with me than out of any hope that they can fix it. The ease of mind is just as valuable as the diagnosis and treatment.

After a 20-mile drive down there (again, rural South) and about half an hour of waiting, the doctor gave the verdict: bronchitis. Nothing worse than that, thank goodness, but that’s already bad enough, if you ask me. In the grand spirit of American doctors, he gave me a round of antibiotics (for what is probably a viral infection, naturally) and some lovely opioid-based cough syrup that is about as appealing to me as the coughing itself. Honestly, I can’t complain too much; I know from experience that there’s only so much you can do for bronchitis, apart from letting it run its course. But my mind is at ease, and that’s a far better medicine.

What does this mean for my grand “Godot Game Month” project, you ask? Well, total failure. Nothing less. Even if I felt 100% better today, I doubt I could work hard enough to catch up on the days I’ve lost. And I don’t feel much better. (Just as I wrote that sentence, I had another mild fit of coughing. Fortunately, nothing bad came of it. Correction: more bloody mucus. Yay.)

I know my limits. I know how far I can push them. I hate to admit defeat, but I am well aware when something is beyond my capability. This is one of those cases.

So, to sum up, the game is on hold, indefinitely. Once I get at least somewhat healed, I’ll start working on it again, but as a long-term project, something I do in my spare time. I tempted fate with this idea, and she slapped me down for it. I’ve learned my lesson; it won’t happen again.

As for the other posts, I have a nice queue full of them, enough to take me through the middle of July. Those will proceed as scheduled. Hopefully, by the time I need*to write again, I’ll feel like doing it.