Tranquility in Tales of the Talisman

My short story "Tranquility" is in the current issue of Tales of the Talisman. A much older version of this story was the first story I wrote after making the "decision" to become a science fiction writer. This story has some of the same elements as that original, but I made a lot of changes to it...which it desperately needed. Gone are the three pages of exposition at the very beginning of the story that explain the war...like I implied, I was a rookie.

The basic premise of the story is that there's a disgruntled main character who is in the military, serving on the moon. When war breaks out on Earth, he helps to put an end to it...but at what cost to his psyche?

If you're interested in reading the story, you can order a copy from The Genre Mall at http://www.genremall.com/zinesr.htm#talisman.

A very productive couple of days

I've been keeping myself very busy over the last couple of days, and as a result, I've gotten a lot done, including finishing up two major projects.

I finished re-working the main Flying Pen Press page. You can check that out at http://www.flyingpenpress.com.

Even more impressive, I finished the final revisions on the Ephemeris RPG. There's still formatting to do, and a lot of other work to be done, but it looks like we should be able to start the pre-sale during the first week of June.

On a more personal note, I found out yesterday that my dad will be coming out for a KMGH reunion, so this will be Rebecca's first chance to meet someone in my family. For the most part, I think she's excited, but since I told her that I get a lot of my weirdness from him...I think she's a little worried.

We also think we may have found the site for our wedding next year...but it's in a public park, so we'll have to look into the rules for that. It's kind of interesting because I had mentioned the place a few times, and she never seemed to enthused. But on Friday we were over by there, and I told her how I envisioned the wedding happening...now she loves the idea.

Memorial Day Weekend update

Things have been crazy around the homestead. Yesterday was the last day of second grade for our oldest, and now both kids have gone to Texas to visit Grandma...and they won't be back until July. Things are sadly quiet around here.

The revisions on Ephemeris are coming along. With a little luck, I will actually have the final revisions done over this long weekend.

Over at Flying Pen we're talking about something that I think will be a great idea...but I can't really say anything about it right now...but we're putting together a team that might be creating some very fun stuff.

Feeling extremely sleep deprived at the moment, but hopefully I'll catch up on sleep soon.

In the meantime, enjoy a picture of one of our newest neighbors...

Nobody's Home to Aoife's Kiss

My short short "Nobody's Home" has been picked up for the March 2010 issue of Aoife's Kiss. It's kind of hard to believe, but this is the last science fiction short story that I have circulating. Most of the last few years have been taken up with novel writing and game creation, so I've run out of short stories.

There are still a few in my collection, but they're so bad, they never deserve to see the light of day again...

I said I wasn't going to do it...

...but I did it anyway. I've now joined the masses at Twitter. If you're interested in following me there, feel free to drop by https://twitter.com/jalanerwine.

Keeping the family on their toes

For those of you who actually know me, you're probably well aware that I'm basically a disaster in the kitchen, but this is more because I just don't really care about cooking...as opposed to actually being incompetent.

Apparently my family seems to think that I don't know my way around the kitchen. I told the kids that we were going to make breakfast in bed for Rebecca, so when I got up, the oldest had a bowl and a box of cereal out. Both of them were quite surprised that I planned on actually cooking breakfast...and Rebecca was equally surprised when we brought it in for her.

Later in the day I made a traditional Chickasaw fry bread. It was the first time I'd ever made anything like this, and I'm pretty sure it was the first time that I've every actually made something from scratch. Even to my surprise, it turned out really good. The girls seemed to like it at first, but I think they changed their minds the more they ate it...but I liked it, and that's what matters.

I do so like to keep people on their toes.

A Spring Walk

The oldest and I took a walk yesterday, exploring some of the "wild" around us that we hadn't seen before. On Thursday, we noticed that the prairie dog babies were starting to come out of their holes...so, the first shot I got was of one of them on its hole. He's kind of hard to see, but he's the off-colored spot on the fresher looking hole...



Normally, this field is very brown and sparse, but since we've gotten a few inches of rain in the last month, the field has really greened up. So, I had to get a shot of it...



Having prairie dogs around is a pretty cool thing, and I've been reading up on them, trying to understand why they do the things they do, and I've found that they have a complicated society, and actually seem to be fairly bright. Not only that, but they aren't the nuisance that most people claim they are...in fact, they're an important part of the ecosystem in this part of the country. There are hundreds of these guys in the field, and with the green, they stand out a lot more. So if you look at the other side of the river in this shot, all the little brown splotches are prairie dogs...



The most surprising part of the walk was when we came upon this young lady. I had no idea we had these so close to our place. This picture was actually taken within half a mile of our door...

For Goodreads followers

I'm now cross posting this blog on my Goodreads site, so now you can read my entries here, or over there...your choice.

If there's anything specific that you'd like for me to talk about, please let me know...

The first revisions are done!

I've just typed out the last of what are the first revisions on Ephemeris. The revised rules are almost 15% longer with quite a bit more detail. There's still a lot of work, as we still need to add more things for the characters to play with, but this is a significant step.

I feel like I've been working on this beast for years, and I actually have been, and it will be nice once we finally release the game. As of right now, we're shooting for an Aug. 1st release, but if all goes well (which it rarely does), we might be able to push that release up a little!

Stay tuned for more information as I have it.

An update for the end of April

I've been very busy of late. I've had a case of the creeping cruds (no, it's not the swine flu...people really need to relax on that subject.)

We're nearing the end of the school year for the oldest, so she's had all kinds of events. I've also been putting a lot of effort into the revisions of Ephemeris, and I'm almost done with those. I've also been working on a bit of a redesign of the Flying Pen Press website...hope to debut that eventually.

We've also been working on trying to get all of our financial issues worked out. We were supposed to be getting married in a few weeks, but Rebecca's tax return was intercepted because of unpaid student loans, and now her wages are being garnished. Add to that me losing my "real" job, and things have been a struggle, and we've had to postpone the wedding until next May. By then hopefully the economy, and our personal finances will have improved.

In the next couple of days I will hopefully be posting an entry about finishing the first revisions on Ephemeris. At this point, we're hoping for a release date right around Aug. 1st, but there may be a pre-sale event even before that...so for those of you who have impatiently been awaiting the release of the game...it may actually be coming!!!

Ken Rand

Back when I first started out this crazy endeavor of writing, I was published in several ProMart magazines. Around the same time, there was a guy named Ken Rand who was also being published alongside me. When I became an editor for ProMart, I had the pleasure of publishing Ken several times...often joking with him that his stuff was too good for what I was editing...and in some ways that was true.

Over the last few years, we've exchanged an occasional e-mail, posted on each other's LiveJournal from time to time...but overall we didn't keep in touch like we should.

I've just learned that Ken passed away yesterday. He'd been sick for a long time, and he often talked about the fact that he was outliving any of his own expectations for his health, but I guess his illness finally became too much for him. All I know is that I wished I would have kept in touch with him more than I did.

You'll be missed Ken. You were a great writing talent, but more importantly, you were a great guy...

Great experience during revisions

Normally, revising my work is something that I really hate doing. Last night, I had one of those great experiences while working on the revisions of Ephemeris. It was after sunset, and I was sitting in our living room with the sliding glass door open. Yes, true, we did just get almost a foot of snow just a few days ago, but that doesn't mean it can't be really warm a few nights later. During that storm, this area got a lot of moisture (we saw a lot of rain and snow), so the river that runs through the field close to our house is running high and running fast. Needless to say, it was quiet enough last night that I could hear that river running while I was working on the revisions.

There's just something about the sound of running water that seems to drive the creative juices. I've heard this from a lot of writers, and I know it's true for me. So, I sat for a solid three hours and just cranked out notes for revising the game. It was one of the best revision sessions I've ever had.

Sadly, with the dry heat we're now getting, the water levels are starting to drop in the river, so I might not get to repeat that experience for a while...at least not until we start getting our Summer deluges.

The initial draft of Ephemeris is done

I've just typed the last of the 80,000+ words that is the initial draft of the Ephemeris RPG. This has taken forever and a day to get to this point, but as of late, I've been getting a lot done on it. Unfortunately, my partner in this has dropped the ball a bit, and I've had a lot more work to do than I expected...but it's done...it's done...it's done!!!

There's still a lot of work ahead of us. I have to go back through and put in all kinds of table. I have to work on the language to make it smoother. And I have to make some changes to the early part of the game because some of the rules changed half way through. Things just made more sense the farther into them that I got.

It shouldn't take anywhere near as long to revise the rules as it did to create them, so we're still hoping for a late Summer release. It would be so nice to finally have this beast out of the way...but it's been a lot of fun creating the game.

Now...I think I'll sleep. This last little push has left me with some severe insomnia...

An Ephemeris update

The RPG I've been designing, Ephemeris, is now very late in delivery. However, there is definite progress that is being made. Most of the initial draft of the rules has been written. My co-designer is supposed to be sending me the final chapter that I need very soon. At least, I hope he will be. If he doesn't, then I need to write that section. After that it will be some tweaking of the rules, and a whole lot of re-writing...but we are making progress.

I'm hoping for a release in late summer or early fall.

Price on my Kindle books reduced

If you're lucky enough to have a Kindle, you can now get two of my books for just 99 cents!

The Opium of the People and Seedlings on the Solar Winds are both available from Amazon for a new low price. Here are the links...

The Opium of the People

Seedlings on the Solar Winds

Why are you here?

Since joining NetworkedBlogs, I now have nearly 100 followers...and I know there were several of you here before I joined. I would imagine that quite a few of the people who are "followers" actually just excepted the Facebook invitation because that's what a lot of people do. But for those of you who actually do follow this blog now...or who have followed for quite a while, I'm curious as to what makes you read this particular blog? What do you like to hear me talk about?

This is your chance to give me some feedback...

Thanks...

Forgive Men Their Trespasses at Afterburn SF

My story, Forgive Men their Trespasses, is the featured story at Afterburn SF this week.



This story is set in the same "universe" as my novel The Opium of the People, although this one takes place in the Denver metro area. Those of you familiar with Denver might recognize a few of the places.

Hope you enjoy the story...

The Blizzard

As Colorado blizzards go, this one wasn't much of anything. We did have sustained winds of about 40 mph, and we did get about a foot of snow in this area, but anyone familiar with Colorado in March knows that that's not all that impressive.

Still, I did promise some pictures to a few people, so here they are.

During the storm (a little dark because of the blowing snow):


The morning after:




No matter how much snow, the kids always have fun:

Filed By

Anyone who reads this blog knows that I'm always trying to find a new way to promote my work. Today, I found Filed By...and I signed up, so please feel free to check out my page. It's currently a work in progress...

The end of BSG

Last night was the final episode of Battlestar Galactica, and my thoughts on the final episode are about the same as my thoughts on the series as a whole. It had some great moments, and it showed a lot of potential, but ultimately it fell flat.

The whole series had a little too much "God" or "Gods" in it for my taste. I don't necessarily mind science fiction with a bit of a religion in it...as long as it's a good story. Watching last nights episode, however, left me greatly disappointed. In a lot of ways, I felt that the writers fell back on the old Deus Ex Machina, which seems to be something you can get away with on TV...but NEVER in print fiction. In the end, everything happened because that was how God wanted it to happen...what a lame rip off! And Starbuck? She was an angel? What does that say about this Cylon God, considering that Starbuck fracked half the guys in the fleet?

Overall, I would give the series and the final episode a C+. It had moments of greatness, but it fell back on literary cliches far too often. I imagine the writers thought they were being clever by having the Galactica end up at prehistoric Earth...but guess what guys? It's been done before...and Douglas Adams did it better!

I guess the good thing is that I now have an extra hour to work on Friday nights...