Updates

Greetings, imaginary readers!

Even though you are pretend, I feel you must have noticed that there has not been a lot of blogging here as of late. Well, we've been in kind of a busy season for the last many seasons.  And to be honest, I'm not sure that this blog is ever going to climb up to the top of my priorities list again-- especially given that I also have an author blog and now a Patreon page up and running.

But since my Patrons are owed a newsletter, I thought I might post it here as well.  So... welcome to the news update for the month of May!

What's new?  The first bit of news is that I have a new Patreon page.  Which, I don't think I've talked about here.  But if you know me, you've probably seen me yammering about it on Facebook.

If you haven't checked it out yet, do yourself a favor and head over there.  Lots of good stuff-- writing, art, behind-the-scenes extras-- some of which is available only to patrons.  For example, patrons who pledge two dollars a month get a new short story every month, plus access to the vault of previous Patreon stories.

But the newsletter is always going to be both free and public. This means if you want to keep up with what's happening with me and my writing, you don't have to be a patron. You don't even have to give me your email address for a mailing list-- you can find it on Patreon (or here, maybe).  If, however, you would like the newsletter to be emailed to you every month automatically, just go to my Patreon page click on the button that says FOLLOW at the top left of the page.  (It's free.)

From now on, there are a few things you should expect to see in news updates like this one.  There will be some stuff about the Patreon page.  For instance, I'll always look back to the previous week and reveal the result of the monthly Deciders vote. Likewise, I'll look forward by announcing which story is going to be posted here the first week of next month. And if there's an upcoming Patronapalooza, I'll also talk about that.

If I have a book or story coming out, the newsletter will announce it and provide links to order or preorder. I'll also talk about what's going on in my life, whether big stuff (we had a baby!) or small (we saw a movie!). And I'll always throw in some pictures.

So, are we ready? Great! Here we go!

Deciders vote PLUS Patronapalooza :Last week, patrons at the Decider level and up voted on what we should do for Patronapalooza. (It's a week long special event we'll have every month with 5 Mondays.) There were lots of good options (which you may see again in July) but the final vote was unanimous.

So, next week I will give "every patron access to an audio recording (1-2 hours) of the first three or four chapters of a current work in progress."  And what is that work?  It's a novel, tentatively titled The Mundanes:

A sinister alien entity threatens humanity.  Earth's mightiest heroes are our only hope.  And unless Nikki Nelson can file their taxes before the 15th, there will be penalties not to exceed 25% of the total unpaid taxes.  Biff!  Pow!  Doom!

It's a superhero book where ordinary people save the day-- and it's been so much FUN to write.  Man, I can't wait to share this with all of you.  I've already started doing some recording, and it's coming out really well (especially considering that I have no special recording studio, etc.).

But don't sleep on this.  When Patronapalooza is over, the audio files will shortly vanish into the mist like Darkmoon Island.  So if you're curious about what I've been writing, go pledge a dollar and listen to the first few chapters.

Upcoming story of the month : On Monday, June 5th, a new short story will be posted over on Patreon for all supporters at the Reader level ($2/month) and up.  This month, I've chosen a story called "Lullaby," which was published last year in Dragon Writers: An Anthology.

It's about a mommy and daddy dragon who are trying to get their hungry babies to quiet down and go to sleep.  I wrote it on nights when I was rocking my own noisy and rambunctious little one, so it's got a lot of my heart and soul in it.  Plus: ravenous, rampaging dragons.  Raaaaarrrrr!!!

Life and such : This reminds me that we’ve actually got a lot of change on the horizon for Casa de Payne. And some change that’s already here, and pooping.

A baby. We had a baby. (See how cute?)

Also, last week I turned in the grades for my final semester of teaching at the university. After a lifetime spent on one side of the desk or another, I am leaving academia.

I will miss teaching in a university setting, but my new career of dad/writer has been awesome on the balance. In my first week, I've had twice as many awesome writing days (4) as days I had to change my clothes and shower because of baby barf (2). Frankly, I can't believe how lucky I am to be joining the stay-at-home dad club. (See above picture.)

This change should also give me a lot more time to write. I've got two novels in the works, and if I can keep my pace up I will finish both by the end of the year. Hooray!

Our final change is that we are moving to New Mexico, where my darling wife will be starting a new job. We have loved Texas and we're worry to leave it, but fortunately we'll be just an hour or so across the border. So any time we want our stars at night to be big and bright, we'll be in easy driving distance.

As we prepare for a big move and lots of other big changes, we're grateful to live in a time when it's so easy to keep in touch with friends and family across the world.  Thank you all for your support and well-wishing.  And please keep an eye out for next month's update on my Patreon page.

--THE HOUSE