Officially back to work today.

Received two more books for the review pile over at Shiny Book Review. The first one, Stuff Christians Like, is highly amusing so far. The other, Kristine Kathryn Rusch’s advanced reader copy of City of Ruins, has been read already and is about to be reviewed. Look for it sometime in May.

I think I mentioned it before, but I signed the contract for my short story And Injustice For All last weekend with Paradise Publishing. This means that I can’t review their books anymore, since I have a contract with them (this was the system that Leo and I came up with in order to avoid any potential conflicts of interest). However, I have found someone new who is currently reading The Sacred Band and is willing to review it. My usual suspects all have multiple titles to review (hint hint, Ben and Rebecca) but it should all work out in the end. I do need to review The Exodus Gate by Stephen Zimmer soon though. I’ve been putting that one off. Not because it’s a bad book but because I’m only now back on my computer.

Okay, no more stuff about SBR. On to bigger things…

My first Sha’Daa story, which is almost complete, is titled Crouching SEAL, Sleeping Dragon. It’s a pretty interesting (to me) story about a massive sea dragon who is called to fight by the Forces of Evil during a Sha’Daa. You should be able to guess who and what he’s fighting against by reading the title. It’s coming in at just around 3800 words, so my word count total is right where I want it to be. It’s also in first person, like my other story, which has become easier than I could have imagined. For short stories, that is. I don’t know how well I’d do over the course of a novel.

I haven’t heard how well Corruptor has been doing in quite awhile now, though I can track it on Amazon. However, I’ve learned that Amazon can be a little misleading, since most small bookstores don’t report their numbers to the bookscan system like B&N or Amazon does. This creates a blind spot that an author can’t see and wouldn’t even know to look for unless they’re told. I also was told that Corruptor was seen in a bookstore in Canada, though I told my informant “Pics or it didn’t happen”. See, I know pop culture! I’m not that out of touch with society.

Got invited to Fandom Fest this July and am hoping I get to meet Harry Winkler. You know, the Fonz. I’m not holding my breath, however. Oh, horror director John Carpenter will be there as well. It’s going on the weekend after Libertycon, which means I’ll be a busy little bee come July. Don’t fret, though: I plan to have multiple copies of both Corruptor and Lawyers in Hell there, hopefully with autographs by the other writers. I know that a few other contributors will be at Fandom Fest as well: Allan Gilbreath and Kimberly Richardson. I hope I won’t be competing against them in sales. That would suck.

After that, nothing for a while. That should give me enough time to wrap up a few work in progresses, as well as pitch a new series or three. Someone told me recently I need to get an agent. I would, except most of them have no idea who I am yet.

No worries, that’ll change. 2011 is going to continue to be a great year.