I’ve been very, very bad about updating lately. I blame it on my awesome new job.

There’s a lot to cover, and not that much time, so I’ll try to give you the condensed “Jason’s Recent Life!!!” version of things.

Writing: Kraken Mare has done exceptionally well these past few months, hanging out in numbers that are high enough to make me rub my hands with glee (can’t help it, I’m greedy and like money for stuff I write). Working on another collab project right now (sooper sekrit prahjekt!). It is not a kaiju book. At least, not in the traditional sense. Best Laid Plans is coming out as part of the Black Tide Rising anthology on June 7, and then my other short story (for another Baen anthology) should be out next year. That story is titled Magnum Opus. Not sure what the title of the anthology is yet, though.Then I can get cracking on two books at once: Darkling, the sequel to Wraithkin, and the first Guderian novel with Christopher Smith, which takes place in the Kraken Mare universe (but isn’t a direct sequel).

Then I need to get back with Eric Brown and focus on the second book of the Murder World duology…  *sigh* It’s nice being able to complain about being a busy author.

Life: My job at the Boys Home of Virginia is awesome. I absolutely love what we do up there. It’s very fulfilling and, at the end of each shift, I feel like I’ve accomplished something. It’s a feeling I didn’t even get when I was teaching in Denver.

I also got a new puppy. No, I didn’t replace Sophie. But someone at church had a lab who was having puppies and needed them gone since she couldn’t afford them. I went over and looked at them, and was torn. They had a boy and a girl puppy. Both were adorable lab puppies with markings like a cow )I kid you not). So after some deliberation I decided to get the boy puppy. He is named Odin and he is fitting in fairly well in the house. He’s being crate trained, which he is taking to. He’s also almost housebroken already. I’ll start training him on basic commands in the coming weeks.

Not going to lie, that was extremely difficult. I only had Sophie for a little over two years before she died, but she was my first dog and I had the distinctly guilty feeling that I was betraying her by getting another dog so soon. It’s only been 6 months but, you know? It was rough. However, Odin is nothing like her, so I’ve only called him by her name like five or six times. That’s pretty good.

Conventions: Still attending Liberytcon this July. Extremely excited about the reading that I’m doing with my fellow Four Authors of the Baenocalypse. Long story, don’t ask. But I think I’m War. I wanted Famine. I thought it would be hilarious. Nobody else agreed with me. Oh well.