The latest edition of the Journey Into podcast features yours truly as “Armin Pluto”, host of a podcast suspiciously similar to 99% Invisible, in a meta-episode that focuses on the early days of space travel.
It’s been a very, very long time since I’ve done any audio work, but recently I was asked by Cast of Wonders to perform a story for episode 488. The story is called “Interview with a Sixth Grade Science Fiction Food Stylist”, and it’s… weird. Clever, but weird.
Listen and enjoy. I would say it’s…
Or, in this case, just to be remembered.
I got an email this weekend offering me a role in a podcast. Should take me all of ten minutes to record it. I haven’t been on a podcast since August of 2017, when I performed “Digging Up Doug” on Tales to Terrify. I had honestly thought that I was out of all the narrator rolodexes by this point, almost 4.5 years later, but it’s nice that sometimes people still think of me.
I know I haven’t posted on here since April 2021, but don’t think I haven’t been writing. It’s just that, as I said in that post, I’m writing under a pseudonym now that I keep completely separate from my real name. I released a book under that name last year, and this year I’m releasing another, plus a novella and a novelette, and maybe a few more short-stories over on Smashwords.
So, y’know… hang out. You never know what’ll show up here.
I’m sure I’ve mentioned this in the past, but I write under two names — this one, and a pseudonym. I know I wrote a bunch on my fantasy novel earlier this year, but that mojo has petered out and I’ve been instead working on pseudonymous fiction. I finished a book, two short-stories, a novelette, and the first part of a flash fiction collection.
So, I mean, progress is happening. Just because you can’t see it doesn’t mean it’s not there.
In the meantime, here’s a preview of my as-yet-unfinished horror short-story, “Creeping Cold”:
To her credit, Aundrea didn’t leave me a month later, when I was completely cold. She stayed; she tried; she gave me everything she had because, in her words, “someday I’m going to need it from you, and I know you’ll be there for me.” My brain comprehended her words, and somewhere inside me I even appreciated them, but at the moment all I could think of was the brittle way I moved and the block of ice that had formed at the center of my body. I barely felt anything anymore; I floated through life like a balloon that was low on helium, going through the motions: eat, work, eat, exercise, television, bed. A few times, Aundrea managed to eke a response out of my body, but I think she knew that even sex wouldn’t fix this.
By now Aundrea was going to the gym with me — she’d complained that she wanted to lose weight, and over my protestations that she absolutely didn’t need to, she’d gotten a membership. She even got me a session with one of the trainers, saying, “maybe you need to do something different. I’m always reading about workout boredom and getting used to it, and it not working anymore.”
The trainer was a compact, gregarious man who kept trying to make me smile. I finally faked one, just to get him to stop. He was so happy, so full of life, and I was dwindling away, the light at the center of my crystallized soul fading to nothingness.
And then, while I was on the squat machine, he reached across me to adjust the weight and I caught the tiniest whiff of warmth.
It was enough to get my brain working, enough to put a lighter amount on the back extension machine than I should be using, and when he reached across me again I breathed in as much of his warmth as I could.
He was dead three days later, but I didn’t care; I was warm again, and he had so much in him that I was free of the cold for almost six months.
Lately my mind has been running itself ragged with the idea of starting my own literary magazine. Because, you know, I didn’t have anything else to do… like work on my novels. I’ve been making a lot of progress on my fantasy novel, and it would really suck to arrest that progress just to work on a completely new project. But I guess that’s how it is for some writers: we go for the new and shiny, instead of finishing one thing at a time.
And this magazine idea has been consuming me, especially when it’s time to go to sleep. Last night I was up for two hours after lights-out thinking about the magazine and what would go into it — the website, the print version, the e-reader version, the Kickstarter, the Patreon, the submissions page, the amount of words per issue, the non-fiction articles, the letter from the editor, the frequency with which the magazine will be released, the other people I might ask to work on it with me, the slush pile, the acceptances and rejections, and so on.
I guess I could work on my novel in the mornings and the magazine in the evenings. It would be more productive than sitting around watching Stargate SG-1, yes, but… but do I really want to go down this rabbit hole?
Somehow, I think I do.
Wish me luck.
I’ve been working pretty hard on my fantasy novel — it’s up to Chapter 23 now. If you’re interested in seeing what kinds of things I’m writing in this book, the best place to do that is on my Instagram, where I’m posting snippets each day that I manage to write something. Here’s an example:
So, y’know. Check it out. Give me a follow, if you like. The excerpts also show up on my Twitter, if that’s your thing.
And yes, the rules of “Run” are in the book. Just in case anyone wants to do a tie-in.
I have this fantasy novel I’ve been writing, on and off, since 2006. I picked it back up again in 2019 after the inaugural Multiverse convention and started rewriting it; after all, my writing has changed — hopefully for the better — in the years since I first wrote it.
There were some truffles in there, but there was also a lot of dirt. I had the bones of a good (I hope) fantasy novel, one that I was maybe halfway done with. I’ve never written a book longer than 145,000 words, but this one is on its way to beating that number.
And, as of now, it’s over 100,000 words. That’s about 400 pages. And, according to my outline, I still have three more parts to go. I predict this book will hit at least 150,000 words.
What’s even better, though, is that I’ve actually been working on it. Writing it. Thinking about it. Wanting to get to the ending (eventually). I can’t say that my writing mojo will continue, but it might. I mean, I already finished writing one book this year (to be published under my pseudonym); why not two?
Here are some of the words I wrote this morning. Here’s hoping there are more tomorrow. And the next day. And the day after that. And so on.
After multiple drafts, multiple revisions, and a whole hell of a lot of time spent pondering what I should call it, my YA novel (formerly called “the shelit book” for lack of anything better) is finally out for consideration with a couple of agents.
What’s it about? Well, I can distill it down into one sentence, if I absolutely have to: “what if The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe, but with genre-aware protagonists and lizards instead of traditional fantasy creatures?”
The book is called The Coming of the Two, and hopefully you’ll get to read it before I have to revise it again to make it more accurate for the time when it’ll actually be published.
Here goes nothing…
Here are some updates that may or may not interest you:
It’s my kid’s birthday this week, but you all get the gift: until Friday August 14, you can get a free copy of After the Apocalypse for your Kindle. You don’t have to do anything special — just go to Amazon and grab it.
And if you like it, maybe you’d consider reviewing it? The more good reviews an independently-published book gets, the higher it goes in the Amazon algorithm, which is vital when you don’t have a publisher’s marketing machine working for you.
After the Apocalypse. Free. Get it while you can.
Times are tough for everyone. I get it, believe me. But if you feel like my stories have made you feel feelings, or you just want to send a little encouragement, I created a virtual tip jar that you can use if you like. But you don’t have to.
I suppose I ought to tell you that I wrote two books since quarantine began. They’re in various stages of beta-reading and editing. They’ll be published under one of my pseudonyms. Hopefully I can get back to writing under my real name; late last year I was making real progress on a fantasy novel and hopefully I can finish it at some point. I guess we’ll find out.
Hi! Did I meet you at Multiverse? If you missed it, you should keep an eye on this space and see where you can meet me next. (I don’t have anything scheduled at the moment, but follow me on one of my many social medias and find out when I do.)
While at Multiverse, I read “The Accumulation of Mere Existence”, one of the stories in Boss Fight. Judging from the reaction of the audience, it hit pretty hard. You should get a copy of the book and check it out.
Finally, my wife has taken on the herculean task of pushing me to write more, and I started by revisiting an urban high fantasy novel (think the Bas-Lag books by China Mieville or, to a lesser extent, the Moonworlds books by Sean McMullen) that I wrote 95,000 words of back in 2006. As of today I’ve rewritten the first two chapters, taking the bones of what (I think) is a good story and applying thirteen years of knowledge to it to make the writing better.
So far, so good.
Guess what?
You can now preorder your digital copy of my new collection, Boss Fight! It officially releases on October 18, but if you buy it now it’ll show up on your Kindle (or other device with a supported Kindle app) on that day without you having to do anything.
There will also be a paperback, but Amazon doesn’t yet have a way to do paperback preorders, so you’ll have to wait on that until the 18th.
Also, here’s the cover art, without any text on it, by the lovely and talented Sara Noto:
So, yeah. Boss Fight. Preorder it. You’ll like it.
I know I’m cutting it kind of close, but my new collection, Boss Fight, is just about done. I have to make one or two quick edits to the manuscript, get the final cover, and get it to the publisher. All the editing and typesetting is done, though.
Here, have a table of contents:
Hopefully I’ll see you at Multiverse, October 18-20, 2019, in Atlanta. And if I don’t, that’s okay too.
Hello, friends. Since we last spoke, I’ve been putting the finishing touches on my new collection, Boss Fight and Other Stories, which will be releasing at Multiverse on October 18. You should come.
I have my tentative list of panels and events for Multiverse, but until the official schedule is posted I’m going to keep the times and dates to myself. However, I can tell you that, unless things drastically change, I will be…
Multiverse has dozens of guests coming, and I’m honored to be a part of that group.
I hope to see you there.
Fellow humans, I will be a guest of Multiversecon 2019, October 18-20 in Atlanta, GA, USA. You should come.
I’ll most probably be talking about writing, and I’ll have a new book as well: Boss Fight and other stories, a collection of 18 tales of aliens, parasites, architecture, and pillows. More news on that as it develops, but my artist is already putting together the cover and it looks great.
My far-future space opera story “Return to Waypoint 5”, first published in Black Denim Lit, has been turned into a pretty amazing full-cast audio production.
This was actually published back in early August, but I’ve been a bit sidetracked lately with work and such.
Here’s an update on what’s going on in the world of my writing:
To those of you who keep checking back: thank you. I’ll try to do some more updating when I have more to update you on.
Josh Roseman: Writer, Voice Guy, Dad, Human 