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Several other projects
are in various stages of
development, but aren't
yet far enough along to
be listed here as works
in progress. I've added
a page about future
projects you can check
out. Sometimes news
is available on my
Discussions page, as well.

Latest update: August 8, 2011

It had been more than a year since I last updated this, so even though things are very much in flux, I think it's past time I gave it a whirl.

Online serials: None are in progress. Plans for more in the future are vague.

I have nothing under contract at Tor or any other major publisher, unfortunately. On the other hand, I have multiple small presses eager to publish my work, so while I'm still hoping to find a new publishing home in New York, at present I'm writing whatever I please with the idea that if I can't sell it to a major house, it'll go to a small press or be self-published.

So here's what I'm working on as of August 7, 2011, "working on" being defined as, "I have the file open in NeoOffice":

• Tom Derringer and the Aluminum Airship: YA historical SF adventure. Maybe. It's hard to classify. I had written a big chunk of it last year, and then a computer crash severely damaged the files, both the working file and the back-up, which was discouraging. I managed to salvage the actual text, but it's a mess. I've recently gotten back to it and have been cleaning it up, revising as I go, and as of right now I'm on Chapter Five of the clean-up, but it's written through the middle of Chapter Twelve -- about 27,000 words in all.

  It's set in 1882. It's about a kid who finds out his deceased father was a famous adventurer, and decides to follow in his father's footsteps. It involves airships, Gatling guns, Porfirio Diaz, vanishing cities, etc.

• The Sorcerer's Widow: Ethshar story. A pair of con men try to scam a sorcerer's widow out of her husband's collection of magical talismans. The situation does not develop entirely to their advantage. 2,000 words written.

• The Dragon's Price: Fantasy novel, intended to be first in the "Signs of Power" series. Malborn Knightsbane was born with the ability to reshape his flesh, but he draws the power to do so from his own pain, which makes him reluctant to pursue a career in shape-shifting magic. The titular dragon is a divine being that's responsible for most of the world's magic, including Malborn's.

  There's a lot more to it than that, but it's hard to explain. 18,000 words written.

• On A Field Sable: Fantasy, third in the Fall of the Sorcerers after A Young Man Without Magic and Above His Proper Station. Anrel Murau is not the protagonist in this one; Mareet Saruis, a young Walasian woman who wakes up one day to find that two years of her memory have been magically erased and she is now in the care of a mysterious Quandishman, is. (Anrel does appear.) 47,000 words written.

• Graveyard Girl: YA novel. Emily Macomber, age fifteen, inherits the psychic ability to see exactly how other people are going to die. This does not make for a happy life, though it does allow her to ensure that some of the people around her have longer lives.

  My wife and agent are enthusiastic about this one, which makes it harder to write -- there's more pressure than usual to not screw it up. 14,000 words written.

• Untitled mystery novel: Okay, this meets the definition above of being a file I have open in NeoOffice, but so far it's less than a page -- a couple of opening sentences and some notes.

There are dozens of other things in my "works in progress" folder, not to mention the stack of handwritten notes on my desk, but I have no idea which will ever actually see print. See here for more about some of them.

4/17/08:5621