Hey, there’s something coming up that I want to tell you about!
I just returned from GenCon Indy, which I quite enjoyed, but which exhausted me. Next week I head to San Jose for WorldCon 76, for which I must be well-rested.
It needs to be a quiet week here. I’ll post my WorldCon schedule prior to the event, but beyond that I shouldn’t expect much in the way of blog updates. Such energy as I have will be spent making comics…
I’ll be at GenCon Indy this week. I’m sharing space with Jim Zub (Skullkickers, Avengers: No Surrender, Wayward) at booth 1649 in the exhibit hall. It’s a huge place, so here’s a map:
We’ll have loads of merchandise, including Planet Mercenary books, Seventy Maxims books, and of course Schlock Mercenary books, including the latest volume, Random Access Memorabilia.
I’ll also have a portfolio containing close to a hundred pieces of original Munchkin: Starfinder artwork, some of which will be available for purchase.
(We won’t have copies of the game, but if you bring your copy to the booth I can deface it.)
And speaking of Munchkin: Starfinder, I’ll be playing the game at the Worldbuilders charity event on Friday evening, and I’ll be hanging out in the Munchkin Tavern on Saturday.
Here’s my full schedule of events OUTSIDE booth 1649.
If you catch up with me at the booth, you may get to watch me draw Schlock Mercenary comics. I’m bringing a week of scripts with me (the week of August 26th through September 1st,) because this is how I go for eighteen years without failing to update.
This September I’ll be at WXR 2018, the Writing Excuses Workshop and Retreat, which will sail from Galveston Texas on a really big ship. The event begins on September 22nd, and wraps up on September 30th. There’s a day of prep sessions in Galveston, on the 22nd, and then head out into the ocean.
If writing retreats are your thing, and if you’re interested in learning from industry professionals, you should consider joining us. 
It costs about what a Caribbean cruise costs, and it’s coming right up so scheduling time away from home might be tricky, but if you’ve got the discretionary resources to make it happen, it’s absolutely worth it¹. All the relaxation of a 7-day cruise, with all the motivational super-charging of hanging out with writers. 
The links take you directly to the registration page, which has a handy FAQ down at the bottom.
¹ Here’s a page linking to testimonials from attendees at previous WXR events. I wouldn’t say “it’s absolutely worth it” without some backup.
I began creating Schlock Mercenary in March of 2000. That’s 18.25 years ago. It’s 91% of two decades. It’s longer than half my children have been alive. It’s longer than a lot of things.
Book 18, Mandatory Failure, is wrapping up. A week from today we’ll see the first panels of Book 19, A Function of Firepower, and as currently outlined that book should run for about as long as this one did. Sometime in or about the early summer of 2019, Book 20 will begin. That book, which will run for about the length of a book, is outlined in a manner that should wrap things up satisfactorily. The twenty-year-long (by then, anyway) Schlock Mercenary mega-arc will draw to a close.
It might be useful to consider books 18, 19, and 20 as a trilogy, especially in light of the fact that trilogy-style is the way I’m writing them. Book 18 will end with some unresolved threads, which Book 19 will pick up. Book 19 will will also end with some unresolved threads, which Book 20 will pick up.
As to what comes after Book 20, I remain firm in my twin commitments to 1) keep making Schlock Mercenary and 2) not launch another twenty-year story arc. We can talk about those plans in a couple of years. For now I have some comics to ink.