Category Archives: Announcements

Hey, there’s something coming up that I want to tell you about!

Announcements, Journal

February’s Projects

I’ve got a full plate this month. Aside from wrapping up the climactic bits of Schlock Mercenary: Delegates and Delegation (the current story online) I need to tackle the bonus story, the cover, and the marginalia for Force Multiplication so that we can send it to print.

Then there’s the substantial task list for the upcoming Schlock Mercenary role-playing game, designed by Alan Bahr, with lots of input from me. The core game stuff is done, and once we’ve got some art to show off we’ll start building a Kickstarter page. That campaign will likely go live sometime in mid-March, and will support the production of a very nice, fully-illustrated rule book, and some odds and ends that will make some of our peculiar (maybe even unique) game mechanics fast, intuitive, and hilarious.

I say “we” with regard to the art. I’ll be doing a few, goofy comic-type things in the book, but most of the artwork will be the sort of thing that you’d expect to see in a wonder-invoking, far-future, science-fiction RPG book. Full-color, fully rendered characters, weapons that look like they’d actually work, and vehicles that are more interesting than the things I dash off with a straight-edge and a circle template.  Think of it this way: Schlock Mercenary, the comic strip, is the canonical story, but the comic’s artwork is mere caricature. The RPG book will show you that universe more clearly, and give you and your players much better starting points for your flights of fanciful shared storytelling.

Back to the task list: I’m also featured pretty heavily in the programming of LTUE, the SF&F symposium here in Utah on February 12th, 13th, and 14th (Thurs-Sat.) and at the end of February I’m flying to Chicago to record more Writing Excuses Master Class sessions.

You might get a movie review or two this month. I’ve seen Strange Magic and Into The Woods, and I’ll be seeing Jupiter Ascending, but the real time sink is actually writing them up.

And speaking of writing, I’ve got a bunch of prose fiction on my plate as well, so I should finish writing this, and start in on some actual work.

Announcements

Last Chance to Register to Nominate for the Hugos

If you’re not already registered for WorldCon, and you want to participate in the Hugo Award nomination and voting process, you must register by Saturday, January 31st. That’s coming right up.

If you’re interested in nominating projects of mine for the ballot, here’s a list of what I did in 2014, and the categories in which those projects are eligible for nomination:

Graphic Story
Short Story
Novelette
Related Work

Whether or not you think any of these are worthy of nomination, the nomination process is something you can be involved in. If you love genre fiction, and want to see honor done by your favorite things, get registered and fill out your ballot!

The registration deadline is January 31st. The nominations close on March 10th, 2015. The final ballot should appear by the end of April, and the voting on that ballot will likely close at the end of July. Winners and full results will be announced at WorldCon in Spokane Washington, on August 22nd of 2015. More information is available at http://www.thehugoawards.org/.

 

Announcements, Journal

Over Budget and Overbooked

I just put together my project budget for 2015. It’s a big spreadsheet that describes how I’ll spend my time during the year. It includes things like the events I’m attending (each of which chews up a bunch of work time, just like actual work would) and “steady-state” stuff like making 52 weeks of comics (except I need to make 54, because the buffer’s a little thin.)

Good news! I know how to budget! Bad news… I’m 9 weeks over budget. So I guess I’ll just have to shoehorn an additional nine work- weeks into 2015, because obviously I’m not going to stop doing any of these cool things we’ve got planned.

Announcements

Sketches, Shopping, Shared Nightmares, and Schlock

I finished the last of the internationally-bound sketch editions early Sunday morning, and then took Sunday off. Today Sandra and Keliana will be shipping all the international packages, which means that unless there are postal issues in the destination nation, they’ll be arriving in time to be Christmas gifts.

Meanwhile, our store is still open, and there’s plenty of time for the delivery of gifts to folks in the United States. Pins, coins, and patches make great stocking stuffers, and for folks with office walls that need decoration, the 2015 Schlock Mercenary Monthly Calendar is kind of perfect. We still have the Munition Canister slipcases that hold the first five and the second six books for folks who own books, and want a handsome way to keep them upright without book-ends. (Note: the slipcases sell fast, and we can’t stock huge numbers of them because they take up a lot of space in our warehouse.)

If you’re considering taking the plunge for the first time, going all-in, as it were, we have an eleven-book bundle!

Since it’s not unlikely that you’ll be doing some shopping elsewhere for gifts this week (and by “elsewhere” I mean “Amazon“), you might consider starting your trip with this link. A portion of the proceeds from your purchase will help pay the bills here at Chez Tayler. It’s a small thing, but it adds up quickly on our end, and has gone a long way toward paying the bills in January and Februrary in past years.

Oh, hey! If you’re out at Amazon anyway, check out the SHARED NIGHTMARES anthology! It’s just $2.99, and features really bad dreams from a Hugo nominee, a couple of Campbell nominees, a Prometheus winner, and a New York Times best-seller. It’s also available here on Smashwords.

Me? I’ll be spending Cyber Monday scripting comics and sketching in books. It may be Schlock, but it still doesn’t draw itself.