(cross-posted to webcomics and onlinecomic, although they didn’t get the handy FAQ)

Schlock Mercenary has finally embraced the promise of its premise and stepped into the twenty-first century. There is a Schlock RSS feed, and that feed is available to be “friended” here on LiveJournal at http://syndicated.livejournal.com/schlock_feed/profile. Those choosing to read the comic using this feed will be able to use LJ’s comment system to discuss the strip.

It’s just in time, too. On August 28th Schlock Mercenary will be celebrating strip number 3000 after 3,000 consecutive days of no missed updates, no fillers, and no guest strips. That’s just two weeks from now.

I needed SOMETHING to brandish jubilantly, and an RSS feed will do.

(Even though all the cool kids already have one.)

And now, the FAQ:

Q: What about ad revenue? There are no ads in the feed!
A: There is a “buy Schlock stuff” button under the comic. That ad pays really, really well. 🙂

Q: No, seriously. Aren’t you going to lose ad revenue from this?
A: I’ll let you know. I don’t think so, though.

Q: What isn’t included in the feed?
A: Well… it’s got the strip, it’s got footnotes, it’s got five buttons and two links to get you to appropriate places on the site… I’d say it has everything, but I know I’ve forgotten something.

Q: Why did this take so long? What were you waiting for?
A: I thought that RSS had to be built in to my updater engine. So did the two engineers I challenged with the project. This made it look daunting, to say the very, very least. Fortunately a bright guy named Mark Shieh came along and volunteered. He pointed out that the whole thing could be built independently. Then he went and DID it. And then when I dared to say that it was a great, and he could stop, and I’d wait for site updates before getting my “perfect world” feed, he rolled up his e-sleeves, dug back in, and made my “perfect world” feed. It didn’t take long. It took about three days. But we waited about three YEARS before properly starting the project.

Q: Is Blogunder Schlock included in the feed?
A: No. The blog has its own feed at http://www.schlockmercenary.com/blog/index.php/feed/, including a comments feed at http://www.schlockmercenary.com/blog/index.php/comments/feed/

Q: When will we see attorney drones again?
A: Right now, if you go re-read the archives in the correct places.

Q: When will Schlock Mercenary: The Teraport Wars be available for pre-order?
A: At the end of this month. I’m waiting until I have advance copies in my hands.

Q: You’re just making up questions now, aren’t you?
A: I’m trying to anticipate you people. It’s harder than it looks.

I bought Hero With A Thousand Faces as an audiobook today and started listening. I’m about 10% through the abridged version.

Some thoughts:

1) No, this isn’t going to ruin me as a writer.
2) The reading is kind of flat, but that doesn’t stop the prose from kicking my head in.
3) I get the feeling that for this material to be useful for a writer, he/she needs to read (or listen to) the book, and then keep a cheat-sheet around.
4) I’ve already read the cheat-sheets. It’s possible that the book doesn’t need to be read (or listened to) at all.
5) Except that the prose still kicks my head in. I tried listening while drawing… CAN’T DO IT. Campbell needs the whole brain.

In completely unrelated news, there is now a Schlock Mercenary RSS feed.
http://feeds.feedburner.com/SchlockRSS

WorldCon 66 has been amazing thus far, and I don’t expect to be at all disappointed for the remaining three days.

As always, the highlights are the people. Countless (or at least “I lost count”) fans have stopped by to say hi, buy stuff, gush, or otherwise interact. It’s great fun for me, and Sandra has been enjoying it as well.

Then, of course, there are the fellow professionals with whom I’m privileged to rub shoulders. We had dinner with Phil and Kaja Foglio and friends on Wednesday night, and Steve Jackson and Monica Stephens on Thursday. After each of those meals we wandered the room parties and the con suite as a posse, meeting and greeting other notables, fans, and friends along the way.

And for all that there are still a million-zillion-bobillion people here I don’t know, but who I can meet if I want to. I expect I’ll be meeting a bunch more tomorrow, because the comic I created for the newsletter has no dialog — it’s a “caption this” contest. I hold out reasonable hope that in this festival of creative minds SOMEBODY can make me laugh hard enough that I give them free books.

For those of you who have been by to buy stuff — THANK YOU. Sandra and I were worried that the large expense of this trip (flying our children off to California for fun at Grandma’s falls under “babysitting,” for instance) would make it unprofitable, but apparently we’ve more than broken even already.

For those of you who plan to come by to buy stuff — HURRY. We’re already running out of T-shirt sizes, magnet sets, and mouse-mats, and at this rate it looks like we’ll run out of books before Sunday. Yes, you can buy this stuff online, but here at WorldCon there’s no shipping fee, and we’re eating the sales tax.

My only complaint with WorldCon 66 here in Denver is that it’s very spread out compared to WorldCon 64 in Los Angeles. We’re in six or eight different hotels, the Convention Center is being shared with two other events, and the result is that fandom doesn’t seem to be developing the critical mass it did two years ago. We’re just a little too far apart, and when we leave the Convention Center for hotels, we scatter, rather than clumping up and raising the ambient temperature of the networking.

Still, it’s a good event. No, a GREAT event. I’m having a fantastic time.

When I walked through the door at home last night I was pretty strung-out. I caught a pretty harsh cold at Comic-Con, and self-medicated for the eleven-hour drive from San Diego to Orem.

I left San Diego at 8:20am and got home at 8:45pm, one time-zone later. I made pretty good time, stopping in Barstow, CA for gas and food, Primm, NV for a nap at poolside at Whiskey Pete’s, and St. George for gas and food.

But that’s not the strung-out bit.

Have you ever tried those little two-ounce energy drinks? They’re loaded with caffeine and other stuff, and claim to offer five hours of no-crash-afterwards energy. Well, for my eleven hours of “pretend you’re not sick” I took four of those things, 2000 mg of tylenol, and four pseudoephedrine.

I was alert, I wasn’t jittery, and though I could tell I was sick I actually felt like I was on the mend.

Then I walked through the door and it was like somebody cut the strings. Twelve hours of pent-up jitters arrived all at once as my body said “it’s time to lie down.” So I added MORE chemistry, threw back some Nyquil, and slept like a fresh corpse.

Today I’m convalescing, which is very boring. I’ve had a couple of small, soda-can doses of caffeine in order to prevent a decaffeination headache, and I’ve slept a lot. Hopefully tomorrow I’ll be better, because in less than a week Sandra and I are driving to WorldCon in Denver, and I’ve got a lot of work to do between now and then.