Excitement, Adventure, Writing and Announcements

Hard at work or hardly working? Well, when you're inventing for a living it's definitely hard work. I am currently editing like mad, my own work and someone else's, and it is an exciting adventure story and a gruesome YA steampunk-ish thing and also I'll be pulling out the third Dogsland book, dusting it off, and looking to polish everything, everything, everything for your humble peepers, fair reader.

WAR BEETLES is out, at last. http://www.grumpsjournal.com/index.html

War beetles left wreckage like hurricanes across the plains. The battle still raged on at some far distant place over the horizon. Along the ground, in their wake, acid pooled. Smoke from the fires of war left a gunpowder stink hanging in the air, and all the fresh meat of the dead made it smell worse.

Meridian Smith, a survivor of the battle, walked cautiously over the devastation with a girl he had found in a village. He had solid boots that rode high up his legs, near to his hips, and a long duster jacket. Meridian had lost his helmet in the fight. His forehead and ears were deep red, now. He didn't think about the sunburn, though. He was too busy watching out for the ground, and for the little girl that held his hand. He had to lead her carefully, because the earth was full of holes and sinkholes and smashed bushes and the remains of animals.

Desdemona was her name, she had said. She walked beside Meridian, clinging to his hands. She wasn't brave enough to walk by herself. She was too small to traverse the fields without his strong arm lifting her over the worst of the destruction. Her shoes were not built for long travel. Meridian was surprised she hadn't complained about her feet, yet.

Announcement of something cool: StorySouth's Million Writers Award just selected ARACHNE from a prior issue of that very magazine as has just published WAR BEETLES, as a notable story of 2011!

http://www.storysouth.com/millionwriters/millionwritersnotable_2011.html

As you all know, ARACHNE came out last year in the first issue of the Journal of Unlikely Entomology, and is a part of the interconnected collection, WOMEN AND MONSTERS, available here: http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/89167, here: http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/women-and-monsters-j-m-mcdermott/1105651888, here: http://www.amazon.com/Women-and-Monsters-ebook/dp/B007R3NL3G and elsewhere!

At the moment, I am editing something that is set in this shared world, and I highly recommend checking it out, if you can!

So, this post was begun to announce good news, and has devolved into shameless self-promotion of a particularly intense variety. I mean, how many times can I say "BUY MY STUFF!" in one blog post, right?

So... You know... Buy my stuff, please?