Dave Seeley is doing the cover art for THE ROAD TO HELL. He posted an early draft of the art online. You can see it here. This sort of thing really delights me, and I can’t wait to see the final cover. I'd especially like to see it printed on a book I can hold in my hands and possibly even sign. I'd wish for royalty payments too, but I try not to get too greedy.

I may have squeed about the cover art rather a lot on social media. Dave Seeley noticed and emailed me. He has a book of his own coming out this September. He thinks I'm a fan. He's right.

What happened to February?

Yeah, I got nothing. I wrote stuff, honest. There was that Multiverse scene rewrite that kicked my butt repeatedly and some new fiction, and I probably spent too much time on social media again.

David Weber has THE ROAD TO HELL. He has not yet threatened me with bodily harm for the damage I’ve done to our original outline. Also, Sharon Rice-Weber has not said anything about yours truly never being allowed to work with him again. This is all a very good sign.

There are contracts and rumors of contracts. And I will now take this opportunity to not so stealthily point out that I could be drafting work for any of those possibly-to-be-contracted works even now as you read this. 

I know that some people ::cough, cough, David Weber, cough:: have built the mad skills necessary to turn out a 200,000 word novel in a month and edit it in the next six weeks. I’ve studied how he does it. A large portion of the success criteria involves him sitting in a chair in front of his computer for sixteen hour stretches day after day. Working to a very detailed outline seems part of it too. I can emulate some of those work ethic behaviors, but the highly developed storyteller’s instinct for what’s working and what isn’t is not a part of my tool kit yet. I wants it! We wants it, My Precious! 

Ahem! Excuse me.

Mere mortals such as myself still write ourselves into dead ends routinely and need longer to produce a legible first draft. I have no idea when delivery dates for the next book or story might be. I don’t even have a contract. But I’m a natural worrywart. And I have begun fretting about missing a deadline for work I haven’t even been contracted to do. Some people might consider this a sign of borderline psychosis. I like to call it “planning ahead."

So if anyone out there would like to send me money for words, please go ahead and tell me what you want. The sooner you do, the sooner I can start engaging in hand-to-hand combat with my muse. The words who are about to die salute you.

Joelle Presby's MarsCon Schedule
January 16-18, 2015

FRIDAY, January 16

7-8 pm  Baen Traveling Road Show                                               
Room: Jefferson Davis 1
Jim Minz, David B. Coe, David Weber, Joelle Presby, Steve White
 
10-11 pm  Honor Bound: Working with David Weber             
Room: General Longstreet’s
David Weber, Jim Minz, Joelle Presby, Christopher Weuve (moderator)
 

SATURDAY, January 17

11 am-Noon  Starships 101                      
Room: Jefferson Davis 1
Andy Presby, Joelle Presby
 
3-4 pm  Alchemy: When Art Turns into Business                                  
Room: General Hooker’s
Mikey Mason, Joelle Presby (moderator), Sharon Rice Weber
 
5-6 pm  25 Years of the Writing Process…and Beyond: The Writer’s Work in the Past, Present, and Future
Room: Jefferson Davis 2
James Maxey, Will McIntosh, D.C. McLaughlin, Jim Minz (moderator), Joelle Presby
 

SUNDAY, January 18

1-2 pm  Money Makes the Worlds Go Around: Technology and Economics             
Room: Stuart’s Redoubt
Jim Beall, James Maxey, Will McIntosh, Andy Presby (moderator), Joelle Presby, Christopher Weuve

Vacation is over.

Well, that was quick. I now have Things To Do, and there is Stuff - mass quantities of stuff - to get accomplished.* What are these things and stuffs you might ask? Well, mumble mumble mumble and it is very important, I say!

Don’t tell anyone, but my workload is actually quite glorious. Today I am going to write, because I want to. And, and! Some of the stuff I write I might get paid for. This causes a Glorious Positive Feedback Loop in which I have time so I can write and sometimes people buy it so I have money so I have time and so I can write!**

Everyone continue on with your regularly scheduled Enjoyment of Life now. I’m having a grand time playing with social media, so fully expect to see rationalizations about how this can be considered Work in some convoluted, stretched out definition of word-of-mouth marketing for not yet finished manuscripts.***

-Joelle


*Okay, for a normal human being, I don't actually have much Stuff To Do at all. But I’m doing more than yesterday, so it feels like a ginormous to do list.

**Observant readers will note that the Glorious Positive Feedback Loop does not in this current iteration consist of sufficient complexity to include an editing phase. My Inner Editor mourns with you and laments the existence of the footnoted sentence above as Exhibit One.^

***I’m going to have to work on that one. Even I don’t believe me. Yet.


^One’s Inner Editor has heard of the Legendary Being known as the Inner Spellchecker, but a certain Joelle Presby has never been graced with that angelic power. Microsoft Spellcheck is the first step in a much longed for cyborg brain augmentation.

I love New Year's Day.

When I manage to get up before noon, the whole world is peaceful and quiet. There are delicious things to nibble on for my breakfast, and the whole year is rolled out before me ready for me to make my mark on it.

I generally spend the day planning my schemes within schemes for how I’m going to achieve elaborate goals and reshape the world. (It has been pointed out to me that this action permanently blacklists me from the Procrastinator’s Club without gaining me admission into the Guild of Effective Goal-setters, but I’m okay with that.) I like to have plans for the sake of plans. I daydream about what I want today. Later in the week and month and year I’ll be on the lookout for the tiny bitsy things within my control that can baby step me towards the wilder dreams.

Happy New Year to you! If you are scheming today, scheme big.

Hi World,
It’s been a while since I’ve had something to say, so I’ve decided to inflict upon you an update in the style of a Christmas Letter. You have been warned.* 

Writing. It goes. There has been book revising and appendix updating and glossary updating for the Multiverse. THE ROAD TO HELL manuscript is currently being a very good little** story. In my Letter to Santa, I asked him to formally deliver it to Baen Books. Chief Elf and Quality Control Inspector David Weber has to subject it to rigorous testing first, so probably one of the Magi will be asked to drop the manuscript off after they do their traditional 12 Days After Christmas Oooing and Ahhing Over the Baby thing.***

Other Stuff. The world has not collapsed around my head during my time of paying it no attention. I’m tentatively interpreting this as a sign that Reality doesn’t require my attention to keep going. This pleases me greatly. I’m rather easily distracted, and I’d hate to have the rest of you start living in Reality: The Post Apocalyptic World just because I let my mind wander.****

Merry Christmas and Enjoyable Other Holidays of Your Choice. May your 2015 be even better than your 2014.

-Joelle Presby


*Please recall that you can click away at any time.^ 

**Little in this case is not entirely accurate. Closer to truth is rather largish but still able to be printed in a single book. Probably.

***Or David will send an email with the manuscript as an attachment. But that would be less climatic.

****Significant evidence exists that a Certain Beloved Husband has been holding up the Roof of the World for quite some time now. He may also have been maintaining Reality in his spare time. All readers are advised to make their own decisions on whether or not Reality is to be trusted to frolic about unwatched. Instances of Reality may otherwise change without notice. 

^ Disclaimer hidden in the footnotes of the footnotes: The information provided may or may not have anything in common with actual Reality as experienced by other people nominally present in Joelle Presby's Instance of Reality.