I’ve been busy trying to weasel a couple of friends into starting their own novels, and I have finally decided to pull up my own socks. So: Here’s the log line for my next one:

A drifter with a magic marbleglass eye, a magic drachma and a passion for Doctor Pepper sobers up from a decade-long bender and goes off in search of his son.

_{Image CC-BY-NC-SA by Ben McLeod}

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Story idea I’ve been playing with for years. I came up with a log line for it yesterday, and I have to testify!

Twins from Matsu, feel each other’s pain, separated at birth, one goes on to spy for the mainland, the other to spy for Taiwan, brought into conflict, fail to recognize each other, love triangle, fight with guns and kung-fu, kill each other in the end.

Shakespearean Espionage Kung-Fu Tragedy.

Say it with me now!

_{Video janked from myspace}

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In 1501, a Berber kid leaves the desert, goes to sea, learns a bunch of magic from a crazed Afghan dude and saves Sardinia from the Ottomans with some help from a Chinese hash smuggler and a giant lemur.

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In 1936, Ethiopian radio pirates use improvised technology to broadcast the true story of Mussolini’s incursion to the world.

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I have been working with freelance editor Marisa Ring, and she has given me the green light to send the manuscript to the copy editor. Mozhi is working so hard on the illustrations that he has become completely obscured by a corona of splashing ink and wadded paper. Everything is on track for a May 1 release date of the free PDF and hardcover (via Lightning Source) editions.

Mark your calendars!

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I’m down in the weeds, trying to interject the perfect fifty words somewhere into the last third of Boggle and Sneak, to clarify a plot point that has stumped a couple of readers. I feel about eight inches tall, pretty much like the creatures in the story.

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For January: A heist featuring a drifter named Stove and a posse of mean-spirited hoboes only she can see.

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I was up in St. Paul today, so I ate a bowl of pho at Saigon and then ensconced myself across the intersection at the Rondo Community Outreach Library and wrote two stories for The Ox (plus another one later sitting at Kopplin’s.) The one that seems most presentable is Greengage.

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My parents came over last Thursday and took care of the girls, and I sat by the stove in the shed and hacked out the first six stories for The Ox.

Then I spent a long long time in the company of The Virus.

Emerging now…

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Happy December!

Boggle and Sneak and Pismo are nearing print-ready status. In two weeks, I’ll be traveling (in an armor-plated all-terrain Chris-Craft) to Mozhi’s secret headquarters, to work with him on the book designs. If all goes well, you can look for publication announcements in January!

As of today, my friend Maryalice (that’s her holiday greeting above) will be doing some of the illustrations for the blog. She was over on Friday, and we got into a speed-drawing contest. I ended up being so inspired that I immediately produced a comic in the form of a deck of ninety-nine cards (Web and print versions will be out shortly).

That was so much fun that I started work on a book of ninety-nine 750-word stories including Azuki Beans, in which a chain-letter leads to love won and a house destroyed, and Saint-Nectaire, in which a farmer digs a hole and strikes soup.

The comic is called BOTHER-Chickens (trust me on this) and the blitzenjammer book will be called The Ox because I needed ninety-nine arbitrary nouns and The Oxford Companion to Food was the book o’ nouns closest to hand.

Thanks Maryalice for the inspiration, and thanks Nana for the child care!

Wish me luck and an inexhaustible source of energy!

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