Deadly Troubadour

It has been a busy few months for me. But then again, who hasn’t had a busy few months. Still, on July first I submitted my master’s thesis. It was a culmination of roughly 18 months of research and 2 months of intensive writing. If anyone ever wants to talk about Japanese women who practice the martial art of iaido, let me know. I’m your guy. On the 26th of this month I have my oral defense. As I understand it, that means that in the space of fifteen minutes I try and convince three professors that I know what I’m talking about why they try and make me cry. Or it’s maybe a little less antagonistic. Also, starting August 18th I’ll spend six weeks in the mountains of Japan being a camp counselor.

Why am I bringing this up? Because over the next six weeks I don’t know how active this site will be. I’ve heard our camp location has spotty internet access at best, so even if there were time to write while playing with the fabulous children I’ll be helping keep track of, it might not work. But even if the site isn’t active, I’m going to be busy as I have two projects (that I’m ready to talk about) in the wings.

The first is that I am going to release an edition of short stories. I am going to take between 10 and 15 short stories from this website, edit them, and notes and publish them as both an e-book and hopefully a paperback. My release goal is October, 2014. Partly this collection is because I want your money. Partly it is because I want to learn the ropes for announcement number two.

I’ve been working on this little project called Deadly Troubadours. It’s a novel. And it’s almost finished. Almost being a very vague term. I made significant progress on it and then had a thesis and the upcoming six weeks or camp come up. Such a hard life I lead, he said sarcastically. Regardless, my goal is to finish editing (and writing) so that I can self-publish before we say goodbye to 2014.

There are a few things I would like feedback on. The first of which is are there any short stories in particular on this site (found under the short story of serialized fiction categories) that readers particularly like? Please let me know either in the comments or I guess on Facebook if we are friends.

Also, while I am looking into the possibility of getting Deadly Troubadours professionally edited, I also am in the search of beta readers. This would mean I send you chapters, or perhaps the entirety of the rough version of Deadly Troubadours and you help me hone it by helping catch errors in continuity, grammar, spelling, and also just giving feedback in general. Love something? Hate something? Let me know. This might be a strange thing to advertise on the blog, but I imagine that most of the folk reading this are either family or friends.

Anyway, that’s where I’m at. See you in the comments.