On the fragility of technology

We had a minor rainfall here this morning, and because Duke Power sucks at most of what they do, our power went out for a few seconds. It does that a lot, because despite making a billion dollars in profit last year, they seem to have no real interest in serving customers - just overpaying their executives and stockholders and then lobbying for rate increases to do more of that.

Normally, the power comes back on pretty fast, and it did this time too, but my desktop computer somehow didn't survive, apparently murdered by whatever happened on the power line. It being Sunday, nobody was open to fix it, so that's tomorrow's job for me.

Luckily for my writing, I keep everything backed up in multiple spots on the cloud, so I didn't lose any work. I also have my older computer still sitting by my desk from when I bought this new one and transferred everything over last year. In a rare case of laziness providing some tangible benefit, I was able to get the old one turned on and running pretty easily despite the table-saw noise the fan makes when it boots up. That is allowing me to keep working on my writing projects and write this newsletter, but it is also reminding me (through its various faults and slow-as-mud performance) why I bought the new one. I hope it's an easy fix, maybe just a dead power supply, so I can go back to my new one soon.

An update on the romance novel

Sarah, my co-author on Best, has moved over to her new agent at her agency, so that's going well, but they decided to focus on the book Sarah's earlier agent chose to represent. When they get that one out on the market again, then we'll have a chance to share Best, with her, see if she wants to do anything with it, and figure out what our options are. We've shared our edited draft with a few more people, and we've gotten positive feedback from another eager reader, my mom. My parents are both academics, and the book is about two professors and was written by two professors, so the book has a bit of academic inside baseball there. We hope that it will work for a general audience too. Our readers have universally thought the book was fun, accurate, and a good read, and those who are academics themselves have agreed, although they've also used words like "retraumatizing," which won't make a great cover blurb. Good to know we've captured how absurd working at a small college can be, in any case. I'll update you further as the story makes its way toward publication.

A story anthology in the works

I've had the rights for several of my short stories revert to me over the past month or two, which means I now have five reasonable-length short stories that I could put together into a kind of a mini-anthology. I really love the stories - there's one that won a contest that's a kind of a mermaid horror thing, and there are two fantasy stories, one of which made it into an anthology, and a sci fi story that was also part of an anthology. If I put those five together, plus a couple of very short stories I wrote a few years back, I should have a 50,000 word anthology of my own to distribute (that's about half the size of one of my regular novels).

Writing update

I'm happy to report I've had an idea of how to get my new Inquisitors' Guild book flowing again. I stalled out on it last fall because I didn't feel like the main character was working - he's plenty interesting, but I think I made him too pathetic. I've resolved to rewrite the early chapters to make him pluckier and a little sassier while retaining the major challenges in his life, and I think that will make him more fun to read and to write. That's next up on my plans after what I'm working on now (see below).

Over the last two weeks, my primary project has been the play I started in January. It's about a failing kingdom that's at risk of not being a kingdom at all if it loses any more people. There are kings and schemers and jesters and a meddling cardinal, so lots of great stuff. It's a lot of fun writing in a new style, one that's mostly dialogue. I'm at nearly 7,000 words so far, and the Internet tells me that 10,000 words of script translates roughly to an hour of performance. I'm thinking in terms of maybe 14-15,000 words, or something in the 80-90 minute mark. As a teaser, here is my cast of characters so far:

I won't add too many more, but I think there will need to be some Belgians in there sometime. It's a very silly play, with lots of wordplay, some slapstick, and a lot of jokes, some of them even good, I think. I've talked with my friend Jennie who runs the comedy club where I've been doing improv for the past 20 years, and she's willing to let me do a table read there when I'm finished. All I need are eight readers, but with my improv and theater friends, I should be all set. If we tape it, I'll share it with you all, but I'm probably getting ahead of myself - I need to finish the thing and then edit and revise before I ask people to listen to it performed.

Some stories to try

I'm part of several author collectives, and we share each other's work to try to help all of us reach more readers. In many cases, the books we share are are free or discounted. Sometimes, they ask that you sign up for a newsletter like this one. Here are some new books I have to share this month:

First, I have His Heroic Worth by Bader Alsadeqi. This is chivalric fantasy with a romantic twist, about a knight whose betrothed is torn from him by a monster. This book is $0.99, and you can get the whole series for even less per book with various bundles offered by the author.

Next, I have Ashes to Calling by Rowan Ashborne. Billed as a Christian post-apocalyptic epic fantasy, it's about a man with a troubled past who comes across a powerful magic sword. Only $0.99 for a full-length novel.

Next, I have Nexus-9: The Icarus Protocol by Lea Janus Whitmore. This is a story about a rogue AI threatening the world and a team of humans trying to contain it, control it, and keep it from killing everybody. The author is offering free review copies, so if this sounds like your kind of thing, and you're willing to consider posting a review, click the cover below and grab a copy.

Finally, I have the The Dracomancer series by Luna Fox and F. Lowberry. This is a full series in their world full of dragons, sorcerers, heroes and villains. Expect dragon magic and a vicious magical war. Seven books for $5.99. Have a look!

Thank you!

Thank you so much for being a part of my newsletter community. I hope you're off to a good start for 2026 and finding some good books to read. I'm excited to share some new work with you soon!

May the Bloodmother watch over you,

Dave