Chugging Away Again

I'm still at it, but juggling recent crisis with my computer, both hardware and OS. But things seem to be calming down. I'm behind on projects, including Jorune, but should be announcing the release of my first novel - The Song of Orphans - with DriveThruFIction.com. I'll announce that as soon as it goes live.

Song of Orphans is a fantasy novel from 1977, long before I ever heard of Jorune. But members of two races, outcasts who have to work together. One is less enthusiastic than the other, but... strange buddy story. The last 70 pages of the book were written in one sitting at an old Selectric typewriter over about 26 hours. I rose tired and bent over, my hands stiffened into claws. But no one who has reached that scene has been able to put it down before it is over. And some really good people gave me guidance and encouragement, so ... I'll stand by it as a first work.

I'm still finishing the presentation on Horror in Radio Theater for August at the Ghost Town Horror Writer's Workshop in Colorado. It's a horror writer's workshop in a real ghost town -which I think is kind of cool. I may not be able to go in person to present, but the presenter should serve the material well.

If I haven't said it before, radio theater is one of my favorite art forms. It forces the audience to create to complete the scene - the pictures are always better on radio! Radio is a 'hot' medium. Only two others have the same level of audience involvement in completing the creation - reading and role playing games. The reader, the listener, or the player decides what the character really look like, what the setting is, the lighting, the choreography of the movement (whether it is walking the parapets of a castle or a saloon fist fight), and all of the props.

If you hear "It was the most money I had ever seen", some of you will picture a card table with a one-foot pile of bills and coins, while someone else will picture Scrooge McDuck's swimming pool. And that picture will perfect - because you made it just the way you want it.

I should mention that the cover for Song of Orphans is by Joruni Fred Lang out in San Francisco.