Jack of Harts

I submitted two stories this weekend, started work on a third, and have gone over edits to an earlier story that is approaching publication.

House of Sand is the story I went over edits on. I’m particularly fond of this story, as it takes place in a place I’ve never written in before. The desert. Which of course means completely new enemies to face. And taking place in 1917, it will be only the second Captain William Carter story placed in the 20th century that will be published. And that means he’s carrying modern firearms. 😉

The two stories I submitted are “One Night in No Man’s Land” from the 1870s and “The Battle of Cypress Swamp” from 1815. “One Night in No Man’s Land” is the first Wyrd West story I ever wrote, and has been through a number of drafts over the years. I’m hoping this draft will be good enough to get picked by a publisher. We all love our first born, and I do hope others do as well. “The Battle of Cypress Swamp” was born of a song. Johnny Horton’s “The Battle of New Orleans.” There’s a line in there talking about taking an alligator and going another round. That ridiculously whimsical line has lived rent-free in my brain for decades, and when Raconteur asked for odd little wars in their Wyrd War 3 open call, I realized I wanted to tell that story. Or at least a story that could have been twisted into that song decades later. It was a lot of fun to write and tickled both my serious and my funny bones in a good way.

And the story I’m working on right now is a Jack of Harts story. I’m taking an old story I wrote for Raconteur long ago and just rewriting it. Taking the original placement scene that I love and going in an entirely different direction. This is one is going to be a pure dogfight story, with Captain Jack doing his thing with starfighters and bringing the bad guys down in a hail of gravitics… oh… wait… most of the battle will be taking place inside a planetary atmosphere, and using gravitics inside a planetary ecosystem is a Bad Idea. So… no gravitics. That will be fine… right? 😉

I hope you will get to see all of these stories soon.