A Primer on the Races of Humanity – Branan

by on July 14, 2017 at 12:01 am
Posted In: The Races of Humanity

Betelgeuse is an old red supergiant that has been blowing chunks of itself out into space in successive waves for eons. The star itself would cover our own star system out to the Jovian orbit, and outer shells of water, dust, and energy that used to be the star spread far out beyond our own Neptune or Pluto. It’s a large and dangerous system to fly through, but the Branan didn’t have to fly though most of it when they began their first colonization program. Their homeworld was one of six small planets orbiting the gas giant closest to Betelgeuse, and that gas giant continually plowed a reasonably safe course through the star’s outer shells where its planets and moons could live in general peace. So their first “interplanetary” colonization efforts were actually very short hops to other planets orbiting that very same gas giant. They were dangerous enough to start with, especially in a system like Betelgeuse, but they gave the Branan a taste for interplanetary colonization that would forever drive them in search of new frontiers.

 Comment 

Anna

by on July 13, 2017 at 12:01 am
Posted In: Art, Character Profiles

Anna was like our friend Mister Smith. She was a Cowboy before they joined the Wolfenheim Project. Yes, I know who she was, but I’m not going to tell. That’s not me being a snot. I just don’t want to tattle on her. She was always judging me as unworthy back in the day, completely unfairly I might add, and I’m not going to give her any more ammunition in that direction by letting the secret slip out. Not that it’s nearly as much of a secret now as it was back during the Wolfenheim Project’s early days. But it’s the spirit of the thing. She chose to start a new life, with a new name and a new identity, so she could help the Wolfenheim Project succeed. And you know what? I respect that enough not to spill the beans even now. Honest. Scout’s honor. You gotta ask her who she was cause I ain’t telling.

High rez version available for free on Patreon

 Comment 

John Smith

by on July 12, 2017 at 12:01 am
Posted In: Art, Character Profiles

I needed to recruit many people to turn Wolfenheim from a dream into reality. John Smith was one of the more important ones. He commanded the fighter group that defended Wolfenheim, and gave them a chance when the time came to fight our enemies. Rumors leaked that he had been a Cowboy before joining the Wolfenheim Project. We released them, and then refused to comment on them. They could not possibly be true, you know. We knew all of the living Cowboys were at Sunnydale, preparing to attack the Hyades Cluster. It is a good thing nobody knew about the Gemini Project at the time, or there may have been some uncomfortable questions. It is an open secret now, so I can confirm in this journal at least. Yes. John Smith was a Cowboy. And no. I am not prepared to say which one he was, even in this journal. That is his secret to tell, not mine. But know this. He was a brave Cowboy in his time. And he earned every accolade he received as part of the Wolfenheim Project.

High rez version available for free on Patreon

 Comment 

Life Under Obamacare

by on July 11, 2017 at 12:01 am
Posted In: Diaries

I’ve told the story before. I had healthcare insurance before Obamacare. It was 100 bucks a month and did what I needed. I spent several years without healthcare after Obamacare ended my insurance, though I finally got Obamacare this year after last year’s medical drama. The premium is over 700 bucks a month now.

Here’s the new part. It still doesn’t cover the first two or three thousand dollars. And after I meet the deductible, and after I meet the “maximum out of pocket expense” when Obamacare should be stepping in and covering everything, it really doesn’t. Every time I have any medical expense right now, Obamacare covers about half of it, and sluffs the rest off on me. So I’m paying 200 bucks a month to pay off the loan on last year’s healthcare, plus I have a 700 dollar a month Obamacare plan, plus I’m paying on this year’s still expanding expenses.

And just one more kick in the pants? Even though I’m paying two different companies that Obamacare won’t pay off, on time, they continue to send me phone calls and letters threatening to send me to collections if I don’t give them more money, faster. This is why, today, instead of writing stories, I’m collecting my second yearly financial statement so I can apply for financial aid to cover my medical costs.

I’ve sold one vehicle and a house in the last year with no plans to replace them, and that money is going to pay the medical bills. My own government has done more financial damage to me in the last eight years than anyone else has ever done.

This is life under Obamacare. God help us all, because the government surely won’t.

 Comment 

( No Title )

by on July 10, 2017 at 12:01 am
Posted In: Diaries

I’ve learned a lot about writing in the last few years. The first thing I thought I knew after decades of writing stories is that I was at the top of my game and ready for the big leagues. I was sorta right. I was at the top of my game. And the big leagues of being an actual published author are rather nebulous when you think about it. On the plus side, I did pass that test of actually publishing and selling a book. On the minus side, I had a lot to learn about writing. The learning wasn’t always easy, and it led me to do a full rewrite on Forge of War because it just didn’t live up to what I wanted it to be. That rewrite took almost as long as it took to write the book in the first place, but it is what I want it to be now. And I’ve published it in dead tree format as well, and of that I’m doubly proud.

The trick is though, that in the rewriting, I broke some of the continuity of the stories I wrote later. So I’ve been doing some minor revisions in them as well. The most radical is the separation of Dawn into two characters for the Wolfenheim series. I was not fully happy with how I’d handled that originally, even as I was writing it, but I couldn’t say why. And it worked. But the more time I’ve learned about writing, and the more time I’ve spent writing, I started to understand what my subconscious had been telling me at the time. I was being lazy. In a story that felt like it had too many characters, I was trying to lower the number of characters by combining two that shouldn’t have been combined. So, the revised version of Wolfhenheim Rising I’m working on now is fixing that. It’s a very easy switch in most cases, though I did have to cut a few lines of dialog that I particularly liked. I plan on recycling them for later.

The point is, that I’ve reread and sometimes revised every line of every story I’ve published in the last few years to match the rewrite of Forge of Wars. Call it the decision of the author. Has it helped my sales? No. New books drive sales. But my hope is that having a better set of stories will help my sales better in the future. And whether that hope works or not, I can say this. I am more proud of what I’ve published now than I was in the past. So in that alone it was worth it.

If you want to see what I’ve done with the stories, contact me. I can arrange for you to get a look at it. And if you want to see what I write next when I continue Wolfenheim, I can arrange that too. I’m very close to jumping back into that unexplored territory that will…shall we say…have a profound impact on the universe of Jack of Harts. 🙂

 Comment