The Journal of Michael Merriam

I am pleased to announce that I have signed the contract, and my novel Old Blood's Fate will be published by Artema Press. We have a very aggressive timeline, planning to have the book ready for sale by the end of March. The editor plans to have my edits to me by this weekend. I plan to complete them as quickly as humanly possible.

Here is the cover art!

For those of you playing our home game, you might remember Old Blood's Fate as the first novel I wrote, finishing the first draft in 2005. It was big and bloated and broken, and I didn't have the skills and tools to make it right. I've spent the last 8 or so years tinkering with it, rewriting it again and again as I hone my craft and develop my abilities as a writer, cutting it down from a monstrous 160,000 words to 85, 000. I ripped out entire plot lines, killed a variety of subplots, and took out a whole slew of characters until I finally had something I could be pleased to put in front of readers.

From the Publisher:
As a story that entwines Native American folklore with the lives of two extraordinary mortals, the plot leaves nothing less at stake than the fate of human reality--not to mention human existence.

Look for Old Bloods Fate in hardcover, softcover, and ebook, forthcoming in March, 2013.

If I said I was pleased, it would be an understatement.

Originally posted at michaelmerriam.net. You can comment here or there.

My venerable (for a computer) HP Pavilion kicked the bucket after 8 good years of service. Considering the lifespan of most electronics, I really can’t complain. I didn’t lose anything, since we keep all of our doc, pics, and music on the network drive and back it all up regularly to the laptop. That said, I’m thinking about signing up for DropBox. I will working on the laptop for the time being, though we are considering buying a laptop with a docking station so that I can work at my more ergonomically correct desk and use my huge (seriously huge) monitor.

In happier news, I sold my short story “Steadfast” to Flagship. This is a space opera retelling of The Steadfast Tin Soldier. I’m pleased to have sold it.

And a reminder that I will be at Paganicon (http://tcpaganpride.org/paganicon/) this weekend. I will be doing a reading/storytelling event on Sunday, where I plan to present “Four Minnesota Fantasy Tales.” There are also some other author events that I will probably see attending on Saturday and Sunday.

My space opera story "Memory" will be broadcast on WRFR 93.3 in Rockland, Maine and archived as a podcast at Beam Me Up.

I am plugging away on the developmental edits. I should be done with this first pass by this weekend. I've hit a string of scenes that are on the chopping block. Some of them are going to be condensed and rolled together, a couple might get cut completely because neither I nor the editor are sure how they advance the story, and a couple look to be made obsolete during the next pass.

I sold a short story, "Memory," to Ray Gun Revival. It's another bit of space opera, something I write from time-to-time. I'm always pleased to find a home for these stories. For any of my stories, actually. I am always a bit amazed that when someone wants to pay me money for the things I write.

Though it was a tough day, with a household member being terribly sick, we all got through it. The snow outside was just enough to make everything pretty again, covering up the dirty muck. I have brownies in the oven and coffee at hand. I'm recording the BCS Championship game, and plan to start watching it in an hour or so. For the record, I will be cheering for the Oregon Ducks.

Sold "Fourth Dimensional Pony in the Concourse of the Lost" to Golden Visions Magazine.

Sold a reprint of "And A Song In Her Hair" to Andromeda Spaceways Inflight Magazine Best of Fantasy 2 anthology, to be released at WorldCon this year.

Sold my 20,000 words novella "Should We Drown in Feathered Sleep," aka The Loon Story, to Carina Press, a SF/F e-book imprint of Harlequin.

Sold a reprint of my story "Jenny's Magic" to a new magazine called Hazard Cat.

After a couple of rounds of rewrites, "Starry Night" goes to Golden Vision Magazine.

I have sold a 25,000-word Lovecraftian Horror/Steampunk/Weird West novella, The Horror at Cold Springs, to Sam's Dot Publishing, to be released as an individual book for their Sam's Dot Cameos line. I don’t have a release date yet, but we are hoping to have it available by Minicon.

Thrilled. Just Thrilled.

My little magical realism piece, "A Hot Cup At The Last Station," goes to Bards and Sages Quarterly.

In the icon, I'm reading this story at Minicon. It made Laurel Winter cry, in a good way.