Hey Space Cadets, for today’s post I wanted to do some general house cleaning.  My third novel, Operation Breakout, is with my editing team.  I’m 11k words into a short story, chronicling Sashala Kraevoi’s journey between The Human Legion series and my own.  She has been a lot of fun to write, and I think you’ll get a kick out of it.  Boss Man is releasing the rights to publish it so we can practice the process, preparing us for life after my current contract.  I appreciate this, but I don’t know the specifics as my minions are handling those details so I can keep writing.

So, let’s elaborate my plans for life after The Sleeping Legion Series.  I have one short story, “Civil Unrest,” which was submitted to an open call for an anthology with Tickety Boo Press.  I was also invited to write in an anthology being organized by Chris Kennedy.  It’s set in the Four Horsemen Universe, which currently has a four-book series written by Mark Wandrey and Chris Kennedy.  It has been a lot of fun to prepare for, and I’ve already laid out the story, as Corey Truax wrote about here.  Then we have two universes we have started outlining, with the potential for our anthology to turn into a series as well.  I know, I know, everything I’ve written seems to scream SERIES to me.  When I die in 100 years, I’ll likely still have stories I want to tell.

So, how did this collaboration happen?  It started with a short story I wrote to practice my craft.  It was for an anthology, but I missed the deadline and couldn’t get it under the 5k word cap.  My editor, Corey Truax, had so much fun editing it he crossed the line from developmental editor to co-author.  He rung me up, and said we could go one of two ways.  The traditional editing process, or… we could play in the same sandbox and see what happens.  Well, with the hive mind the genesis of my story was more exciting and dynamic.  It went from MY story, to OUR story in no time flat.  Our main character, Alexis Monroe, was more 3 dimensional and compelling.  Our wives demanded we give them this story, one where the female lead was a real person who just HAPPENED to be female.  I didn’t think that was as big of a deal, I mean I try to do that with all of my stories but when your wife orders, the smart husband obeys.  Hey, I like Corey and all but I wouldn’t wanna bunk up with him cause our wives kicked us out!

What can you expect going forward?  Great stories, and hopefully a continually engaging blog.  As we develop this process of co-writing, ironing out the wrinkles, we will blog about our process.  Some of this will be posted under the World Building Wednesday blogs.  Let’s face it, most of my process has already be written so I will only add to those posts if it is something new and exciting to read.  I will maintain a blog schedule of at LEAST every other day, and use the leeway to write more stories, and troll more blogs.  Because we are self-publishing Sashala’s story, I will have my wife/mother team write a few posts about that side of things to keep everyone abreast of the comings and goings in the Handley Trenches.  This includes choosing cover art and all the other minutia that both scares and excites me!

Now that I’ve bored you to tears, I’m proud to say that the next round of beers is on Corey!  Honest, would I lie?  I mean, I am SURE he would LOVE to buy everyone beers!!  Cold beers, just as the gods intended.  Sorry Boss Man, but someday I WILL convert you!

Until next time, stay frosty and don’t forget to keep your powder dry!  

JR

 –> As usual, all images came from the Google’s “labeled for reuse” section or are screen grabs taken by JR Handley for use under the Fair Use Doctrine.