Been a while and might be a while more before I can get back on here, so make the most of the time.

There's been a lot going on and all the sudden I've got a lot on my plate. Actually I think the plate became a serving platter, and somebody tried to cram three whole fried chickens on it. And a Coke. (... oh come on you don't recognize that? The Blues Brothers. Sheesh.)

First off, I finished Telaon. I am now giving it some time before I start the editing, though I might fob it off on one of the folks I met at DragonCon and use it as a learning experience. But the first draft is done. Came out to about 52k words.

In related notes, I need desperately to do a podcast to assure my audience of this fact. I may do that today.

In other news, wild hair ideas can get your ass in deeper poodoo than you can possibly handle. On July 20th I posted a topic on the ISBW forum about a "wild hair idea I'd had for doing a quarterly novella magazine. Yesterday, I sent off the paperwork to start a limited liability corporation called "Purple Ink Publishing, LLC". There will be an e-text PDF format magazine going fully live on January 1st. It will be called The Terran Conspiracy. And I... am now Editor in Chief. Aside from my webmaster guy, I'm the only permanent employee at the moment. But hey, I've got, what, 2 months!

Don't go looking for the website yet, it doesn't exist yet.

Usually when I come up with crazy ideas either no one answers or they go "yeah, that's cool" and that's it. This time a couple people actually said yeah let's think seriously about it. So here I am, about to risk my savings and possibly get myself into deep financial trouble to start a magazine. I've never done editing of anybody else's stuff but my own. I've never run a business, much less a publishing business. I have a house that needs serious work and I'm about to go spend the money I was saving for it to buy ads and Google AdSense keywords. I'm going to need at least 800 or so subscribers in the year to pay all the bills. I'll probably spend every waking moment when I'm not at work working on the magazine. I probably will never be able to write my own stuff while I'm doing this, which will risk my own sanity. The podcast may have to be mothballed. But I'm still doing it.

If people aren't actively participating in a culture, it dies. "Actively participating" to me means getting new authors with good stories out into the minds of fandom. The roots of fandom and sci-fi are in words. This culture began with nothing more than words on pages sent through the mail. I aim to continue that with the new versions given to us by the computer -- electronic text and downloading rather than mimeographing and sending through the mail. Make it as painless as possible and people will be more likely to subscribe. $20/year or $6/issue, and an e-mail alert when each new issue is released for download. After a year, the magazines go into an archive and the issues are free for the download under Creative Commons. Each issue will be 10 novellas, and will end up being 2 or 3 novels worth of material. And I'm determined to make it 80 to 90% new authors.

It's a big idea. But it's worth it. Science-fiction and fandom are worth it to me.

I could use some help, though.

I might get in touch with the people who do the "Voices of Fandom" podcast. They're old-school fen and I think they'd give me moral encouragement at the least.


And of course there's work, and wondering when they're going to shut us down, and the possibility that whatever job they offer me I won't be able to take and I won't be able to find another job in this crazy economy. And Mom freaking out worrying about her retirement accounts with all the investment company failures and having to talk her down from her metaphorical cat-clinging-to-ceiling thinking she's going to spend 30 years eating dog food. I could always point out if she could afford canned dog food she could afford Campbell's soup and thus wouldn't be eating dog food in the first place, but what do I know I'm just the kid who won't have any social security at all because her generation ate it all. So you see, I have to have faith in the future or I'm going to go stark raving bonkers and start killing people with a baseball bat because I have nothing to live for. No future, no consequences, no fear.


Am I crazy for doing this thing with the magazine?

Professor Campbell always said "Follow Your Bliss".

Douglas Adams said "Don't Panic."

I'm going with that.