Again, thanks

So it's out, and the response is great, and I wanted to come on to thank you all for all your support. Again.

Blackjack has been a gift, a surprise and a cathartic journey. You've all seen my ramblings here, so I won't go into it except to say I couldn't have done without all your help and ideas and comments. And now on Amazon I'm getting more and more feedback. Go see the reviews and look at how detailed people are getting with their "pro/con" stuff. I love it. I can't believe the effort some of you guys are putting to these reviews. They give me strength.

And I love the criticism. Of course it's not a perfect book. What is, War and Peace? Nope. Ulysses? Come on, three pages about a bowel movement? But hearing your problems with the story, the character, the pacing, etc., only goes to help me moving forward.

Forward...what's next? Well, I've been rudderless the past few weeks. I drifted off IO to another short project and finally to another. Some of you might be worried that I'm moving on from Blackjack. This book has a sense of finality, doesn't it? There's no major cliffhanger (Haha?) and one could look at it as a completed trilogy. Where we find Blackjack at the end of the book is kind of a nice place to be, right? Well, don't worry. We're already talking, thinking about Blackjack 4, tentatively called Messiah, though were aren't going to get hot and heavy with it until the beginning of next year. The thing about the next book is that we've got part of it ready, the plot well defined - it's ready to go. So I'm not going to let it linger, like I did with B3, and I'm not going to get sidetracked with another monster project.

IO is near completion of the first book. Right now, I'd say it's going to be a two book story, with one book coming out sometime in 2016 and the other in 2017 or 2018-ish. If you guys have had followed the development of the story here, or bought one of the "episodes" in the cancelled series, then you know it's going to be an interesting romp into a new and different world. I'm as excited about that as I've been about anything.

I know, you guys want Blackjack, I feel your rage as you see me drifting from him. Don't despair, don't freak. We're on it, and there won't be another 2.5 year gap between Blackjack stories. The great thing about IO is that book one is almost done, then I can hand it off to the other writer/editors and work on Blackjack while they slave away.

One last word about my co-writer on this, Joshua Hoade. This time his name goes on the cover, right next to mine, and that's for a reason; he made B3 so much better. Not only was he involved with the plotting and editing, he did a fair bit of first draft writing and was responsible for all the edits. Josh also kept my head in the game (as he's doing now with IO), and was a constant advocate for the piece. B3 exists in no small part because of his efforts, and I will forever be thankful of his participation. Moving forward, we've enjoyed our new process so much that we've decided to keep it going in the future. He'll be a co- in B4 and in everything else we do from here on out.

To recap our plans: it's IO, or maybe a small project to finish the year, then back to Blackjack, and in the meantime, another humble thanks to everyone for all your support.

Blackjack Dead or Alive is now available on Amazon

Hope you guys enjoy! By the way "Pitty" is what the dude wrote in the excoriating review. Not my problem!!!!

http://www.amazon.com/Blackjack-Dead-Alive-Book-ebook/dp/B016FJNZDI/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1444510409&sr=8-1&keywords=blackjack+dead+or+alive

IO on hold...for a good reason

I'm putting IO down for about a week...wanna know why?

Cause of Blackjack. Yeah, big guy's a bully and he throws his weight around here too. He's done with Josh (the editor) and now he wants a piece of me. I got it yesterday morning and I'm through half of it already. Guys, I love this book. I know, I'm biased, but I love what we're doing here

So timing-wise, I should have Blackjack: Dead or Alive done in the next few days and ready for upload. Amazon takes a day to approve everything, then it should be yours. Only a year and six months late. Let's make sure that the next Blackjack book doesn't take so long.

I have to admit, the last book left me a bit gunshy. It left me a bit spent. I went through a strange ordeal in writing it and you can tell in the finished product - in particular the finale. My mind wasn't right. B3 has left me the opposite, uplifted and positive. I can't wait to get back to IO, to finish it, and to start on the next B4 book.

This morning I was driving around, letting scenes play out in my head and I thought, "wait, that's B4 stuff. Stop that. Concentrate on 3." That's a good thing. Finishing 2 I couldn't have said the same thing. It was a harder book to write than this one and the aftermath wasn't as pretty.

Anyway, I have to check it, format it for epub publish, do the new cover...YES, NEW COVER! I love you Erik Lehmann. Then upload the sucker and let you guys have at it. I want to put together the formatted versions for Createspace's print on demand, too. I know, most people read on their Kindles/Nooks/smartphones/computers, but I want to give you guys the option of buying it on print as well. It's tricky since it's such a long book. The more pages you have, the higher the prices go, and at a certain point, I don't want to seem like I'm gouging you guys, or appear like a greedy bastard. The truth is that the print versions will be like 15-18 bucks per book. I know, it sucks. Don't buy it if you can go epub. It's just a couple of bucks for the epub.

Okay, so IO on hold a week or so, Blackjack in between, then back to IO, then...I forget.

So?

So, I've been putzing around with Facebook and let this place sort of linger. My bad. I'll be here more often in the coming days.

B3 is in the final stages. The editor estimates another couple of weeks, then it comes back to me, then it's yours...so yeah, I can say it's coming in October. Finally. I know, there's no reason to celebrate - it's over a year late. But I'm still happy.

Moving forward, we've decided to break up IO (again), but this time into novel-sized chunks and book 1 is almost done. It's not for financial reasons, and you'll end up spending the same for the full story, but breaking it up will make it more manageable in the long run.

Afterwards, I'll take a short break from Blackjack and IO and try for something else in the meantime. Right now it looks like Heart of the Jungle. Then back to Blackjack for what is tentatively called B4: Messiah.

About the book titles, I don't know who talked me into NOT putting the semi-colon, but right now I want to strangle them. It's stupid, I know, but it's kind of implied anyway. I might go back and edit everything.

Another thing, I was looking over at B1 the other day and I saw my presidential prediction for this coming cycle: Jeb Bush. First of all, I want to apologize to all the Democratic readers for implying that the Reps are going to win it in the first place, but I also want to apologize to Republicans far and wide for putting forward such a feeb. Yeah, that dude totally sucks, and I should know, I lived through his governorship. I think people from all sides of the political spectrum can agree that Jeb is a special kind of jaggof. Blackjack Wayward corrected the error, making the president a make-believe character, but since I made her a woman, some of you might assume I meant her to be Hillary. Nope. I just like the idea of a woman president - not necessarily her in particular. I'm raising a daughter and it'd be nice to tell her, "you can become anything," and actually mean it. The next president (who will factor into B4) is going to be Asian. Don't ask me how these people serve such short presidencies in my book, I don't have a logical answer.

Enough about politics anyway, B3 is coming soon, and I’m going to try for the follow-up around the same time next year, getting Blackjack back on course.

Thanks for everything, and I look forward to your comments and questions.

Greetings from Merrit Island!

Man, you guys should have seen the sunset we had over here. We were eating some salmon en papillote (wrapped in paper, lol) that my sister and I threw together and someone looked out the window - mind blown.

I always use this annual week-long getaway to get some work done. There's beach and sun and pool, but by 11 o'clock, midnight, I'm the only mouse stirring in the house we rent, and I always bring my laptop. Last year was a disaster, 7 days/0 pages, but this year I'm doing pretty good so far. It helps that I have the story fully broken down, where last year I was having a huge crisis of confidence, post-B2, and unsure about what I had for B3.

This year is different; I'm rocking along with the Alec POV and plan on finishing his entire arc by the time we head back to Miami.

I want to take a minute to thank G.R.R. Martin for inspiring me to do a split POV story. Reading the first book in his series blew my mind and sent me on this journey. Another story that had a huge influence was House of Cards, the recent Netflix edition. Watching Spacey chew that script was another paradigm shift for me, making me revisit the entire project. In any case, those are the two main inspirations to IO.

Moving forward, I'm writing the thing in consecutive order, each POV at a time, then I'll go back and interlace the whole thing. I just broke 700 Word pages, and I figure another 300 until I'm done - it'll be a good 2k Kindle pages when all is said and done. I have a full outline to keep me organized, but I'm finding so much more in each character that I didn't have before. This is one of the reasons we pulled it. Sure, it wasn't working as a serialized story, but also, I was discovering a lot about the characters that I wanted to go back and implement from the beginning.

For example, I never realized how important Mistral's father, and his legacy, were going to be to her character arc until I wrote it. Now I'm forced to go back and do some rewriting to backtrack a lot of cool things I've found out about her.

Going through this process makes me respect comic book writers so much more. They're operating on a small piece of the whole, and have to have a level of organization and discipline that I failed to have in my first serialized attempt. If I try it next time, I'll write the whole thing, THEN publish.

As far as when? It's a long term project, let's be realistic. I'm going to retain the previous two editors, and go with the same exact process, so don't expect IO to be done any time soon. I'll keep you up to date with my comings and goings, but I fully expect my next book (B4) to be done before IO ever sees a publication date.

Wait, did he say...WHAT DID HE SAY????

Yes, B4 is going to be next. It's the least I can do for you guys, who have waited so patiently while I fumbled with B3. I have the storyline ready for breakdown, and when Josh finishes editing B3 (and I'm done writing IO) we'll get hard at work making it happen.

So B4 is next, and I really want to get back into my April/May release slot. Damn...I said I wasn't going to talk about dates. It's probably not realistic to expect it so soon. Maybe the June/July thing works better.

Anyways, I have the following ideas for the title of B4:

Blackjack Messiah
Blackjack The Cult
Blackjack Lightbringer

One of the major realizations that I've come to while working on Blackjack is that the Lightbringers will be a major arc, but it won't be the end. So why wait? Let's get that arc started!

Cheers from the Sun and stay safe!

IO and Blackjack 3 (and B4)

Blackjack 3 update! My editor is slow. GO FASTER, dammit, May is ending and June is almost here.

IO update! I officially broke 600 pages on IO. This is the epic we've been craving for, and Josh, the crazy bastard, is already plotting book two. At present, I'm finishing up the Mistral storyline then I'll get busy with Galan, Alec & Ev and Canino. I'll probably have the book done by the end of Summer.

Then what? Then pivot over to Heart of the Jungle (finish it! - in the Mortal Combat announcer voice), or Tier Zero...or Blackjack 4.

What??? Blackjack 4??? Yeah, if you guys recall, I started a whole different story a year ago, and set it aside for what's turned into Blackjack Dead or Alive. That material I had was real good, though. Definitely a story I want to tell. I would start B4 with 1/3 already in the can, as it were. Imagine, two Blackjack books in one year. The more I think of it, the more it seems possible. 

Tier Zero and Battle can follow B4 without too much trouble. Marvel did 2 Iron Mans before they did the Avengers, right? We can do 4 before hitting the meta. Blackjack 1-3 are kind of the setup to the real stories that are coming. I mean, it took the guy long enough to get his shit in gear.

But first I want to finish IO, at least do my part and drop it in the laps of the editors. I figure I'm 2-3 months away from completion, then the rest of the year I can spend on other stuff.

If it was up to you guys, what would you prefer? I suppose everyone will want Blackjack more than the others, right?

On a side note, and as part of what has me motivated to get right back to Blackjack, I saw Tomorrowland yesterday with my girls. Wow. I'm such a Brad Bird fanboy that I won't even entertain talk of the movies flaws (what movie is flawless anyway?), but the message of the film got me thinking about Blackjack - in a write-the-next-book-fast kind of way. I mean, we've all heard the argument that Bruce Wayne could potentially do much more good if he spent his time, money and efforts on helping Gotham, rather than on batwings, batarangs and batcaves to fight crime. I know, the character has his pre-defined pathos and it's not like you could talk sense to a psychopath/sociopath like Batman. 

But there's an argument there, and I think it applies to Blackjack as well. Something inspired by Hugh Laurie's character in Tomorrowland.

Anyway, I'm going to see Mad Max this week so Blackjack 4 might turn out to be a testosterone-laden romp through the Australian countryside as much as it could be a thoughtful exploration of a troubled hero and his nascent efforts to try to do some good.

Talk to you guys soon!

Done writing, but...

Blackjack Dead or Alive is done and in the hands of the editor!

The final edit requires an outside look, and for B3 it's going to be my co-writer Josh Hoade, Blackjack himself. He's had a huge input into both of the previous books, but this time he's involved in an even bigger role, he helped me piece together the first draft, then was the only person that agreed when I thought I should shelve about 200 pages and start all over again. We put this new story together with a ton of new characters, and some old ones. He's been Apogee's greatest advocate, and thanks to him some of the guys that we knew so well have added depth, namely Epic.

Epic in this book? Hell yeah, and Haha, and Super Dee and Moe and A LOT of Apogee, but primarily, this is the final step in Blackjack's journey into finding his place in the world, the last stumble of a flawed guy with a heart of gold. But Dead or Alive is hardly the last word on Blackjack.

I dumped about 1/3 of the previous manuscript, not because it was garbage, but rather because I had other plans for Blackjack. I took my time with his fall in Villain and Wayward, and now that the rise begins, I'm also taking my time. Book three exists for a reason, his first foray into something pure and honest, but also it's the reckoning, a time for transformation. Not into some goodie two-shoes hero. Blackjack isn’t Epic, but neither is he a Villain, regardless of what the world thinks of him. Anyway, book three sets up what I had started writing already, so I’m presented with the opportunity to start book four with 200 pages in my proverbial typewriter. So Blackjack will fight on, and as long as I can, I’ll bring you his tale.

Next, though, is Interstellar Overdrive, re-envisioned as a full-fledged novel. I spent the last week re-reading the 600-ish pages of the manuscript. Yeah, that’s how much was ready to come out the door. As April ends, I’m got my mindset switched over from Blackjack and Apogee to Alec and Ev, Mistral and Canino, and Galan – never forget about Galan. We’re taking this opportunity to revisit the whole thing, and we’ll backtrack any changes that we come up with. Don’t be upset if a name changes here or there, or if it reads a little better when it’s all put together. What I do know is that this book is going to be a monster. From where it leaves off at page 574, until the finale, I think I’ve got another 400 pages to write. So there’s my Summer.

The real delay with IO will be the editors, in particular the final pass, so the soonest it might be done is by the end of the year. Trust me when I tell you it’s worth waiting for these guys to do their magic.

Interstellar Overdrive might take long enough that my next project will probably come out sooner, and I want to take a moment to talk about some of our plans.

Josh is a damned good writer in his own right, and he’s decided to take on a superhero group that we’ve come to know and love, Battle. This will switch the paradigm between us, with him as the main writer and me coming in to do the polish in the end. Battle is a group formed by Superdynamic in the hopes of “training up” a bunch of newcomers with impressive powers. The story will revolve around the hero Ricochet and his struggles to control his abilities. It’s in Josh’s hands, of course, but so far I love everything he’s coming up with. You’ll see more of Ruby, Moe, Templar and the bunch, and for the big villain, none other than Baron Blitzkrieg and his Dogs of War. We’ll have more about this project in the near future. Right now, we’re still breaking down the story. I think you guys will love someone’s fresh take on these dear characters.

Next on my slate after IO is a new project we’re only now starting to put together. It’s another Bequer/Hoade production, set within the Blackjack world, but looking at things from a different perspective. The idea came to me while watching the awesome X-men movies recently. Think it was in Days of Future Past, during the Nixon stuff at the end, the President asks, “Do we have a response to this?”

It seemed to me to be one of the flaws of most superhero movies, and something that only the excellent Agents of Shield TV series seems to want to deal with, the homo sapiens response to homo superior/metas/supers, etc. It looks from the trailers that Batman vs. Superman might deal with the subject, but again from the point of view of the supers.

I want to explore a realistic answer to such a threat, and I have to thank Josh for the brilliance to suggest we weave it into the Blackjack world. In this world, supers are established for over 60 years, leading us to believe that there would be a well-thought out system to handle unruly supers. We use the well-worn trope of power-dampening manacles and rooms, and a whole rolling chair thing in B3, as well as super-only designed prisons like Utopia isolated in the bottom of the ocean. There are laws that govern super behavior, and organizations that are designed to deal with the good and the bad. If you’ve read Villain and Wayward, then you’re familiar with our take on how humanity would respond.

Tier Zero will take things to another level, a response that we might not be all so comfortable with, that is sometimes necessary in the modern day. It’ll be a commentary on modern war, of course, and to how we behave against perceived threats.

As excited as we are about B4, Battle and Tier Zero, we’re thinking of putting it all together in a book that will tie all the threads together, and finally deal with the elephant in the room, The Lightbringers. The idea is in its infancy right now, but we envision it will be a two-parter about their arrival and the aftermath. We’re thinking it should be in third person, with multiple POVs like IO, so you’ll get to see a different side of Blackjack and what people really think about him.

Okay, so that last part is based on some very premature talks, but I couldn’t hold it back. The Lightbringers wouldn’t be published until after B4, Tier Zero, Battle, and even B5 and possibly Battle 2, but it’ll be a nice way to cap off the whole series. Since it would take place over two books, we might interlace it with the other series, crossover-style. They do it comics, right?

Then when everyone’s too old, we’ll just recast everyone and reboot…

Anyway, those are our plans right now, with Heart of the Jungle somewhere in there. Blackjack Dead or Alive first, though, and soon. When? End of May or the beginning of June, as I've been saying (only a year late!). Thanks again for all your patience, for the comments on this blog and for your continued support.

One final note before I go, everyone has to see the amazing Netflix Daredevil series if you haven’t already. It’s that good.

Blackjack: Dead or Alive is almost done

Almost done, ladies and gents. We're in the edits and I'm giving me another month or two until it's DONE and published.

Just a year late.

I've been pushing it of late, hoping to match the release dates of Villain and Wayward, but it's starting to look like end of May, early June.

The good news is that his sucker is more of the fun Blackjack we all fell in love with in book one, and less of the mopey wuss from book two. Wayward was something he had to go through, and I make no apologies. Dale wouldn't have made it to here without the craziness of book two. In most movies, they fast forward through the part where the anti-hero has to look at himself critically, and admit that he has flaws to overcome. It's usually a quick shot of Matt Damon staring into the horizon dramatically. I wanted the exploration, though, to see where he was going to lead us in the stumbling next steps after a hard fall. As you saw in the initial sequence of Wayward, sometimes we have to hit rock bottom before we can gather our feet beneath us, and in Blackjack's case, it took a mind prison where he had few if any inhibitions for him to see how far he had fallen.

The next step is what this book is about. What do we do when we realize that we're flawed humans, and the hard work to seek redemption is ahead of us. I love how Blackjack confronts his fate in this book. I'd love to think that faced with a similar hard path that I'd have his balls, and his courage.

Blackjack is still Blackjack, though, and no journey with our lovable villain is ever without it's twists and turns...

Well...wtf?

IO's turned out to be a blunder and the mistake is totally mine. We're going back to formula with regards to the format and plan to release it as a full novel. The "comic book" format idea was my brainchild and I have to take that one in the chin. I apologize to anyone that's invested in the project so far, but it's stupid to not admit a mistake. I still think the story is good, but the serialized format has to go.

The good news, it's going to be a fat book, planned for release in the Summer of 2015 and full of the good stuff that you've enjoyed so far. We're looking at a 2.99 pricepoint so you get your money's worth.

BUT I CAME HERE ABOUT BLACKJACK!

This is a Blackjack blog, isn't it? It is, and the news on Blackjack is even more promising. I'm 80% done. Yeah, you notice how I haven't made any posts at all in the last few months? That's why (yeah, right). In any case, I'm through to the final act and I should have that ready in the next few weeks. Then my editors turn it to mush and show me how I don't know how to write.

The best part is that I've rediscovered Apogee and she's in it almost as much as Blackjack, and I've found a way to write in alot of the old favorites, including Superdynamic and Battle, Epic and...yes...Atmosphero.

The plan? To get back to my end of Q1 release like the other two books, so March or April. While the edit monkeys do their thing, I'll finish IO (I'm 2/3's finished there), then we pivot away from those two projects for either Heart of the Jungle or a new project called The Seeker. After that, Blackjack 4.

Well, I can dream, can't I?