Blackjack Beatdown, Part 5

The latest Beatdown is up on our Patreon.

https://www.patreon.com/posts/blackjack-ep-05-18064844

Won't post it here again - cause it's kinda huge.

Oh, and I had an issue with numbers. I blame all the times I hit myself in the head when I was a kid. I blame walls and floors.

Anyway, THIS is the 5th one, not the last one.

Move along...

Blackjack Beatdown, Part 4

Hey guys, Ben here!

Some weeks aren’t fun and games. Some weeks punch you in the balls. This week, we lost a loved one and this one hit us hard. Thanks for bearing with us.

But we’re coming back hard(er)core this week with a full slate of items for you.

Monday the Beatdown hits (you're reading it) and we should have our technical difficulties taken care of so we’ll get back to the VLOG’ing that we’ve come to love. In this VLOG, I'm going to talk a little bit about our video plans (more below). All of this is in broad, generic terms, but it should be a fun video to watch. It should be up in the afternoon.

Tuesday you get more Blackjack Messiah. In the aftermath to the Point Nemo attack, Blackjack's mending from the nasty wound he got, and trying to put together a plan that will keep him off the shelf. This of course goes against the efforts of Superdynamic, one of his few supporters.

Wednesday I’ll write another crazy post and I might have the some Trevor scenes for the folks in the Insider's Club. If you read the near 200 pages of Trevor that we have so far, you know there's some holes. Well, guess what I'm going to be working on, starting Monday?

Thursday we get the next installment of Patriots and Tyrants. In this part, we finally get to meet the heroine of our story, Adrienne Simms. She's a former DIA JSOC adjunct who is no freelancing for an old commander on behalf of a DOJ investigation into former CIA officers gone black. This one in particular, Willie Marquez, is a bunch of laughs - especially with his plans to start wars all over the world. Willie makes Dick Cheney look like a bad tic-tac-toe player.

Friday the plan is to have another VLOG and maybe our first Unreliable Narrators podcast. Josh is coming back with a vengeance, so we might try to get it down on tape. Oh, and I might have some behind the scenes stuff in the VLOG of my first attempt to do video in 13 years. It should be pretty embarrassing.

There’s more, though, in the form of a not-so-big announcement.

All this playing around with lights and cameras and lenses has done something to me – the sleeper has awakened. I come from a production background – I quit the business about a decade ago to concentrate on my kid and my writing. But now I think I’m back.

Tech is cheaper, more mobile, and you don’t need a $5k computer to run Premiere or a $120k Avid to edit decent videos. My experiences of the past couple of weeks has given me a direction – that I’ll be talking about more in the coming days. Basically, I’m bringing back my old production studio and we’re going to start making short films (with the end goal of doing a series or something longform).

More info to come. Right now, my head is buzzing with ideas - and yes, a Blackjack series is what I'm talking about.

Where my progress on (INSERT BOOK TITLE HERE)?

Nothing. This week I wrote about 6k words, which is about half my pace, and most of that stuff was rewriting old junk that made no sense. I admit it, my first draft is sort of like a 0.5 draft sometimes. There’s days I’m not feeling it, but I push myself and do it anyway – and it’s basically crap that comes out. Not the usual crap, too, but crappy crap. The stuff that you just toss aside and rewrite from scratch. That was this week – the clean up.

Why?

I finished B4, with all that’s left is a list of changes and edits and it’s kind of a weird feeling. It’s like when we had our daughter: that first night everyone told us to give the kid to the nurses – so we could sleep. We did it, and I’ve always regretted it. My baby was done, now I wanted to spend time with her.

That’s not exactly like what I’m going through, but it’s a post-finished draft thing that is getting worse and worse with each book. After Pats, I spent a full month like a drunk, wandering the streets. It’s a fog, where all you’re thinking about is one thing, then that thing is gone. I’m trying to pivot hard, but all the other projects I have aren’t calling to me.

I still have my edit list, and I’m going through it methodically, but it’s not the same. Editing and writing are two different animals.

And I need to write.

So what are you going to do?

I’m tempted to write a short work in the meantime. Maybe the first little bit of the next project. What I should do is pivot to Trevor. We have almost 200 pages of that, and it’s just the first act. Within those two pages are several gaps that I need to fill – so there’s stuff I can start writing now. To go on, I would need to start plotting the second act – which is the Hogwarts part – and I’m frankly a little intimidated by what’s to come. I have a bunch of characters in my head, and I have the essence of what happens, but I don’t have the basic plot. And the third act is kind of a blur. I’m scared to move into something unless I have a clear path forward.

The same with B5. I have the first scene in my head already – easy peasy. Then I know what happens after that, and I have a villain in my head (inspired by some of the ideas you guys shared with me in the blog) and an overall character arc and story, but it’s a shred of an idea. A wisp in the wind.

Maybe that’s it. Since I don’t have a project with a solid plot, I’m waffling a little. You know what that means, right? Time to ask you guys for help!

What do I do next?

Looks like I’m going to hit some Trevor. I posted what I’ve got so far on Patreon in case you want to take a look. It’s 0.5 draft stuff, so beware. But yeah, maybe close the gaps and start on the school stuff. I can’t wait to introduce Aeryn Worley and Kemper Valerian...

What I watched on TV last week?

Finished Collateral with the wife and we’re up to date on The Alienist and Agents of Shield. Collateral is a pretty decent British series on Netflix that’s kind of on point with regards to the immigration issues they’re dealing with. It has problems that it kind of beats you over the head a little, but the acting is great and overall it’s good.

The Alienist is a sublime work that’s on TNT at the moment. I can’t suggest it more. Daniel Bruhl deserves some sort of award for it. In fact, we’ll give him one:

“And for best goddamn actor in the Blackjack Kickass Awards…DANIEL BRUHL!”

It’s no secret that I loved him in Civil War, and now he’s cemented himself as a top-notch actor in my book. Luke Evans is at his usual best as is Dakota Fanning, rounding out an excellent cast. If you’re into police procedural dramas, I highly recommend it.

Agents of Shield…gosh, if you’re not watching this then there’s something wrong with you.

What I’m watching on TV this week?

I need to finish Altered Carbon and if I ever expect to regain my daughter’s love, I have to hit up Gravity Falls and Steven Universe. I. WILL. NOT. FAIL!

Favorite Quote of the Week

"I’m back!” - Arnold Schwarzenegger’s first words after waking from an emergency open heart surgery.

Surprise Movie of the Week

Love, Simon. Wow, what a movie. It’s not terribly subtle, but it’s not supposed to be. It’s trying to be a Pretty in Pink for a new generation. Nick Robinson was excellent - and I thought nothing of him after Jurassic World. My kid dragged me, kicking and screaming to see it, and I walked out of it wiping away a bucket-full of tears.

Also, Tomb Raider. Yeah, it’s not Black Panther. It needed a serious rewrite/polish at the hands of my bud, Joshua, and some of the acting was a bit flat - I’m looking at you Goggins. Same with Dominic West. Seems like the senior Croft was written by someone that’s either never had a father or never been a father. PEOPLE DON’T TALK LIKE THAT, DUDE. But Alicia Vikander is just mesmerizing and I kept wanting to see more of Daniel Wu. Am I an idiot for discovering him only now? It was fun, and not Michael Bay/mindless fun. Really, really fun.

What I saw on Saturday:

Ready, Player One. Man, I can’t wait. I know, I know - Spielberg’s got a few missteps of late, but the reviews are great so far. I’ll give you guys a full review with this post.

So, how was it?

Okay, I’ll tell you...really good. A bit by the numbers, but it's fun from beginning to end and more like Jurassic Park than I care to admit.

Cyclops is pretty good, and he has his "stare into the near distance" thing going - a requirement for any Spielberg movie. Olivia Cooke is also pretty special in this. Someone to keep an eye on in the future. The rest of the cast is kind of forgettable - including Simon Pegg.

The effects and the action sequences are great, sure, but they suffer from something that's plaguing a lot of modern CGI movies - too much on screen at once. Too busy, too much crap to keep track of, and that's a particular failing of this movie. See, it's replete with pop culture references, to the point that sometimes you don't follow the narrative because you're geeking out about Iron Giant, or Tracer, or, or, or...

Someone needs to get the message to Hollywood to tone it down a bit - yeah, that's going to happen.

Also, there's a darker narrative that's not-so between the lines; it's a repudiation of all that pop culture that it seems to embrace. Spielberg's not terribly subtle here either - he makes the third act the antithesis of the first two. It's a good argument that needs to be made - are we letting our world fall apart while we spend all our time on Facebook and Twitter - but Spielberg uses a cudgel when he should have used a scalpel.

All in all, I really enjoyed it. It's worth every cent and it's the kind of movie that's best viewed in the big screen. "Spectacle Spielberg" is at his best here and if you've been alive the past 20 years (or 30 or 40), I doubt this will be a movie you won't have fun with.

Rating: 8/10

Guy who I’d cast as Cool Hand Luke:

Sam Rockwell. Hell, I’d cast the guy as anything in anything. He can be Apogee if he really, really wants to. I mean, give the dude a push-up bra and a domino mask and he’d be good, right? I gotta break out the Photoshop...

Thing I’m only willing to admit because of Love, Simon

In the spirit of the movie, I’m going to come out with something. Something I haven’t admitted to anyone as of yet:

I love that Graham Norton show, Kitchen Nightmares. It’s more than love - it’s a fascination. And it’s a sick one, I admit. If you’ve ever seen it, then you’re as horrified as I am about how some of these places run their business, and how poor their health practices are. Everytime I go to a restaurant and feel sick afterwards, I know. That place is a Kitchen Nightmare.

Makes you want to cook at home...

Writing Tip of the Week

The first draft is called the vomit draft for a reason. It’s supposed to suck. You don’t publish that, you barely even let people near it. One of the things I see often on Reddit and in all the blogs I visit is other writers suffering from the anxiety of getting something decent on paper. They’re so worried it’s going to suck that they never finish the page, re-writing and re-writing until they basically going in circles.

Well, that’s not how this thing works. You know how when you build a plane, first you have to draw the designs? Then you have revisions then you start making the parts and finally you can put them together. Well, writing is the same as making an airplane, or a building. You don’t put the flag on the top of the building on day one.

Writing is re-writing and you’re crazy if you expect your first draft to be killer. Faulkner re-wrote, Dostoevski re-wrote. Hell, Shakespeare re-wrote. And you think you’re better? No, of course not. Anxiety about the first stuff you put on the page is fine, overcome it, get past it. Keep going. When you’re done with the book, that’s when the real work starts.

Time will make you a better writer, and as you get more and more pages under your belt, your first draft will start getting better and better. Ask my editor, Josh - he'll tell you. The stuff he's working on now is closer to final draft than the stuff from Villain. But it's not perfect, final draft stuff. No one accomplishes that. Not Stephen King.

See, King's written countless books and screenplays and short stories...and and and...so his stuff comes out much closer to finalized. He prides himself that his first draft work is so good.

But how many books have you written? Yeah, not as many. So write and don't bother editing until you're done. Don't edit anything. Don't even fix your spelling errors.

Another thing, as you progress with the story you'll have natural changes that affect the earlier parts of your novel. DON'T GO BACK AND FIX IT. Write yourself notes, write a book of notes, but don't touch what you've written.

Not until the book/story is done.

About all the production talk above…

I’m 100% serious. I’ve already sent out feelers to some of my nearest friends, two of which are all hot for this idea. One of them, Jeff Oberg, is a chef and wants to start a cooking show. I’ve eaten his food, and had him help me while I was cooking something, and I can tell you that his show would be spectacular. Well, I’m going to assist him in whatever productorial capacity I can.

My plan is to start small. In the years since I’ve shot and edited anything, technology has taken leaps and bounds. Steven Soderberg’s latest movie was shot on an iPhone! So my idea is to return to my 12 year-old self and start from scratch. Back then I would shoot silly ninja movies with my cousins, editing in-camera. Likewise, I’ll start small and build from there. The end goal would look something like a YouTube series, or a full-length feature. And yeah, Blackjack...something Blackjack.

See you all next week!

Patreon is up!

Hey, Ben here. Okay, we’ve been talking about it for, like, 2 minutes, and now we’re doing it…

www.patreon.com/unreliable

Blackjack (and all our other stuff) is coming to Patreon, starting this Tuesday (TOMORROW!). The page is up right now with a ton of content, but this coming Tuesday we’ll have Blackjack Messiah – part one, a full six months before it publishes and the story will keep rolling out until we're done. We’ll also have a ton of free stuff online, but if you want to read Messiah early – as in, months and months before it comes to Amazon – then you’ll want to join our Patreon campaign.

What is Patreon? Maybe you haven’t heard about Patreon, it’s a content provider’s paradise, allowing us to cater the experience to all our fans depending on how much they want to get. There’s different reward levels that you join in for, starting at $1.00 a month going up to $100.00 a month for our Writer's Academy. What do you get for all that stuff? Well, below I break down the reward levels. Suffice it to say that we’re frontloading the $1.00 level, so if all you want to do is read your Blackjack early – before it hits the stands – then that’s all you need. If you want to go deep, and see how we function, and maybe even become part of the process, then there’s a reward level for you.

Here’s all the different reward levels:

BLACKJACK’S CREW ($1.00/month)
· Access to the patron-only activity feed!
. Access to Blackjack Beatdown, our weekly newsletter!
· Access to the new ongoing story Blackjack story: Messiah!
. Access to our brand new story Patriots and Tyrants!
· Patron thanks in all our books!
· Access to our Convention Diaries!

APOGEE’S REVOLUTION ($2.00/month)
· All rewards above this!
· Access to the VLOG!
. VLOG and podcast shout out!
· Access to our monthly Unreliable Narrators podcast!
· Have all your questions answered in the monthly Twitch Q&A!
· Access to the archive (only the early chapters of Blackjack 1-3 until May 2018 - the full works afterwards)!
· I will follow you on Facebook & Twitter! (message me your links after signing up.) 

THE INSIDER’S CLUB ($5.00/month)
· All rewards above this!
· Access to a third, ongoing story, starting with part one of the Trevor Kane saga starting in April.
· Extra material not included in book - Deleted scenes, character studies, or simply just nonsensical scribbles that were the starting point our stories, they're a fun and personal reward only available to you.
· Epub/Mobi/PDF of all our upcoming publications.

THE VILLAINS LEAGUE ($25.00/month)
· All rewards above this!
· Monthly group workshop - We'll help get YOUR story/character/plot right.
· Access to early drafts! As our most loyal fans, you’ll get the unique the chance to help make our work even more amazing.
· Get a Free ongoing Blackjack story, available to you exclusively. This all-new “Elseworlds/What-if?” story won’t be available anywhere else and will feature an original storyline set in the prelude to Blackjack Villain, potentially leading us to a new timeline. (Coming Summer 2018)
· Personally signed printed copy of all our upcoming works.
· Access to private convention panels. If we're at a convention near you, expect a personal invite to our booth and to the Convention Diaries.

There’s also a writing academy that’ll include private online workshops, catered to your project’s specific needs. Need character work, we’ll help your characters pop off the page. The same with dialogue, pacing and overall story. We can also guide you through the publishing process – which isn’t that bad once you get a hang of it. An additional service in the workshop is to put a small segment of your work (a short sequence or scene) in the back of our future publications to promote your work.

Our Patreon campaign is a great avenue to provide you with as much Blackjack (and our other stories) as you can handle in the way we like to work, directly with you. We thrive on your feedback and comments, and through Patreon, you’ll be closer to Ben & Josh than ever before. So check out the page, sign up if you can, and saddle up – we’re in for one hell of a ride!

Ben & Josh

A New Beginning

Wow, last post on our blog (www.blackjackslair.blogspot.com) was in August. I really suck. I'll admit, I’m all spread out all over with Facebook, Twitter and now Patreon so that I don’t know which direction I’m headed sometimes.

It’s my and Josh's fault for not integrating things better, for having a stronger and more cohesive presence online. Well, not so much Josh, he keeps pushing me to stop being such a screw-up. And it's a shame, too, because one of the best things that have come out of the whole Blackjack experience has been getting to know some of the people that like the books. Whether in blogs, forums or chats, or at the couple of conventions we’ve gone to, talking to you guys and feeling your enthusiasm gives me an infusion of energy that carries me through.

But there’s good news in the horizon. We’re going to make a bigger effort keeping everything together and putting everything Blackjack (and all our other ideas) under one roof.

That’s Patreon.

We’re still unsure of how to brand it, whether it should be mainly a Blackjack site, or just a writing site, but one thing we’re certain of is that Blackjack’s coming to Patreon and in heavier doses. The books will still be available on Amazon, the website and blog will still be alive (and more active) as will we be on Facebook and Twitter more often. All those links/info will be made available very, very soon. For now, keep an eye out here or on Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/ben.bequer).

So, what will it consist of? We’re still talking and debating (I’m undefeated in head-butt matches), but for now we’re certain that we want to bring all the Blackjack experience into one site. This includes the next book, Blackjack Messiah, and all other Blackjack stories and art. It also includes other properties we’ve been tooling with, including Interstellar Overdrive, Patriots and Tyrants and a couple of newcomers to the stable; Legend of Sunset Rollins and Trevor Kane and the Heaven Sword.

But wait, there’s more! Yeah, but without selling or bs’ing you, we want to give everyone the experience they want, without gouging an eye out. Those that just want to read some cool stuff about Blackjack, and maybe another additional story along the way, will have easy, cheap access. I emphasize cheap. I don’t think a fun story should cost an arm and a leg. That’s why the Blackjack books are 3 bucks on Amazon, and they will remain that price as long as Josh and I have something to say about it. Other writers and friends have chided Josh and I for the pricing, telling us to raise it to 10 bucks a pop, or at the very least $5. Well, no thanks, and the same will remain for the Patreon experience. The cheapest membership is one buck and, for that $1 you’re going to get a ton of stuff. We’re front-loading the initial “rewards” category so you don’t have to go deep into your purse/pockets to get what you want.

And if you want to, if you can, there’ll be more. More stories, audio read-throughs, text Q&As, Skype Q&As, podcasts, Twitch engagements (watching me rant and rage with our group playing Overwatch or PubG is silly, stupid fun), and so on. I’m also in the planning stages for a new Blackjack series that will ask a simple question: what if Blackjack never made the turn for good? Remember those few beginning chapters of Villain? Remember the feel and the tone? How about more of that? Yeah, he’ll never get recruited to Dr. Retcon’s team and he’ll never meet Apogee and them (or will he?) but there’s so much untapped potential for a TRUE Villain story there, that I can’t stop thinking about it. I don’t know about you guys, but I used to love Marvel’s What if? and DC’s Elseworlds series.

A quick aside about the podcasts: Josh tends to talk a lot. There’s nothing to be done about this. I’ve tried the rear-naked choke, I’ve tried drugs, we've tried counseling. His mouth is independent from all other bodily functions. It helps that he’s brilliant and funny as hell, but be warned, his ability to fill silence is legendary. I will try to drop a nugget here and there. All in all, I can’t wait to get those started.

There IS more, though. One thing we noticed in our Con experiences was that a lot of you are nascent writers. We sat down with some and hashed out their stories, and I gotta tell you, that was one of the coolest experiences ever. We plan to provide a sort of catered service, including Skype conferencing and a new video series, where we can guide you through the creation process. Sometimes a little help goes a long way. And yes, if you want to, we'll put some sample chapters on the site (for free) so alpha readers can give you feedback and everyone can get excited with your work.

All this stuff comes within the bounds of bringing you more Blackjack, more often, and more overall accessibility. I don’t know if you guys remember the Villain contest that ended up helping me develop Brutal (Dead or Alive’s main villain). Well, that’ll be how we develop the new story – with your help and participation. That’s part of the reason I’m eager for a semi-new beginning: we can blaze new trails.

Now, most of this is on a big whiteboard and none of it is final – except that we’re going hardcore on Blackjack and plan to bring it to you on a more regular basis.

As far as when? Well, the Patreon site is coming up soon with the first chapters of Messiah and of Patriots and Tyrants. I’m deep into the third act of B4, so it’s on Josh to see when he’s done editing the Point Nemo sequence that opens the new Blackjack book. You hear us, Josh? Snap to it, dude!

We'll update you soon. Keep up with this blog or the Facebook to stay in touch.

In case you’re curious, below’s a brief breakdown of the projects I mentioned above:

Blackjack Messiah – In the aftermath of the Brutal Incident, Blackjack has a real opportunity to finally move his life in a positive direction. He has friends, like Superdynamic and Apogee, who are helping him to rehabilitate himself and his image, but there’s also enemies – some new and some old – who will do anything to see Blackjack fail.

Patriots and Tyrants - Michael Grayson is a former Navy SEAL turned private military contractor who discovers that his partners are using his company to enact regime change in northeastern Nigeria utilizing an army of mercenaries and weapons of mass destruction, blaming him in the process. Together with Adrienne Simms of a newly formed Department of Justice taskforce investigating Michael and his nefarious partners, they must stop this effort in fear that it might spark outright war and genocide in Africa.

Trevor Kane and the Heaven Sword - Think Street Fighter meets Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon meets Harry Potter, Trevor Kane and the Heaven Sword is a story straight from the legends of Wuxia, steeped in Chinese mysticism and history, with high action and powerful abilities that will make the Earth tremble.

The Legend of Sunset Rollins – Sunset Rollins is like every other sixteen year old in her school, struggling with the transition from childhood to adulthood, but unlike everyone else, she’s given a unique opportunity – join an intergalactic combat sports team, represent humanity in the universal stage, and help change the course of history. Inspired by games such as Overwatch and Mass Effect, and movies like Death Race 2000 and The Last Starfighter, The Legend of Sunset Rollins will tell the story of someone who dreams for more – and gets a chance of a lifetime.

Blackjack New Beginnings – What if Blackjack never joined Dr. Retcon’s team, or met Apogee, what would have become of him? Written in a shorter, serialized fashion, we will see the villain Blackjack was and follow him into the monster he will soon become.

Interstellar Overdrive – Follow four intertwined stories from our distant future, where humanity has left our galaxy and moved into a brighter tomorrow. Then again, human nature can sometimes be our worst attribute…

MAJOR CAVEAT: Hey, we’re warning you. None of the above is set in stone. We’re still talking (and arguing) about what non-supervillain stories to bring alongside the Blackjack books. SO DON’T GET MAD IF STUFF CHANGES!

For the Refunds

I know, I know, we have a new page and we're only supporting that for now. I'm making this post exclusively for people that bought the print copies of the Blackjack series and found errors that require a refund. To those folks, please put your Paypal email here and the amount you paid for the book and we'll pay you back. You don't even have to return the copy of the book to us. If you don't have Paypal, maybe there's other ways to return your coin to you - we are open to ideas, but we'll be grumpy about having to figure new stuff out.

Another option if you don't have Paypal would be a free copy of our next book, which has nothing to do with Blackjack, and is coming out later in the year. I'd be glad to send you a sampler now (just a chapter or two), then the full version upon release at no cost.

Yet ANOTHER option - and this one's only if you have a ton of patience - is a free copy of the next Blackjack book, which is going to come out next year.

Anyway, we're sorry the print on demand copies came out crappy. It's our fault, not Amazon's, not Createspace, and we'll do our damned best to repay your trust in our little book series, one way or another.

Thanks,

Ben (and Josh)

P.S. I blame Josh.

Time to shake things up

Okay, so what’s happening?

I finished Blackjack book 2 and after that I wanted to stretch my legs. So I started a space opera that involved multiple points of view of a coming interstellar conflict. Then I had the crazy idea to do it as a serialized story. My writing partner and I brought in a new guy to give it a final polish, and to BS-check us. If you’ve followed the Blackjack series, you know I need industrial strength BS-checking.

1,200 pages later, no one can keep up with me. We can’t keep the deadlines. My fault, I know. Too ambitious. Fine, put this sucker aside and let’s do Blackjack 3.

B3 comes out 10/15 and you guys were amazing. Thank you for the incredible response.

But my legs, dammit…they need stretching. So I got this funny idea to do the kind of book that anyone could read. What does that mean? No alien warlords, no Arkalian battlecruisers coming out of warp on station point, no super powers. Let’s take a shot at something the moms could read, you know?

The idea is to something simpler, shorter…wait, it’s me – it’s 600 pages.

It’s done and in editing. I spent all last year and most of this year on it and I figure Patriots and Tyrants will hit Amazon come the end of the year. It’s the best stuff I’ve done to date, and you guys have been there to see the development. Again, I brought Joshua Hoade in to be my partner on this. While the idea and the impetus was mine, he’s guided me through some difficult times, come up with some killer stuff and now we’re rounding the final corner. I can't wait until you guys can get your hands on it.

Well, what about Blackjack? Yeah, that’s what I wanted to talk about. Blackjack. Well, we’re going to work on that next. A new arc, where our unfriendly neighborhood villain, turned hero tries to become established. And you know he’s going to screw everything up along the way.

We’re going to see some old villains and heroes again, and of course, we’re going to delve deeper into the mind of Dale “Blackjack” McKeown, a guy who can’t seem to get a break.

But we’re going to try something different this time. We’re going to publish as we go, we’re going to return to that thing we tried to do with Interstellar Overdrive, a more serialized approach. This time, we’re going to do it right (sure you are!). So you’ll have more Blackjack, and more of those other crazy stories that we’re coming up with.

For example, we previewed something called Heart of the Jungle a few years back, then had to throw it in the IO back burner. Well, it’s coming back. So is IO. I’m going to finish IO if I have to kill someone (you hear me Hoade?). And, really, the 1,200 pages of IO, when done, is only the first part of four big fat novels.

Serialized. You’ll have more, more often, but shorter pieces of a larger story. Think that’ll work? I’d love to hear your thoughts. Oh, and don’t worry about us keeping the prices up to gouge you – we’ll drop the prices to correspond so it’ll end up being about the same. Think we went with 99 cents per episode for IO, and the plan was for 9 or 10 and 1600 pages overall
.

What’s changed from before, from when we tried it with IO and fizzled out? Everything, to be honest, but most importantly, the workflow between Josh and I is as well-oiled as ever.

Okay, fine, how’s it gonna work? We’re still working on that right now, but the plan is to have Blackjack 4.1 (The Messiah Arc) ready to go by the end of the year. There’s still debate as to what would be the other properties we’d work on. Patriots and Tyrants kind of works as a novel, but we’re going to test it in pieces as well, see if it can join Blackjack. We’re also going to talk about Heart of the Jungle, Interstellar Overdrive, and some others, including a side story about Ricochet and Templar from Battle (they go to Vegas and all kind of chaos and mayhem ensues) and a new story we’re excited about called Sunset Rollins, something inspired by the game series X-Com, Hunger Games and the Blizzard game Overwatch.

There’s another, ancillary reason for doing this – Cons. As in, conventions. We did a local con at the beginning of 2016 and it had a huge impact on us. We had a blast standing around all day, for three days, pitching Blackjack and his stories, and we made a ton of friends in the process. Surprisingly, we almost sold out of books to sell (sold out of Blackjack Villain late in day 2), and we learned a lot of what people like and what people want from us.

All weekend long we kept commenting how cool it would be to have more material, shorter works we could sell at a lower price. See, since the Blackjack books are huge monsters, to print them out costs a bundle. Selling them at near cost still brings the price per book to like 20 bucks. Now, I know that those thick books are pretty impressive, $20 at a con is kind of excessive. We’ve thought about it long and hard and decided to go back on the con circuit, this time with more stuff to offer. Our booth was pretty nice for first timers, too.

Oh, and we got to meet Darth Vader, Mr. David Prowse himself. In the minutes before the convention started, he was going around the place, taking a look at the displays, when he came by ours. I’m standing there and see him coming when all the air leaves the room and I’m paralyzed. Then he stops by our table and starts asking questions. I did my best, but I think I probably embarrassed myself, and all my forbears. Anyway, he was so nice, so charming – and it was funny how he didn’t like the prequels. I thought to take a picture with him, once he was long gone. Then again, I don’t think I had full frontal lobe function due to how star struck I was.

I do recall one exchange. “This is a book series about a villain called Blackjack,” I said, when he asked what we were about. He smiled, liking that. “Blackjack is a guy who’s very inspired by your work,” I added and his smiled widened. I know, it was just talk. I was nervous, and he was amazing.

I’ll try to scrounge up a picture of our booth so you get an idea of what he saw.

Anyway, we hope you’ll give us a chance to bring you our fun little stories in this new format. I think if we keep to the motto: “more is better” and do our best to keep the deadlines, we can have you guys reading throughout the year, rather than a massive book once every year and a half.

One last thing, this blog is going the way of the dodo. We’re going to integrate everything into a single site that’ll be cooler and better and awesomer. Info and link will come on the same Facebook page, and I'll make a post so you guys don't miss a thing. 

More info soon!

And so it goes...

NaNoWriMo is over and I failed miserably; 35,000 words. Turns out writing on weekends is kind of tough for me. What it is, in case you haven’t heard, is an annual novel writing event. If you write 1,666 words per day, every day in the month of November, you should have a 50k word novel by the end of the month. I figured I’d throw my hat in to see if I could do it and I was off by 9 days of writing.

Of course, the 50k is only a sliver of the overall novel I’m writing. I started with the idea of doing something smaller and more manageable and now I’m at 320 pages (105k words, including NaNoWriMo’s 35k), and I look to have another 100 pages to go.

The 35k was quite a bit, though. It took me from the banking consortium celebration party at Mont Saint Michel to the chase protagonists in a Bugatti Chiron vs. antagonist in a Koenigsegg One:1. Oh, and Bunny stole a French Tiger HAD chopper and is making life near impossible for our boys in the Chiron. Yeah, it’s that crazy.

Next, I’m writing the prelude – where our antagonist sets the wheels in motion. The location is inspired by an upcoming level from the Rainbow Six: Siege game. It’s going to be set on a Tokyo pagoda-style castle built atop a flat-topped skyscraper and accessible only via helicopter. That’s my afternoon.

I’m reading First In: An Insider’s Account of How the CIA Spearheaded the War on Terror in Afghanistan, by Gary C. Schroen, with another stack of similar books waiting on my nightstand. I’m diving deep into the waters of our U.S. military, and of the recent foray into Afghanistan. In part, as a backstory for my lead, and in part because I’m rather fascinated by how the war machine operates. This story looks at it from a soldier’s level, but I also intent to study the broad spectrum, and tell things how I see them. Honestly, what I’m seeing isn’t all that nice.

It’s December now, and the year is almost up – and boy, what a year for movies if you’re a geek/nerd like me. I’ve missed Arrival, but that’s on the slate for this weekend, and I can’t wait until Rogue One and Assassin’s Creed. Yeah, my excitement level is much, much higher for the Star Wars movie. I’m eager to see how a non-Skywalker storyline does in the theaters. I think it’s a test for things to come and if it does well, we can expect more original stories set in the universe.

So far, I’m torn between Deadpool (one of the first I saw all year), and Moana (saw it twice last weekend), as my personal movie of the year. Civil War and Finding Dory are also in there. I do have a question; Pete’s Dragon. Worth it? Not worth it? The trailers did little for me and as someone who saw the original movie as a kid and didn’t much care for it, I couldn’t muster the excitement to take my girls to go see it. Movie most likely to toss Deadpool/Moana from the 2016 title? Rogue One. Man, I'm looking forward to that one.

TV. Well, I’m still reeling from the summer. Game of Thrones is something I’ve talked about at length, something I had a hard time understanding; but wow, this season just sat on my chest and smacked me around. And that ending! Westworld is knocking it out of the park every week, and I can’t wait for the finale this weekend. No, I don’t want to theorize. I just want to watch and get blown away. My wife and I are also catching up on Stranger Things. I know…we move slowly over here.

Product note, isn’t https://www.sunfrog.com/108869394-270836086.html?35517 the coolest thing on the planet? You hear me wife??? Fk it. I’m buying it for myself.

Oh, and I tried this face shaver thing that I have to recommend for bros with heavy facial hair. https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01D328DH8 . It’s not as close as a razor, not by a mile, but if you need to dump the fuzz in five minutes, dry, then this sucker’s amazing. I get nothing in return for this plug, FYI.

And onto Blackjack. Just random thoughts, guys, nothing serious…I don’t want the next book to be “Blackjack Established”, “Blackjack Set and Done.” I know we have to avoid emo-B from book 2 as much as possible, but I also don’t think it works if he’s fully accepted. And besides, there’s plenty of people that will never accept him as a “good guy.” One of the things that I’ve been told about book 3 is that it feels like a transition book. Well, I think Blackjack is a transition character. He’s a flawed guy, who ultimately helps the good cause, right? But he’s not a traditional good guy, and I think it’d be foolish to pretend that he fits in. In fact, I think it’d be awesome for Blackjack and others to make that mistake. Book 4 is going to touch on that at first. Going forward, though, I don’t think we’re ever going to have a Blackjack Hero book.

Soon as we finish Pats, it’s on to B4. 

(PATS word count: 119k. Page count: 334. Percent completed: 3/4s.)