Another month, another monthly update. How is it I can have so much going on, and make no apparent progress?

• The Genesis Protocol - Book is out! I've actually seen it. Bigfoot was reading it while standing on the deck of the Flying Dutchman while waiting for a white elk to stroll by. I tried to get a picture of that, but the shadow of the UFO was screwing up my camera.
  
  
• Summon the Thunder - Kevin and I received galley pages for this today. Reviewing those with a deadline for returning corrections of March 8th.
  
  
• Untitled project - Turned first draft of manuscript in to the editor on January 9th. Awaiting editor feedback; will offer more details when the editor gives the go-ahead.
  
  
• S.C.E. #64: Distant Early Warning - Editor Keith DeCandido sent this to the licensor for approval on January 31st. Awaiting approval/feedback from them.
  
  
• Mere Anarchy: Book 1 - Currently writing this with Kevin. Manuscript due April 1st.
  
  
• Corps of Engineers #1: Turn the Page - Proposal accepted by the editor November 20th (or so). Kevin and I are awaiting licensor approval. Not sure what the manuscript due date will be, but I'm guessing some time around the 1st week of June or so.
  
  
• Enterprise: Mirror Universe project - a novel of approximately 50,000 words or so, with Kevin and I assisting former Enterprise staff writer/producer Mike Sussman with the writing. Had a fun conversation with him just this evening to talk about the story, and I gotta say...this is going to be a kick-ass ride. Not sure what our due date for a manuscript is going to be, but the editor is giving us a break thanks to our other commitments and such. More on this as details firm up and it's appropriate to share info.
  
  
• Original nonSF short story - Sent to market editor on September 17th. Waiting to see if it's accepted or rejected.
  
  
• Original SF short story - For an open-call anthology. Story sent to editor January 23rd. Waiting to see if it's accepted or rejected.
  
  
• Original short story - Outlined and a partial draft is complete. I've found a market for it, so I've got reason to get it done and out the door. Yee-haw! Other stuff with deadlines still take priority, though :)
  
  
• Original SF short story - I've outlined the first short story based in the "universe" of The Last World War. This one's on the back burner as I take care of projects with deadlines, but I'm thinking I'd like to write this in the next month or so. More info to come as I move forward on it.
  
  
• Counterstrike: The Last World War, Book II - Proposal is still in limbo. Some encouraging conversations, but nothing definitive, and certainly not anything I can share at this time.
  
  
• Trek novel solo project - Awaiting editor feedback on proposal.
  
  
• Trek novel project with Kevin - Awaiting editor feedback on proposal.
  
  
• Tie-in project with Kevin - Kevin has created a third version of this proposal, and is now waiting on me to get off my ass and work on it myself.
  
  
• Trek tie-in project - Nothing much more than a hare-brained idea at this point, I've nevertheless written a five-page proposal for it. Not sure if it ever will see the light of day, but I figure it's good for giving the editor a laugh.
  
  
• Two articles for Star Trek Communicator magazine with Kevin - These are still on hold pending word on direction of the magazine.
  
  
• Non-fiction/non-genre article (or series of articles) for local/regional magazine or newspaper - Got some research done on it, but I still need a market. Might have found one...still need to write that query letter....
  

A few questions for those of you who visit my site and who also have LiveJournal accounts:

I'm considering making the switch from Blogger. I've already gone and registered an LJ account, but I'm still feeling away through the setup process. From what I've seen, LJ offers a variety of features and little niceties that make it easier to connect with other bloggers. I like the way it handles comments better, the whole friends feature, and so on.

For those better skilled at this sort of thing than I am, I'm wondering about the following:

How easy is it to customize the page(s)? As you can see from reading this, I've achieved a measure of success at tinkering with the Blogger template enough so that it at least appears to fold in as just another page on my site. Can something similar be done with LJ, or am I just better off maintaining the blog as something separate from my webpage?

Thanks to anyone who can offer me this initial advice!

I'm very jazzed to announce to the entire freakin' world and points beyond that my wife and I are expecting our first child, due some time in late August or so. We got to hear the heartbeat for the first time earlier this week, and by all accounts the kid's gonna love jammin' rock music.

So, there it is. Something tells me I'll have plenty of fodder for stories in the coming months....

Inspired while listening to the radio during my drive in to work this morning....

Have you ever maimed, mauled, or just plain damn-near killed a friend of yours?

C'mon, folks! Post those war stories!

I'll start: I nearly killed myself and two other Marines while driving one of the (then) brand new Humvees in the desert of Twentynine Palms, California. Being dumbasses, we decided to see how steep an uphill grade it could handle.

Well, we found out.

The hard way.

As it happens, you really can roll one of those things.

David Henderson, Supreme Webmaster of the Psi Phi Trek books site, has posted excerpts for several Star Trek: S.C.E. e-Books, including Distant Early Warning, our latest story featuring Mahmud al-Khaled and the S.C.E. team from the U.S.S. Lovell as well as the new cast of characters from Star Trek: Vanguard.

Sweet!

Finally!

According to Amazon.com and Barnes & Noble.com, it looks as though The Genesis Protocol is now available and shipping. It should be showing up in stores any day now, as well.

Hey. It's never too early to start that Christmas shopping, you know....

Made excellent progress on my portion of Mere Anarchy Book 1 today: 3,000 words. Kevin's cooking along on his half of things, too.

In addition to that work, we found time to put some more polish on a pitch for another novel we hope to write together (it's not "there" yet, but it's close). We also took the time to make some notes on Mike Sussman's proposal for the Enterprise novel we'll be helping him write for next year's series of "Mirror Universe" trade paperbacks. I also got to work a bit on a short story I'm writing on the side when time permits.

Since Monday's a holiday for me, I guess I'll grab some sleep and hit Mere Anarchy again. I expect the chapter I'm planning to write tomorrow will go much faster than the one I wrote today, owing mostly to the "kewl action" stuff I'll be throwing into it. Gotta love them 'splosions and stuff.

According to this article in the Salt Lake Tribune, all 535 elected members of Congress currently receive, each month, the new issue of Hustler Magazine, free of charge and courtesy of magazine owner-publisher Larry Flynt. Attempts to have the mailings stopped have failed, due mostly to some pesky clause in the Constitution regarding the public's right to be heard by Congress and to have a redress of their grievances (in other words, telling them what we think is wrong...or what we think is right and should be left alone, as the case may be).

Damn, that First Amendment's a bitch, ain't it?

I don't exactly know why, but I find this hysterical. It's vintage Flynt, that's for sure.

Of course, PR folks are quick to point out that no one in Congress actually reads or even looks at the magazine, as the envelopes in which the issues arrive are caught by interns or other assistants when screening mail and quickly deposited in trash receptacles.

I suppose it could be be true. I mean, I only read Penthouse for its excellent football coverage and movie reviews, after all.

Pocket Books' editor Marco Palmieri has made a public announcement regarding the author lineup for this project, so now I can actually -- you know -- say some stuff. To say that Kevin and I are very jazzed at our involvement in this project would win today's Understatement of the Day Award.

Here's Marco's announcment, as posted to various online venues:

Margaret Clark and I are pleased to share the final author lineup for our Mirror Universe stories, to be published in early 2007 as two trade paperbacks containing three novels each.

The first volume, edited by Margaret and coming in February 2007, will contain:

• an Enterprise tale by Mike Sussman (Enterprise writer-producer, "In a Mirror Darkly"; "Kir'Shara"; "Twilight"), with Dayton Ward & Kevin Dilmore (A Time to Sow; A Time to Harvest; S.C.E.: Foundations;Vanguard: Summon the Thunder)
  
  
• a classic Star Trek tale by David Mack (A Time to Kill; A Time to Heal; Vanguard: Harbinger; DS9: Warpath)
  
  
• a Next Generation tale by Greg Cox (TOS: Eugenics Wars; TOS: To Reign in Hell; TOS: Assignment: Eternity; TNG: The Q Continuum)
  

The second volume, edited by me and coming in March 2007, will contain:

• a Voyager tale by Keith R.A. Decandido (A Time for War, A Time for Peace; Articles of the Federation; I.K.S. Gorkon; The Lost Era: The Art of the Impossible)
  
  
• a New Frontier tale by Peter David (New Frontier; TNG: Imzadi; TNG: Vendetta; DS9: The Siege)
  
  
• a Deep Space Nine tale by new author Sarah Shaw
  

Titles will be announced as they become final.

...we can get on with one of my favorite holidays:

Half-Priced Chocolate Day.

Hallelujah! Praise be to Russell Stover!

Pretty damned funny.

Space: The Wino Frontier.

It's green, yo!

I usually like to restrict talk about tie-in projects until such time as the editor overseeing said project(s) starts talking about them. As Star Trek: Mere Anarchy editor Keith DeCandido has posted a few updates on this mini-series over on his blog, I figure it's okay to chime in a bit at this point.

As Keith mentions, proposals for all six installments have at least passed over his desk and gotten his initial stamp of approval. There's still some points of discussion being lobbed back and forth among the various project participants, and I've only had the chance to glance over the last two submitted, but all in all, it is as the man himself says: Shaping up to be a kick-ass little mini-series.

Yeah, I'm biased, but this is my blog, so I'm entitled.

For those needing a bit of a memory jog, the initial info offered up about the mini-series can be read in an earlier blog entry.

Kilian Melloy has offered his most gracious review of The Genesis Protocol over at SFSite.com.

During the course of preparing the review, Kilian also took some time to conduct a new interview with me, allowing me to run off at the mouth for extended periods as I talk about past, present, and future writing projects.

Many thanks to Kilian!