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Get The Crimson Pact anthology vol. 2, with my short story Karma, and 27 other tales of demon-slaying goodness, from urban and high fantasy, to science fiction and steampunk, to straight-up horror—all set in a shared multiverse. The ebook edition is only 4.99 (14.99 for the print version), at the CP site  or Amazon.

Projects and deadlines and demons, oh my!

The deadline for The Crimson Pact anthology, volume 3 is coming up at the end of the month. I've been planning to do an indirect sequel to Karma, my Quiet World story from volume 2--but from Kai Traeger's point of view as he and Halloween Jack (aka Jaqueline Hallow) investigate how the demons got there to begin with. Read more about Projects and deadlines and demons, oh my!

It's not you; it's me

My apologies for the lack of updates, and for my tardiness in responding to recent comments and contact messages. I won't go into detail here, but my life sort of blew up shortly after my last post, and I've been working on piecing it back together with duct tape and superglue. I am still writing, though, and will continue to do so. Read more about It's not you; it's me

The somewhat-adequately-laid plans of rodents and hominids

First, a blatant plug: My bird story comes out tomorrow (Dec. 20th) in the email edition of Daily Science Fiction! Sign up for Daily Science Fiction tonight, and you'll have it in your inbox by morning. DSF publishes one story a day, M-F, with email subscribers getting each story a week ahead of time, so if you don't sign up in time, you can still read the story on their site on, I believe, the 27th. Either way you go, it's free, and they don't spam you. (And writers, take note; they are one of the higher-paying markets for short F&SF.)

About this site, the comic, and everything else: From now on, this is where everything public goes first--before because as much of a tinkerer as I am, the site will never meet my standard of "ready." And although I still plan to migrate the things I want to keep from the legacy site, I'm not going to hold myself hostage to that process.

Blue Crash Kit--as in the relaunch and continuation of--is still coming along, just at a slower pace than any of us would like, and as I announced earlier, I'm waiting until we have a big buffer before I post a single comic. I'm giving Amee more of a free hand than I did when she initially took over art duties from Shan, and she's doing some awesome things with it. It's more of a collaboration this time around, even on how we tell the stories, and instead of trying to do "Rob and Shan's BCK (with Amee playing the part of Shan)," we're doing "Rob and Amee's BCK." And so far, it feels good.

Scrivener: Still building .deb installers for the unofficial Linux beta of Scrivener, with Lit&Lat providing the files, and me packaging them up, but I have some tasks I need to pay more attention to. The most recent Linux beta doesn't expire until March of 2012, though.

Excuses for delays on everything: Read more about The somewhat-adequately-laid plans of rodents and hominids

The importance of craft and significant detail in fiction

(Note: This essay is in the middle of a rewrite, so you may find inconsistencies and redundancies here and there. It was one of the more popular posts at the old version of the site, though, so I'm throwing it out there as-is, despite the issues here and there. I also need to give credit to Kij Johnson, Matt Schmeer, Greg Luthi, and Lane Robins--aka Lyn Benedict--for helping me learn a lot of this.)

I hear a lot of would-be fiction writers say they "don't believe" in studying writing. They fear that to do so will force them to write by some preset formula and destroy their "personal styles." Nothing could be further from the truth. If you look at some of the greats--who have wildly divergent styles--you will find that they almost universally studied the craft. Not all of them took classes or read books about writing, but they still studied the craft in one way or another, even if only by reading works they admired and paying attention to what worked and didn't work for them. Yes, insidious, isn't it, this thing they call learning? If you truly love something, you may not always be aware that you're studying it. Read more about The importance of craft and significant detail in fiction

"Karma," in The Crimson Pact Volume Two

I'm pretty excited about my urban fantasy, Karma, being included in The Crimson Pact volume 2, alongside stories by so many other talented writers. In keeping with a long tradition of authors posting story teasers, here are roughly the first 2,700 words (out of a little over 15,000) of Karma.

You'll also find a few notes on writing the story at the bottom of the post, along with the video trailer they made for it.

Karma

by D. Robert Hamm

We hit the interstate like an unguided missile.

Read more about "Karma," in The Crimson Pact Volume Two

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by Dr. Radut.