Scott Washburn's Blog

Wow, it has been over a year since my last post. I just don't have a knack for this whole blog thing, I'm afraid. So what's been happening? Let's see, I published the third book in the Martian War trilogy, "The Great Martian War: Counterattack!" and it has been very well received. I'm quite pleased that unlike most series which have a great starting book and progressively less good following books, this one has gotten steadily better with each succeeding book.

The spin-off book, "Texas Front: Salient" has been finished and will be out next month. Jonathan Cresswell-Jones, my dear friend did almost all the writing, but in close consultation with me. I think it is a great addition to the saga.

One of my old novels, "Fires of Memory" has been published and given much wider distribution by Simon & Schuster. Too early to know much about sales.

And I'm working on the next Martian War book, but progress has been very slow.

Okay "The Great Martian War: Counterattack!" the third book in the series has been sent off to the publisher for review and editing. Meanwhile I need to get the maps drawn for it. And keep my fingers crossed that the cover artist will actually deliver a cover! Hard to promote a book when there's no cover art!

Well, I'm nearing 110,000 words and the final big battle. Hope to have it all wrapped up by the middle of July.

Had a really good meeting with my publisher yesterday. He'll be sending me a really nice royalties check at the end of the month and ought to be hearing something about the deal with Simon & Schuster in the next few days. When that goes into effect it should boost sales significantly. Sales of the audio book are surprisingly good. We made some plans for future releases. Also talked about expansion of the Winged hussar range. Wish there were about three of me so I could get involved with everything, but I don't think that's going to happen :)

Tomorrow I'm off to NJCon, a gaming convention. My publisher will have a booth there selling books. I plan to signs some books and talk business with him. Then maybe dinner. He says he has a surprise for me. I can't imagine what it is. Presumably it's something good :)

My latest novel, "Across the Great Rift" is now available on Kindle. The paperback will be out next month. I wrote this one seven or eight years ago and a lot of my test readers liked it a lot. It's classic SF in the vein of Heinlein, Asimov, Clarke and Piper.

https://www.amazon.com/Across-Great-R...

This week I donated two sets of my published books to the Temple University library. They wanted one set for their Special Collections which includes a collection of science fiction. The second set was for general circulation that people will be able to check out and read.

I think this is very cool. While I love to write, much of my motivation is the thought of leaving something of value to society after I'm gone. I have no great belief in an afterlife, so for me the only form of immortality is to give our civilization some unique creation which people will continue to value down the years.

I don't think that I am a great writer (yet), but I write good stories which people enjoy reading. A few of the things I've written have been good enough to positively change peoples' lives.

My great hope is that my works will survive and continue to touch people far into the future.

Recently I wrote a short story for an anthology based on Warlord Games' "Beyond the Gates of Antares". It is now available for sale. I've only read one of the other stories in it so far, but I think this will appeal to the SF shoot-em up crowd. My own story is in my favorite writing genre: the Academy! :)

https://www.amazon.com/Beyond-Gates-A...

Made it past the 80,000 word mark on Book 3 of The Great Martian War. Writing the Battle of St. Louis now and it is going very well. The finish line is creeping into view and I think I will meet my self-imposed deadline of late June to finish the manuscript.

I went through the third and hopefully final round of edits on my new novel, "Across the Great Rift". This is a science fiction novel set in the far future. It had been scheduled to be out in March, but that has been pushed back until June to give reviewers time to read it before it's release. Apparently this is something reviewers demand and my publisher thinks the book is good enough to warrant having this done. It is a darn good story and I'm hoping it is well received.