Phil Geusz's Blog

I'm pleased to announce that "The Book of Lapism, Deluxe Edition" just went up for sale on Amazon within the past several hours, at

http://www.amazon.com/Book-Lapism-Del...

It should be available at all the other major sellers as well within the next day or so.

"Lapism" contains freshened versions of all the stories from the original work, plus two new ones-- "Prodigal Son" and "Chosen People". This series is rather unlike most of my other work, which is to be expected since it's also rather unlike anything else I've ever read as well. It's about genetic engineering, ethics, spirituality, human nature, and Rabbits.

I hope you enjoy!

I'm a little premature in this, but there are only a few hours worth of work left to go before the final edit of the last Byrd book is ready for the publisher. Yay! The first two covers are proceeding well, and it's my hope that we'll have the beginning of the series on Amazon and everywhere else in 3-4 weeks. It's very exciting to be returning to the market again. Plus, the lengthened and re-edited Book of Lapism will be out again soon as well.

Life is good!

I think I've finally turned the corner on a series of books I've been working on for almost two years now-- longer than it's taken me to produce anything else. The "Byrd" books-- about a pair of brothers taken hostage by the alien conquerors of Earth and raised by their royal family-- have up to now felt like a job that would never end, but just last night I realized that I ought to be done with the rough draft in a couple months, tops. Since I've already done a number of edits on the two longest books-- I wasn't able to do much else while recovering from a heart attack last summer-- I expect the series may appear on the market possibly as soon as next summer. Yay!

(For what it's worth, I hate it when authors publish the first books of a series and then never finish it, so I insist on having them all complete at least in rough-draft form before anything is released.)

If I've learned anything from writing these books, it's that I'm tougher than I thought. The scope of this series is huge, and more than once I nearly gave up due sheer intimidation and self-doubt. Yet despite multiple family deaths and numerous health problems I've plugged relentlessly away, admittedly slowed but never quite stopped. Thank you to the members of the mailing lists I send my rough drafts to, as always, for your support and patience-- I owe you guys _everything_!

In other news... I still don't have any idea what comes after the Byrd books except that I want to move away from action adventure for a bit. I've always felt that I can write many different kinds of fiction at least decently, not just blaster-and-planet stuff, and even though it's never sold worth a darn I'd like to try cranking out some literary fiction or classical SF or horror or _something_ different. At various times I've written and loved writing all of these. In any event I definitely need a change-up of some sort; time will tell what form it takes.

Let's just hope that it's not the long, long spell of writer's block that I'm a decade or more overdue for...

It always happens every year around the holidays-- too much stuff gets scheduled and not enough actually gets done. I have _some_ excuses-- a very large check from my previous employer has been delayed many weeks past when promised, and some remodeling work on my house ran hugely over schedule. I was also too sick to function in any meaningful way for about three days. But... Facts are facts. I'm behind on everything.

Or, _almost_ everything. The one thing I swore I'd keep up on and not let go to pot is writing. I said I'd treat it as I had my old job, and almost sixty days into retirement I can say with pride that I've done exactly that. Both the improved "Book of Lapism" and a standalone copy of "Cheetah's Win", an old novella of mine that I'm very proud of, are now rewritten and launched, probably to hit the shelves in 2015. While progress on the "Byrd" series is slow, it's stable and I peck away at it every single day.

I somehow always felt that the first sixty days of retirement might be the hardest, and I see signs that maybe this was true. Mostly I think I need to move around more, so after the holidays I plan to join a health club. If I can keep up with that as well as I have writing-- and I have reason to believe I can-- then the future is bright indeed for me.

Thank you, my readers! Your steady support is what's given me the courage to try writing as a full-time profession!

Well, I've gone and done it-- there's no looking back now. I'm officially an ex-Tennessee Auto Worker, now well into my second week of retirement and already doing quite well in terms of getting lots more authoring stuff done. My long-term project (and the reason I've not published anything new in so long, for those who follow such things) is going quite well. This is a seven-book space-opera SF series, and I just finished the rough draft of volume four last week. So far my beta readers seem pretty happy with it. Still, in order to avoid going stale-- especially with me doing so much more writing on the average day all of a sudden-- I've decided to switch up for about two weeks to work on something not nearly as liable to sell well but which represents a return to my deepest roots as an author. This is a re-release of my old "Book of Lapism", which will mostly be of interest to my furry-fandom readers. It'll include two or three-- still deciding!-- new "Lapist" stories, and with any luck ought to be out on the market by spring.

Each and every day I'm feeling better about the decision to retire and spend more time at the keyboard. I hope you guys out there enjoy the results!

Hello, everyone!

I just found and took over my "author's page" here at Goodreads a few days ago, and am sort of overwhelmed at the response I've already gotten. It's going to take me a little while, but I hope eventually to make this a nicer place and perhaps even my primary online "home" as an author. All I ask is your patience-- I'm retiring from my full-time job in four weeks as I type this, and after that hope to have more time to spend on writery stuff.

Until then...

...Thank you, thank you, thank you for all the wonderful support I've already gotten. I can't begin to express how much your readership has meant to me.