Barry Napier asked me a very timely, deceptively simple question last week: What are you working on? I'd been thinking about that a lot, pretty much every time I opened up my WIP folder—which story folder to open?

After finishing Amity earlier this year, I've started and abandoned a lot of projects; mostly novel ideas, a couple of short stories. The question almost became existential as a writer…

A difficult, lengthy, potentially very satisfying book rooted in philosophical skepticism and politics.
Another book set in the same world as Amity…familiar ground, but I don't know if I feel the need to do this yet.
A lighter book with potential commercial appeal, fun and potentially less emotionally draining to write than the other two choices.

After a couple of weeks of knocking around all three manuscripts, outlines, and character sheets, I've decided to take on the last option: something that I may have a chance in hell to sell. Or not. Who knows anymore. Regardless of it would end up being a mass marketed work or self-published, it's structured to support an ongoing series of books and short stories, and, of course, t-shirts, coffee cups, mousepads, and breakfast cereals (adult breakfast cereal, the kind you open with a bottle opener).

I just broke 21k, and it's been fun so far.

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Picture this image with face of you or someone in your family. Seriously, this is legal. WTF.

Is it just me, or is everybody pissed as hell at the new TSA procedures?

To put it plainly: I fly 8-10 times a year on business, and I really don't want to have to choose between being photographed nude or having my genitals fondled by a government stooge. I very much dread the next time I have to take my kids on an airplane and have to make that decision for them. This is a strip search, plain and simple.

Yes, the world is a dangerous place full of nutjobs who will gladly kill themselves to take a few of us with them.

No, these scanners don't make us safer. There is no evidence to that effect.

No, the TSA has not stopped any terrorist threat since 9/11, unless you count dumbasses who try to bring pistols in their carry-on luggage (there's a procedure to find those) or nefarious authors trying to smuggle marmite Australia. The types of threats that this was designed to catch–underwear bombs, etc–have all originated from outside of the US. The UK, incidentally, has deemed the photographs of children taken on this scanner as child pornography. Think about that shit for a second.

No, this would not find explosives hidden in a body cavity. Nor would the "enhanced pat-down".

Yes, a crazed jihadist would gladly stuff his rectum with C4 if it meant doing right in the eyes of his leaders.

Yes, former Homeland Security chief Michael Chertoff is a lobbyist and heavy investor in the company that makes the scanners. He's the guy who originally pressed the Congress to allow and fund these devices. It doesn't take a political scientist to see why they are being placed in every airport in the US. Your nude pictures are making Chertoff rich, which kind of makes him like Hustler Magazine's founder Larry Flynt…right?

If you're flying next week (or, really, anytime in the future), consider opting out of the nudie-scan, and letting the public see what the TSA considers reasonable treatment of US citizens. Or, join the kilt-n-freeball protest.

I've emailed my Senator…how 'bout you?