Not much of an update lately; I’ve been working on several non-writing projects, including tearing up my back lawn to create a pea-gravel yard. Molon Labe has reached over 150k, and I have gone back to the beginning to smooth over a few rough spots before sending the first part of the book, almost 25k, to my editors. The bulk of the story is done, but what I need to focus on is shortening the general chapters (commentary). In the first section they aren’t a distraction, but by the sixth book they are big honkers, roughly 5k each. It is one thing to have commentary that reflects not just where we are going but also human nature; it is another entirely to make a science-fiction novel so political as to be unreadable.

The first part of the book may not need much in the way of editing. Since the book is long I may decide to serialize it, but it is more likely that the story will be published some time in 2016. I plan on working on the second ‘book’ in the story tonight, sending that in to my editor, and perhaps starting to edit one of the other stories on the back burner, perhaps Idlewild, which has not seen light of day since last November, when I wrote it.

I remember when I was eighteen and slowly turning more political in my writing. I was deeply inspired by the Michael Douglas movie ‘Falling Down’ and wanted to write about a father who goes psycho on a used car salesman for selling him two cars that broke down after the thirty-day warranty was up. It wasn’t going to work, though; at the age of 18 I knew more about molecular biology than I did about what it took to be a father.

The big problem with being a writer, especially one that desires to have an impact like Orwell or H.G. Wells, is that there is a whole lot of garbage writing out there now. It has, in fact, invaded every aspect of entertainment. Films have little meaning today outside of drug use. Music, especially rap and country, have been so watered down that they do little more than repeat themselves each time. People do not want anything real anymore. They want fluff. They want more and more of the same. It is unfortunate, but writers are going to have to get used to it.