West Christmas Story Coming to Patreon

The list of WIPs and things I have to write (HAVE TO, because I’ve promised folks and/or they’re scheduled for release) is long, and yet a couple of weeks ago my brain said, “Hey, why don’t you write something totally different that barely anyone will get to read? Because that’s a fun use of your limited time.”

I thought maybe I’d write a little bit and it would fizzle, but instead I wrote the whole short story that day around freelance work.

Accidentally. As one does. (Fun fact: Soulless was written accidentally over two weeks circa 2009. Sometimes novels fall out of my head unintentionally.)

A bit of revision and tweaking, and it’s currently sitting at 8K and scheduled for the West Is Best Club at Patreon this Saturday morning (EST). And as a bonus, it helped me fix some world-building problems I’ve been dreading dealing with much later in the series.

Why Patreon and why only the West Is Best Club tier? Because a. it’s West POV, and they’re promised a West POV story/chapters monthly, and b. his POV spoils a lot of things in the series because he knows a lot more about everything than everyone else does. That’s why it’s an ideal project for Patreon–otherwise that kind of thing languishes on my hard drive unless it’s seen by a couple of friends. 

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This story takes place a year after Tiger’s Memory and directly deals with the aftermath of that novel. 

Yeah. Yeah with that. West is kind of blindsided. 

I still have a Livi novella in progress that all folks at Patreon have been reading. I don’t think I’m going to have that project done for Valentine’s Day (not if I keep writing shit I’m not scheduled to write) but we’ll see.

In addition to new Livi books next year, I have another new project in progress that I’m hoping to launch–Patreon and Alchemy Red folks have had a little preview.

I really, really want to talk about it. To anyone who will listen. But before a project is done, it’s…vulnerable. I get uncomfortable with the books-are-babies metaphor (because it’s illegal to do to babies what I do to books), but writing–particularly a zero draft–feels a bit like gestation, or maybe baking. What you’re creating is new and still developing, and anything can knock its development off and fuck it up. Aunt Judy was the only person in the world I used to send projects to as I was writing them–like a handful of chapters at a time–because she provided only positive reinforcement (that was how I wrote River, Bloodlines, and the four out of five books I’ve written of an unpubbed dark YA series). Otherwise I don’t like to talk until something’s done-ish.

So I’m not talking. Yet. But the more it simmers, the more excited I get about it.

I’ve written it off and on for a few months when I suddenly thought “I wonder if I’m struggling because it’s in the wrong POV”. Sure enough, I switched from third person to first, and everything’s clicking much better. I’m hoping to get some of that done over the holidays before I start working in earnest on Livi #5.

When the first book in the new series is done-ish and ready for preorder, I’ll announce it. I’m also going to be serializing a prequel novel next year to dovetail into it, not only on Patreon but I’m going to try on Gumroad as well. I dislike all my eggs in the Patreon basket, but thus far it’s the one service that’s offered everything I need it to do, and Drip by Kickstarter was never launched publicly (and has since been sold). If the new serial works out on Gumroad, I’ll see about duplicating other content there as well. 

So basically, that’s what’s new here, and those of you getting the new story on the weekend, I hope you enjoy it.