I haven’t had much to say, so I’ve laid off bombarding you with updates that contained no news. However, a few months back, I was told that Inkshares is ready to begin producing Disintegration.

I was overjoyed at the news, as it’s been quite a long road, but the road is yet longer. Alas. Inkshares has asked that I pare by 50,000 words the manuscript I submitted. This is no small feat. I managed to trim 20k by eliminating some character backstory and world-building, by sacrificing some parts that I felt were illuminating but weren’t essential to the overall plot. But another 30k remain to be pared. And that task is much more daunting.

Of course I’m in love with my own words, but I do realize that they’re not all golden and they’re not all necessary. That’s why the first cut was relatively easy. I want the story to be full and rich and chock with the kinds of connections and background that make it an epic, immersive experience, but the logistics don’t really allow that, since this is my first commercial book. The business of books asks "Who the hell is this?" of an unknown author, and "Why the hell is his book so long?"

Inkshares believes that my book will have wider appeal if it is narrower of width. That perhaps a skinny spine might entice a casual reader to pick it, on a whim, from a bookshelf ... where a fat one would not. I would like my book to be published, so I accede. Or, I am attempting to. It’s been slow going because I’m a full-time public school teacher and a graduate student and my "free" time is the time I spent looking at the backs of my eyelids.

But the book is coming. A version of it, anyway. A heavily abridged version that will, I hope, be a leaner, meaner, quicker, punchier version than my originally submitted draft. It’ll be such a rousing success, flying off bookshelves due to its striking black and red, and thin, spine, that the big, fat, unabridged version may well follow due to overwhelming demand.

A man can dream. And, while this man dreams, he is working on paring a novella’s worth of words from Disintegration so, like a boxer, the book meets its target weight and is ready to fight for science fiction supremacy.