Third Quarter Roundup

It's hard to believe that it's September.  Honestly, I feel like summer just started, and now it's over.  Labor Day Weekend is the official end to summer and the tourist season here on the Shore. In the world of retail, it means one thing: Christmas is coming. 

August just flew by for me.  I had an amazing time in New Orleans for Authors After Dark. The conference was a blast, and I loved being in the city.  It's gorgeous, especially in the historic areas. If visiting Nola is on your bucket list, I highly recommend it.  Just don't fly US Airways.  I still have anger with them over a cancelled flight and lost luggage.

Writing-wise, I'm almost finished with first round edits on TEMPEST (MetaWars #3) and will get that back to my editor this week.  TEMPEST also has a release date! You get Ethan's story on April 23, 2013. The MetaWars world expands even further this time, as Ethan Swift and Aaron Scott head to Manhattan Prison to assist Simon Hewitt in locating a few AWOL prisoners--and Ethan has a very personal reason for wanting to get into Manhattan....

Book 4, CHIMERA, will release in November 2013.  I'm over 1/3 into Renee's story, and I'm genuinely loving her.  A friend who just read TRANCE and CHANGELING for the first time tweeted me the other and said "Renee's kind of a bitch."  I laughed, then wrote back, "Yes, she is, but there's a reason for that!"  You'll just have to wait to find out.  *grin*

I turned in my anthology short last week. The antho will be out next summer with Pocket with a theme that I haven't seen before.  I keep promising more later, and later hasn't yet arrived.  Soon!

Other than that, I have no news.  The Sekrit Project is still out there.  I have a handful of Dreg City short stories in various stages of completion, and I hope to self-publish some of those while I keep working at Dreg City 5.  I'm looking forward to the new seasons of "Glee" and "The Walking Dead." I will probably watching "American Horror Story" again.  Mostly I'll be working, writing, and trying to occasionally hang out with friends, before the hell of Christmas in Retail World swallows me whole....

Where I'll Be in August

August 1st. I ask you, where on earth has the summer gone? Two months are down, and August will be half over before I come up for air.  These next two weeks are packed full of fun things for me!

First up is Shore Leave 34 this weekend, at the Hunt Valley Inn, near Baltimore, MD. This is my twelfth year going to this particular convention, and I'm excited to go again and see old friends. I'll once again be participating in the All Kinds of Writing Workshop on Saturday, as well as several other panels: Superheroes In Between, Self-Publishing and Small Press Publishing, Genre Mash-ups, and Pro-Writing Basics. 

After Shore Leave, I'm home for two days before leaving for Authors After Dark: New Orleans!!!! I cannot wait for this! It's my first AAD, as well as my first trip to NOLA. I can't wait to catch up with some writer friends, meet some other authors, and get to chat personally with bloggers and fans. I already have my costume for the masquerade ball!  It should be a lot of fun.

Once I get home, I have two guest posts going up for two different, awesome month-long events.  The first I mentioned last month:



My post goes up August 13.  Since I'm on the Romp team, Dahlia "Ember" Perkins will be interviewing her boss and mentor Teresa "Trance" West on what it's like to be a superhero, a team leader, and juggle a relationship.

The second guest post is for my second foray into:



Last year, Milo Gant took you on a trip through Dreg City.  This year, you're getting a bird's eye view of the Meta Wars world, lead by Ethan "Tempest" Swift and Marco "Onyx" Mendoza.  They'll give you an overview of the post-War United States and warn you of the places to stay away from.  Plus Ethan gets a little more face-time before his book, TEMPEST (MetaWars #3) comes out next year.  The tour goes up on August 14th!

MetaWars Fun and a Giveaway

Every time I look at the calendar, I'm amazed to see how quickly this year is flying by.  May is almost over, and it feels like it was just March.  Which means that CHANGELING's release is right around the corner (35 days, oh my!).

Speaking of CHANGELING, it received 4 stars from Romantic Times! I admit, I was crazy nervous when I checked for this review.  CHANGELING takes our intrepid superheroes in a few unexpected directions, and when you get to the end...well, all I can do is ask that you trust me.

The review:

The second title in Meding’s MetaWars series is an admirable follow-up to its highly regarded predecessor. The series features a wholly new approach to superheroes and how they interact with our world. The author throws some fantastical sci-fi and thriller elements into the story, and the result is fast-paced and exciting with a good dose of intrigue. It’s a fun read that will have you reaching for the first book if you haven’t read it already, but it still adds new layers for those who have.

 

When empty human skins are found around Los Angeles, the police ask Dahlia “Ember” Perkins and her superhero teammates to help solve the grisly murders. The case takes a dangerous turn when a bullet meant for Dahlia hits one of her fellow MetaHumans. Then coincidences start piling up, after she gets romantically involved with an old friend, and Dahlia realizes that she has a unique connection to the killer — or killers. (POCKET, Jul., 384 pp., $7.99)

The MetaWars books were also featured in a nice little article on RT about superhero novels. With the monumental success of The Avengers (which I'm going to see again tonight), we can only hope that there is a renewed interest in this very small niche of novels.

Red Hot Books is doing an Author's After Dark Feature on my books, as well as an interview and giveaway.  There are only 13 hours left to enter, so pop on over to win any book from my back list.  You can also find links to reviews of the entire Dreg City series.

I'm going to leave you with a tiny snippet from TEMPEST (MetaWars 3). It isn't easy finding snippets on a book that's chock full of spoilers from the previous two (especially since CHANGELING isn't even out yet), but I have a few sentences that really summarize one of the themes of TEMPEST.  It's part of a longer telephone conversation between Teresa and Ethan.  Enjoy!

"Ethan, I know you," [Teresa] continued.  "You think of other people before yourself, sometimes to a fault.  And I know how the need for revenge can eat at you, but you aren't a murderer.  You wouldn't let a personal vendetta ruin what we're trying to do."

"Which is what?" I asked, because I'd be damned if I knew anymore.

"Correct the mistakes of the past whenever possible.  This is about the future of all Metas, new and old.  We can't keep killing each other if we're going to survive."

Today I am blogging at Literary Escapism, talking about Authors After Dark and the things I hope to see and do in New Orleans this summer.