Unfaithful to the Parodyverse.

I admit it. I’ve been seeing someone else. That’s part of why I haven’t been around too much. I’ve been taking money for it.

More specifically, financial constraints finally pushed me to abandon my long-held refusal on selling my fiction writing. My reasoning has always been that when your hobby becomes your job it’s time for a new hobby. However, my current reasoning is I have bills to pay and less money in my bank account right now than I gave away to charity last year.

So, first up is a short story for the Sentinels superhero series. That’s an Avengers-style team usually written by Van Allen Plexico. I’m a bit hazy about exactly which hardcover and softcover volume my short story is in, but it’s there somewhere and when I get sent a copy I’ll let you know. The story is very short indeed and it’s called “Worst Origin Ever”, written to echo the feel and content of those old Ditko/Lee Journeys into Mystery or Tales of Suspense.

Then there’s “The Girl in the Glass Coffin”, one of eight stories in an anthology about a Solomon Kane-type adventurer in the 18th century, published by Airship 27. The other contributors are all established authors and I even own books by some of them! That’s due out sometime around summer and I’ve already been asked to submit a story for the planned volume 2, a tale called “The Witchfinder’s Frog”.

Also for Airship 27 I wrote “The Western Mail” for a collection of new Sherlock Holmes tales. However, due to a mixup about the length of story they wanted that one’s now scheduled for volume 2 and I’ve had to write another one, “Dead Man’s Manuscript”, for volume 1 – so I’ll actually fill one quarter of the whole book with that novella.

Finally, I was shocked to find out that “Assembled”, a collection of essays and comments on the Avengers comic book that I contributed quite a few items to is still selling pretty well (more units than around 1/3 of Marvel’s trade paperbacks, so I’m told). Therefore “Assembled 2” is scheduled to be out for this year’s convention season and I’m a major contributor to that too. All the proceeds of these two volumes go to charity, so if anybody wants one you’re best to buy direct off the publisher, White Rocket Books, because then Amazon or Barnes & Noble don’t cream off 60% of the profits each time.

People are even enquiring about publishing whole books by me, but I’m holding off on that until I see how my experience of short story publishing goes. I admit I do have six completed novels sitting on my hard drive, plus a four-volume fantasy story, so if I do decide to go for broke at least I have some back catalogue.

One strange correspondence I’ve had of late has been around a pen name. At the moment I think I’ll be using I. A. Watson to differentiate me from that other guy who keeps on selling books; but suggestions are welcome.

Anyhow, once I’ve surfed the current wave of “get Ian to write this” – and the current wave of “Here’s another letter from the court about your divorce/custody battle” - I hope to be back to writing for the PVB as usual, and catching up on other people's efforts. Assuming I’m not locked out and made to sleep on the couch.

IW