Sam T Willis's Blog, page 3

Six reasons I don’t post these days

Somebody hit my car! 

Water fell on me. 

My chimney fell down. 

This deer. 

Glowsticks ate my face.
There was a terrible fire.

Plus I recently published two books, and I’m a pretty hardcore introvert.  The combination of those two things has left me thoroughly burnt out.  I’m still writing, though.  Book 5 is somewhere around 65% written (not the same as done…I’m sure I’ll spend forever editing.)  Blog momentum will be back as soon as I can muster it.

I’m a terrible blogger

There’s no real blog post for this week.  I blame society.  Also, I blame the guy who crashed into my car this afternoon.  He probably traveled back in time and stopped me from writing/posting yesterday and the day before.  Which is just inconsiderate.

Have a night vision picture of a mouse!  And now all is forgiven.

In other news, be sure to check out Kirk Griffin’s Short Stories with Capt. Kirk on iTunes or his website.  He read The New Program in three parts!  I’m excited.

Catch you next week with something more substantial that almost certainly won’t involve an acrostic poem in French.  Almost certainly.

The Night Dragons have line breaks wherever they damn well please!

(s)

Lots of time passed
Enough that you probably forgot what was happening in the story.
Still, The Night

Dragons, in their molten lava form
Remained locked in mortal combat
Against The Dragon of the Night.  Any hope of a swift victory was
G-
One
Now that The Night Dragons
Saw that The

Dragon of the Night was
Essentially impervious to harm.  As such, they were

Looking
Around for something they could use as a weapon–it was clear by the-

N that they knew they couldn’t just lava the thing to death–but
Unfortunately, just about everything
In
The area had been smashed into

Extremely small and useless fragments.
Clearly The Night Dragons were going to need to
Rethink their strategy.  Deep
Inside The Lava The Night Dragon’s
Viscera, our heroes argu-
Ed about the
Next strategy
To try.  Mostly they argue that there were no good strategies to try.

Undaunted, the last The
Night Dragon to be absorbed by The Lava The Night Dragon offered a

Plan, and she was willing to shout this plan
Over and over until
Everyone stopped trying to shout over her and actually listened to the stupid thing.
Mainly, she just wanted to stall until another Deus
Ex Machina showed up

And saved the day.
Clearly this plan wasn’t actually wo-
Rth shouting
Over and over over everyone else, as it was actually a pretty
S-
Tupid plan, but she felt like
It was the best option they had.
Quantitatively speaking, I’d say banking on something
Un-
Expected to deal with the single largest

Evil in the k-
Nown universe had approximately no chance of working.

Far-fetched is what I’m saying.
Really, though, their giant Lava The Night Dragon body had just had its
Arms ripped off.
Now The Dragon of the Night had their right arm
Clamped in its jaws
And was using
It to
Slap them across th-

E face repeatedly
They

Couldn’t actually fe-
El the
Slaps on account of how
TThe Lava The Night Dragon didn’t have a central nervous system,

And even if it had, I mean, how would they all have been hooked u-

P into it at the same time?  That doesn’t
Even make sense.  B-
Ut still, it was jarring being sla-

Pped a-
Round with your own hand like that.  So th-
Ey started running away.  But they hand to run away kind of
Slowly because they were this big, huge, super destructive thing and they didn’t want to destroy stuff bigly, huge-

Ly or superly.  The Dragon of the Night was thus able to chase after them and continue hitting them without much trouble.
At least it was able to until it started laughing super hard because of the sheer ridiculousness of the situation.  Then the lava arm fell out of its

Mouth and the game was over.  It was time for it to start
Eviscerating the crap out of them.  To that end, The Dragon of The Night lept up into the air so high that
It went past where the air ends, sunk a c-
Law into the moon, and came p-
Lummeting down moon-first on The Lava The Night Dragon.  Th-
E moon smashed their collective face into the gro-
Und.  Lava splatte-
Red
Everywhere.  The Night Dragons still didn’t a-

Ctually feel any pain, because t-
Hhey still didn’t share in the nerv-
Ous
System that didn’t
Exist.  But what they

Did feel was terror.  Because, even though they were probably
All already dead, or at least somethi-
Ng like it, they
Stil-

L
Had just had their collective heads smashed
In by the moon.  And that’s
Scary.  Plus
There was a giant The Dragon
Of the Night on top of them, holding a recently-smashed-
In-half moon and t-
Rying to decide how b-
Est to move forward with its brutal mur-

Dering of them,
Even though they probab-

Ly weren’t actually alive anyways.  The
Horrible monster just kind of posed there menacingly for a long time.  Way longer that it needed to, since it made its m-
Urder-
Method-decision after like two seconds.  It was
Almost like it was tryi-
Ng to stall to he-
Ighten the
Tension.  Or like it was waiting for a Deus
Ex Machina of its own.  Or something.

The Volunteer – launch day!

The appointed day has arrived!

The Volunteer is reporting for duty.

Check it out on Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Kobo, or Smashwords.

Want to read a little more about The Volunteer?  Check out my interview on Ink, maps and macarons.

Just a reminder, today is the last day to get Beaten for just $0.99!  The price reverts to normal 6/1.

I’m keeping things a bit on the brief side today because there’s a giant hailstorm going on and my power keeps going out.

Happy reading!

Six day warning

Less than a week left.

Thank you all for your support, and for your eyeballs!

Who’s ready to retreat into the dark realm of crushing anxiety, never to return?

This guy!

Hopefully that doesn’t actually happen.

In the mean time, let’s look to the future a bit.

I’ve got an outline for book 5 (mostly) finalized.

I’ve got about 20% of the book written.  There’s a super-early preview of it in the back of The Volunteer.  Hint, hint.

It’s going to be bigger than any of the previous four.  It’s also, stylistically, more ambitious than any of the books that come before it.  We’re building to a book 6 crescendo and I don’t want to waste the momentum I have now.

I plan to have the first draft done by the end of July.

Editing will probably then consume 6-10 years of my life.

If we’re being more ambitious, let’s say the book will be done in February.

That’s faster than I’ve turned any of the others around.  For optimism purposes I’m going to pretend I’m getting better at hitting dates.  We’ll see the actual results.  I’m pretty excited about the direction the story is going–all of the different parts are starting to coalesce and build towards the aforementioned crescendo.

So the plan as it stands now is to launch the last two books in The Primer in 2018.  One at the beginning and one at the end.  I think I can do it.  Just have to write them first.

In the mean time, some of ya’ll have some catching up to do.

Book 1: Break is available for free with a sign up for my Newsletter

Book 2: Beaten is $0.99 for just a few more days.  It’s free with Kindle Unlimited all the time.  The paperback includes a bonus–Break is hidden in the back.

Book 3: The New Program is free.  Always.

Book 4: The Volunteer launches 5/31.  In eBook and paperback.  The paperback includes The New Program in the back.

Book 5: The Unnamed Project is under construction.  Watch this space.

See ya’ll next week.

Crazy week

This week has been (and continues to be) crazy, so I’m going to have to stay brief and aggregate a few links that should be important for the next couple weeks.

The Volunteer is available for preorder.  Check it out now, and it will magically appear on your device of choice on 5/31.

Beaten is on sale for $0.99 until the end of the month.  If you missed it when it was free, now is the time to catch up!

The New Program remains free, now and forever.  Break is free for everyone who signs up for my mailing list.

I’ve just started writing The Primer, book 5 in earnest (almost have the whole thing outlined) and building a framework for book 6, which will be (probably) the grand finale of the series.  These next two books promise to be substantially beefier than everything that came before them.  Miles to go before I sleep and all that.

Oh yeah, and the back of my house fell down yesterday.  So that’s fun.

It’s a good thing.

See you next week.

Chapter 1

Enclosed, for your reading pleasure, a sneak preview of The Volunteer, available for preorder now and out everywhere 5/31.

A terrible screeching sound fills the room, and suddenly I’m awake.

I stare, uncomprehending, at the clock next to my bed, sure that I know how to tell time and yet completely unable to decipher the glowing red lines staring back at me. Something inside me is shouting: “You can’t wake up! The sleep world needs you,” and I’m slowly coming to a realization. That sound isn’t my alarm clock. I’ve simply chosen the worst ringer in the world for my cell phone. My hand reaches out to the nightstand, over the alarm clock that isn’t going off yet, and closes around the phone, while a tiny voice in the back of my brain begs me to ignore the call and seize what little chance for sleep I have left. But people don’t call before five AM unless they have a good reason.

“Good morning?”

“Ah, yes, Abhi, good morning. I’m sorry if I woke you.” This is the voice of my manager, Debbie. Debbie has never called me so early. She’s talking fast; I’m having a hard time comprehending what she says. “I meant to just leave a voicemail. Listen, the lab is closed today for some emergency repairs, so you needn’t report into work. You won’t be charged any vacation time.”

A free day off. The voice commanding me to go back to sleep is only growing louder, but something about this seems wrong. All of Hamlin closed for emergency repairs? Did it burn down in the night? What happened to the subjects? I can’t ask those questions on an unclassified phone, though. While violent, uncontrollable test subjects roam through the flaming countryside in my sleep-addled brain I settle for asking the vaguest possible question. “Is everything all right?”

She answers quickly. “Yes, yes, of course it is. We don’t know how long the site is going to be closed at this point. Just assume, if you don’t hear from me, that you’re not to come to work indefinitely. If you had any food you left in the refrigerator let us know, and we should be able to compensate you if it spoils. Do you have any other questions?”

If she’s worried about food it’s unlikely that the apocalypse I’m imagining is real. Unable to bring my mind up to full speed this early, I mumble something to the tune of, “No, I understand.”

“Good, that’s good. I don’t mean to rush you off the line like this, but I need to call everyone in the group before they arrive and find the street closed. Enjoy your day or days off; I’ll give you another call to check in soon.” She doesn’t even wait for me to say goodbye, just hangs up as the last few words come out. Or, perhaps the more likely possibility, I fall asleep before the conversation closes, and she hangs up once she realizes I’m no longer responding.

It’s just after seven when I wake up to my actual alarm. I’m feeling substantially more coherent, to the point where I’m able to complete such complicated tasks as hitting the “dismiss” button on the clock. I don’t actually remember the call until I’m getting ready for a shower, and it dawns on me that I could simply go back to sleep again with no consequences. Something about that seems wrong—or perhaps wasteful—so I choose to go out for coffee instead. From then on I follow my normal morning routine as if I were getting ready for work, and am out the door at quarter of eight with my laptop bag over my shoulder. It’s a cold morning, still dark, but the coffee shop is only a few blocks away. I spend most of the walk reminding myself that I’m not going to be accosted by a roaming group of volunteers, and only realize that I’ve forgotten my coat when I’ve practically arrived. There’s no point in having a mental argument, just like there’s no point in imagining what happened at Hamlin.

I get my drink and a breakfast sandwich, and set up with my computer in a comfortable chair facing a large window. From there I can watch the sunrise if I so choose, or look at…something…on the Internet for a while. But I can’t actually think of anything I’d be interested in looking at. Cat pictures, maybe? The first thing I see when I log in is my notebook, still open from the night before, on gradual neural pathway redefinition.

I’m not going to work first thing on my unexpected day of freedom; that would be a huge waste of time. But, at the same time, I’m likely very close to a breakthrough, and if I’m going to be out of work for any appreciable period I’ll probably lose track of my thoughts and be set back hours upon hours. Working on this now is really the only responsible thing to do, and it’s not as if I had any grand plans for the day as it was. I nod to myself, as if I need some physical affirmation that the cat pictures can wait, and begin studying my notes and drinking my coffee. It’s in this position that I pass the better part of the morning, and I resume work back in my apartment after lunch, and before long the entire day is gone. Perhaps I’m not built for days off.

Two weeks pass in much the same way, without any further contact from work. At this point I’m relatively sure I’ve been fired, and they simply never bothered to tell me. My mother, who’s been calling every day since I told her what’s happening, is convinced I should give up on the job and move back home. I’m not sure how long I’ll be able to fend her off, but I have no interest in sharing an apartment in Queens with her after several years of freedom. My brother would spend the rest of his life laughing at me. Besides, my paycheck arrives on time and ungarnished in my bank account. It appears that the government is content to pay engineers to stay home and waste time. Not that I’ve been wasting time. Even without access to our lab, or any of the test data, I’ve been nearly free of distractions and had no meetings. I’m making great progress on all the unclassified work on my plate. When—if—I finally receive the order to return to work, I’ll be ready to dive back in. Even if I’m weeks behind schedule on cat pictures.

One day, when my imagination is running particularly wild, and it’s unseasonably warm for December, I hop on my bike and take a ride up to Hamlin. It’s a short and scenic trek, so even if I can’t find any hints about what happened I can enjoy watching the birds as I ride. The access road is closed—just as Debbie said it would be—walled off by a few layers of the portable concrete barriers they use for blocking off lanes on the highway. Someone wanted to be sure no one came to work, I suppose. I turn my bike around at the barrier, curiosity still chewing on the back of my skull, and start to ride back. Only something catches my eye as I start pedaling, a trail that leads up into the woods on the right. I wonder why I’ve never noticed it before.

With this new subject to focus my curiosity on, I lean my bike on a tree and follow the trail into the woods and up the rather steep hill that borders the site. This land probably belongs to someone; I’m probably trespassing right now—to say nothing of the chance that someone could be wandering these woods—so every few steps I resolve myself to stop, turn around, and head back to my bike. The resolution finally takes hold when I get to the top of the hill and the trail seems to vanish. Right, so there was nothing to that, the notion has been satisfied, and I can get back to work. Only a big, old tree perched at the top of the hill catches my eye. It has rung after rung of strong branches, like it was grown specifically to be climbed. Up in that tree, maybe twenty feet off the ground, there’s something hanging from a broken limb. I watch it swing back and forth in the wind a few times before deciding that it’s a massive set of binoculars. Weird. My nerves bubble up again, and this time I’m able to convince myself to retreat down the hill to my bike without any trouble. It’s just a bird watcher or a hunter or something; none of my business.

I get back home and bury myself in my work. With the nagging weirdness of the situation hanging over my head I find that it’s best to do as much math as possible to keep my mind too busy to wander. I’m drawing a diagram by hand at my kitchen table when my phone finally does ring, late on a Tuesday morning, and I’ve gotten so used to the all-consuming quiet that the horrifying screech of the ringer—which I seem to be physically incapable of remembering to change—nearly gives me a heart attack. I take a deep breath and steady myself, then pick the phone up without looking at the incoming number.

“Good morning, Abhinav speaking.”

It’s Debbie again, the first human voice I’ve heard that is neither my mother nor a cashier since the last time we spoke. “Ah, good, hello, Abhi. This is Debbie. I’m so sorry we’ve kept you waiting. Have you been enjoying your time off?”

Frowning at the paper in front of me, I carefully erase a covalent bond. “I, what? Yes, I guess. I’ve been wondering, you know.” I didn’t just wake up this time, but I’m still struggling to form a coherent sentence. “Is, I mean, work ready? To reopen, I mean.”

She takes a sharp breath and hesitates before responding. “That’s what I’m calling about, actually. I can’t get very deep into the subject on an open line, but suffice it to say Hamlin will not be reopening.” My heart seems to seize itself up a bit, and suddenly I’m all cold inside. “The damage, apparently, was too great to repair, and the site is being closed.”

I could have climbed that tree and seen exactly what the lab looks like now. That perch probably has an amazing view of the whole site, especially with all the trees bare. Not that that would make a difference, but I would know. I could see the burned out husks of buildings, signs of a breakout, something. “What does that mean? For the project,” I walk over to the window while I’m talking, like there are going to be any answers out there. “What happens to the project?”

“As I said, I can’t get very deep into this subject on the phone. We’ve reserved a conference room on Friday at 2:00 to have a proper meeting and discuss where we go from here. You’re not being laid off or anything like that, so don’t worry yourself too much. Are you able to make it Friday?”

If they want to see me Friday that means I’m not fired. Though, actually, they might just want to fire me in person; I’m not sure how firing works. Can I still be fired if I’m not laid off? Are those things different? I should ask if those things are different. “Absolutely. Yes. I can be there.” Or my mouth can just say whatever it wants to say.

She sounds genuinely pleased by my answer. I think it’s a good sign. “Excellent. I’ll email you the address right after we hang up. And I look forward to seeing you again on Friday, and starting to return to some semblance of normalcy.”

“Right. I’ll see you Friday. Thanks, Debbie.” I move the phone away from my ear to hang up, but hear her call out at the last second.

“Abhi? Are you still there?”

I bring the phone back so quickly it kind of hits me in the side of the head. “No. That is, I didn’t hang up. I’m still here.” I somehow manage to stop talking after that, fighting the urge to apologize for just how poorly I’m communicating.

The happiness in her voice has been replaced by a stern gravity, and she’s half whispering like someone nearby might hear. “Please don’t discuss this with anyone else from work. Not everyone is being invited to the same meeting, you understand, and we don’t want to give people the wrong impression.”

That feels vaguely ominous, but it’s not as if I’ve been spending my days off hanging around with a bunch of coworkers. They’ve all disappeared along with my other obligations, so it shouldn’t be difficult to comply. “I understand.”

“Excellent. Thank you, Abhi. I’ll see you Friday.”

The Volunteer – Preorder announcement!

And beat Nathan Werner.

Spring sale!

And it’s time to switch gears, folks.

The New Program is up and running on its own right now–I’m stunned by how many people are downloading the book.  This “free” idea seems to have legs.  Which brings me to the next free idea.

Starting Monday, 5/1, Beaten will be free on Amazon.  For everyone.  For five days.  So next week, from Monday to Friday, you’ll be able to get the entire Primer series up to this point for the low-low price of $0.00.  Exciting times.  I’ve never done a Kindle Unlimited promo before, so we’ll see how this goes and maybe I’ll do another one in a few months if the results are good.

Why is the whole series going for free, you ask?  Because ya’ll need to get reading!  The Volunteer is coming at the end of May, and it’s available for preorder now!  I’m doing these launches back-to-back because I’m terrified of doing launches in general and tricking myself into considering this whole thing just one big launch.  That’s only one of my elaborate web of tricks I play on myself to undercut the crushing anxiety that accompanies publishing my work, along with almost every other human interaction in my life.  That’s a story for another day, though.

In the mean time, lots of stuff going on.  I accidentally started working on The Primer, book 5 a couple weeks ago.  It’s going to be a bit of a departure from the earlier books, in that it won’t make any sense if you haven’t read at least some of the things that came before it.  At this point I’m thinking the whole series ends on book 6, but I reserve the right to make a liar out of myself if the story takes off on me.  Bad things are happening in the story world.  The New Program is only the beginning of that.  

The Night Dragon(s) get(s) a thorough beatdown

(s)

The Dragon of the Night hit The Lava The Night Dragon
In its lava face
With its (non-lava) tail
Sending The Lava The Night Dragon sprawling to the ground.
The Dragon of the Night was burned slightly about the scales
In the places where it had made contact with the lava
But it really wasn’t enough of a burn to matter
And The Dragon of the Night was too angry and dangerous to care anyways.
The Lava The Night Dragon pushed itself up to its knees
And was kicked in the stomach
Then pushed itself up farther
And got kicked even harder.
Things were not going well.
Luckily,
All of the Dead The Night Dragons inside The Lava The Night Dragon
Were disconnected from any pain receptors The Lava The Night Dragon had,
If a giant being composed of lava could,
In fact,
Feel pain.
Which it almost certainly couldn’t,
As this was clearly a golem-type situation.
But while we were distracted thinking about lava pain,
The Lava The Night Dragon was getting body slammed
On top of some buildings with those spikes on the top
That are supposed to be for lightning or planes or something
But are really just there for impaling giant monsters
During the inevitable giant monster battle.
It turned out that The Night Dragons were not very good at piloting their golem-thing
As they hadn’t yet come up with a system for working together
That didn’t involved bickering and attacking each other.
Clearly,
Something had to be done,
As The Dragon of the Night was throwing a bunch of trucks at them
As they hung,
Impaled,
On some random tall building.
Some of the trucks had gasoline tanks.
Those ones exploded pretty good
When they crashed into the person made of lava.
Clearly,
They were going to need to generate another Deus Ex Machina
For themselves,
In addition to the previous,
Generally ineffective Deus Ex Machinas
That they’d been working with to that point.
But perhaps,
Thought The Night Dragon,
(The first one,
Who you met about a thousand chapters ago)
They were going about things the wrong way.
Perhaps they didn’t need a Deus Ex Machina.
Perhaps they needed a The Night Dragon Ex Machina.
Or a Deus Ex The Night Dragon.
Or maybe a The Night Dragon Ex The Night Dragon.
Whatever.
The point was to believe in yourself,
I guess?
I’m not really clear on the underlying plan.