Michael C. Bailey's Blog, page 23

Weekly Update – June 6, 2023

Work continues on draft one of The Adventures of Strongarm & Lightfoot book eight, and that’s about all to report this week.

WRITING PROJECTS

The Adventures of Strongarm & Lightfoot – Draconian Measures: First draft complete.

The Adventures of Strongarm & Lightfoot – untitled book eight: First draft underway

APPEARANCES & EVENTS

None scheduled

MISC.

If you’d like to make sure you don’t miss any news from me, remember that I have a newsletter that features some of the stuff you see posted here plus new, newsletter-exclusive material. Click this link to sign up.

Weekly Update – May 30, 2023

To my surprise, I spent part of my long weekend starting draft one of The Adventures of Strongarm & Lightfoot book eight.

I know, I haven’t even fully finished work on Draconian Measures, but when the muse visits, you have to run with her.

WRITING PROJECTS

The Adventures of Strongarm & Lightfoot – Draconian Measures: First draft complete.

The Adventures of Strongarm & Lightfoot – untitled book eight: First draft underway

APPEARANCES & EVENTS

None scheduled

MISC.

If you’d like to make sure you don’t miss any news from me, remember that I have a newsletter that features some of the stuff you see posted here plus new, newsletter-exclusive material. Click this link to sign up.

Well-Behaved Women – A Series Overview

What’s it About?

Rose Booker remembers how she died. Both times.

Rose’s pursuit of the truth behind those memories leads her to discover that she was in a past life the legendary pirate queen Mary Read — and that she’s not the only infamous historical figure who has returned from the dead.

Who is this Series For?

Well-Behaved Women is an urban fantasy trilogy featuring a predominantly female cast. I wrote it for everyone looking for an action-packed adventure tale driven by complex heroic (and villainous, and somewhere in-between) LGBTQ women.

Is it Suitable for Young Readers?

No. The series contains violence, language, and sexual content that make it inappropriate for younger readers.

What are the Books in the Series?

Awakening: Nearly a year after being shot and left for dead, Sergeant Rose Booker returns to active duty with the Worcester Police Department, hoping to put the past behind her — except she’s not sure it’s her past that’s haunting her.

When hard-drinking hellraiser Julie d’Aubigny enters Rose’s life, she promises to reveal the truth behind Rose’s nightmares — or are they memories? — of her death at the end of a hangman’s noose.

But first Rose must stop the mysterious madman waging a bloody campaign of vengeance that threatens to turn the city’s streets red. All she has to do is uncover his identity — and his own dark secret.

Transition: The adventure continues as Rose and her friends deal with the aftermath of the events in Awakening and face off against a new, deadlier enemy hellbent on revenge.

Endtimes: Rose, Anna, and Julie face the fight of their lives in the conclusion of the Well-Behaved Women trilogy.

All three titles are available to read for free through Kindle Unlimited, and are available as audiobooks on Audible, narrated by Darci Cole (Target) and Heather Auden.

Where Can I Learn More?

Read can read sample chapters from Awakening, buy signed copies, connect with me through social media, and get regular updates at my website: innsmouthlook.com

Weekly Update – May 23, 2023

A funny thing happened on Twitter last week.

Several writers I follow were posting about some new software called Sudowrite, an AI writing program that promises the world, as these products often do, to aspiring authors. What I learned is, Sudowrite invited writers to submit their unpublished (therefore not really well-protected by copyrights) manuscripts, and they’d receive auto-generated blurbs, loglines, and outlines of their work for use when pitching to agents and publishers.

Sounds cool, doesn’t it? My least favorite part of submitting queries was trying to summarize my work. Writing synopses is excruciating, and I know a LOT of writers who’d gladly hand that dreary job over to software.

Here’s the “however” part…

The company used those submissions to train an AI writing engine, which it is now pitching to aspiring authors as a “writing tool” — which is a marketing-friendly way as saying, “This AI software will write the story for you, you lazy, talentless hack.”

And as usual, there were legions of people defending Sudowrite — many of them clearly bot accounts, but we won’t look too closely at that perverse irony — and that’s the kind of thing that REALLY pisses me off. People love their entertainment, they need it, but the thought of the act of artistic creation being somehow hoarded by a small, elite group (i.e., people who spent literally years of their lives honing their craft) angers them to no end, and they take pleasure, actual pleasure, in seeing professional creatives taken down a peg, sometimes to the point of losing their livelihood. So I fired off this tweet:

I post stuff on Twitter regularly, and sometimes my posts get a surprising amount of traction, but this one took off hard. Not only has the tweet itself been liked a few thousand (!!!) times, I’ve gained about 30 new followers in the span of three days. This is definitely unusual for me; I normally gain one follower a week, and half the time it’s a bot account.

A couple of follow-up tweets, also nothing particularly deep or insightful, garnered even more attention. I’m honestly impressed and flattered, but also baffled that a couple of B-grade tweets blasted off in the heat of the moment have earned more attention than some of my much more thoughtful writing-related posts. But then, Twitter does seem to be a big rage engine, so maybe this all makes sense in context.

Anyway, the whole episode struck me as funny. Not ha-ha funny, I mean.

WRITING PROJECTS

The Adventures of Strongarm & Lightfoot – Draconian Measures: First draft complete.

APPEARANCES & EVENTS

None scheduled

MISC.

If you’d like to make sure you don’t miss any news from me, remember that I have a newsletter that features some of the stuff you see posted here plus new, newsletter-exclusive material. Click this link to sign up.

The Adventures of Strongarm & Lightfoot – A Series Overview

What’s it About?

Derek Strongarm and Felix Lightfoot are a pair of hard-luck adventurers for hire with an unfortunate knack for landing jobs that pay too little and threaten their lives too much. Erika Racewind is a hardened elven warrior who doesn’t like people, except maybe when she’s killing them. Winifred Graceword is a kindhearted elven priestess skilled in the healing arts. David is a young sorcerer on a path to discover who he really is — and whether that person has a last name, because going by just David is getting old fast.

Together these companions travel across the land of Asaches looking for adventure and the glory and riches that come with it. Mostly the riches, though, because you can’t buy food and beer with glory.

Who is this Series For?

Sword-and-sorcery fantasy fans looking for something a little lighter than most of the fare currently on the shelves. If you want heavy, dark, serious stories with lots of death, destruction, torture, rape, and political intrigue, go read something else because you won’t find it here.

What you will find is a fast-paced adventure filled with colorful characters, rip-roaring action, humor, and gentle jabs at the classic elements of fantasy fiction.

Which is not to say this series is a comedy or parody. There is still drama aplenty, but as a rule I don’t take things too seriously. You can read these books and not feel like you need a hug and a room full of puppies afterward.

Basically, if you like fare like The Legend of Vox Machina and Dungeons and Dragons – Honor Among Thieves, this is the series for you.

Is it Suitable for Young Readers?

Not really. The series is a hard PG-13/light R for violence, language, and sexual content. It is suitable for older teens, but not for the YA crowd.

What are the Books in the Series?

Scratching a Lich: Derek and Felix find themselves entangled in an urgent quest to slay a legendary lich before he can trigger a world-ending apocalypse – as insane undead sorcerers are wont to do. Together with Erika Racewind, bodyguard for a mysterious young wizard named David, and Winifred Graceword, they head out to discover lost cities, recover long lost magical artifacts, and slay great evils in order to fulfill curiously specific prophecies – as mismatched, ragtag groups of adventurers are wont to do.

Assassins Brawl: The companions are hired to safeguard a spoiled brat of a princess targeted for death by the assassin Ruined Isys, but as is often the case, there’s more going on here than meets the eye. Now all they have to do is determine who is behind the plot before they get caught in the crossfire.

Blades of Glory: Derek, Felix, and company are up for a job that seems a little too simple for a payday that seems a little too generous – but unfortunately, so are the famed adventurers of fortune known as the Noble Blades. Which of them will be the first to find a stolen ceremonial mask that is absolutely positively completely normal and not at all some lost artifact possessed of dark power?

Sworded Affairs: The company takes a job to dispose of a potentially dangerous magical artifact only to become snowbound in an isolated city besieged by flesh-hungry beasts — and under assault from within by a dark conspiracy.

Elfish Motives: Winifred Graceword is called home under mysterious circumstances, which lead to the company revisiting the lost even city of Wihend. But what do the four clans want with their long-abandoned ancestral home?

Twins and Losses: The company finally returns home to Ambride, only to become immediately embroiled in a scandal threatening to consume the Ambride Academy of Magic.

Draconian Measures – David is charged with a diplomatic mission that could unite Asaches’s fractured magical academies, but first he has to contend with a maniacal warden, political upheaval, and an enormous dragon terrorizing the coastal city of Atebo. Tentatively set for a late 2023 release.

The Final Summons – An Anthology of the New England Speculative Writers: Featuring The Going Rate For Penance, a short story set in the Strongarm & Lightfoot world. Mercenaries Jessica and Samantha Summerland receive an assignment from their least favorite client, and one way or another, this will be their last job.

How Long Will the Series Run?

Unknown, but tentatively ten books.

Are They Available As Audiobooks?

The first four books, narrated by Heather S. Auden, are currently available on Audible.

Where Can I Learn More?

Read can read sample chapters from Scratching a Lich, buy signed copies, connect with me through social media, and get regular updates at my website: innsmouthlook.com

Weekly Update – May 16, 2023

The next book in the Adventures of Strongarm & Lightfoot series, Draconian Measures, has achieved finished first draft status!

I cane close to wrapping it up during my writing say last week, then had a brain crash within a couple of paragraphs of the end. As is often the case with me, I just had to step away and let my brain cool down. The final bits came to me over breakfast the next day and I banged out the end in a few minutes, and then I decided to take a break from writing, focus on some household projects for a week or two, and not even think about work.

Over lunch later that week, I mentally plotted out the next book in the series, because my brain is weird.

WRITING PROJECTS

The Adventures of Strongarm & Lightfoot – Draconian Measures: First draft complete.

APPEARANCES & EVENTS

None scheduled

MISC.

If you’d like to make sure you don’t miss any news from me, remember that I have a newsletter that features some of the stuff you see posted here plus new, newsletter-exclusive material. Click this link to sign up.

Action Figures – A Series Overview

What’s it About?

The series focuses on Carrie Hauser, a 15-year-old girl who one summer experiences two life-changing events: her parents announce they’re getting divorced, and she gains superhuman abilities after encountering a dying extraterrestrial after he falls to Earth.

Her adventure begins after Carrie and her mother Christina move back to Christina’s childhood home town of Kingsport, Massachusetts, and Carrie meets four teens with powers of their own: superhero fanboy Matt Steiger, who owns a pair of magic gloves that can produce any object he can envision out of thin air, like a living cartoon character; Sara Danvers, a telepath and telekinetic who is afraid of her own abilities; the easygoing Stuart Lumley, who possesses superhuman strength; and Missy Hamill, an adorable motormouth with enhanced strength and reflexes.

The teens form a superhero team almost on a whim, but soon find themselves fighting for their lives against very real super-villains – much to the dismay of Kingsport’s hometown hero Concorde, leader of the super-team The Protectorate.

Who is this Series For?

Fans of superhero comics, TV shows, and movies in general, but particularly of titles featuring teen heroes such as Young Justice, Teen Titans, Young Avengers, and Champions.

The tone is generally lighter than a lot of YA books out there now. While there is drama and conflict, and some later stories deal with darker issues, I try to keep the series fun, upbeat, and optimistic.

Is it Suitable for Young Readers?

Action Figures is a PG-13 series that contains mild to moderate profanity, non-graphic violence, some mature themes, and later on in the series mild sexual content.

An added word about the violent content: while the violence is not graphic, the consequences are not downplayed. This isn’t sanitized Hollywood violence. People get hurt just as they would in real life and do not easily shrug off injuries, and in some cases the characters have to deal with the emotional trauma of their experiences.

What are the Books in the Series?

Action Figures – Issue One: Secret Origins – Carrie and her new friends in the Hero Squad (yes, they know their team name is awful) find themselves caught in the crossfire as the deadly mercenary Manticore comes to Kingsport, on the hunt for the rogue artificial intelligence known as Archimedes. Soon to be available through Audible!

Action Figures – Issue Two: Black Magic Women – The sorceress Black Betty threatens to raise hell – maybe literally – as she pursues her vendetta against the Protectorate’s resident paranormal expert Dr. Enigma.

Action Figures – Issue Three: Pasts Imperfect – Missy’s life is turned upside-down when she learns the truth about the source of her powers, and her connection to the bloodthirsty killer Buzzkill Joy.

Action Figures – Issue Four: Cruel Summer – Sara finds herself in the crosshairs of the mysterious hero killer the King of Pain, but to save herself, she might have to sacrifice everything she holds dear.

Action Figures – Issue Five: Team-Ups – The Hero Squad, still reeling from their devastating encounter with the King of Pain, get a little help picking up the pieces from their friends in the Protectorate and the Quantum Quintet.

Action Figures – Issue Six: Power Play – The Squad finds itself outnumbered and under-powered after one of their members goes missing – and at the worst possible time as foes from their past reappear, more dangerous than ever and ready to exact revenge.

Action Figures – Issue Seven: The Black End War – On Earth, Carrie Hauser is a hero, but on the far side of the galaxy, she’s just another soldier on the front lines of an interplanetary war against the terrorists in the Black End.

Action Figures – Issue Eight: Crawling from the Wreckage – Carrie returns to Earth to reclaim her life, but life has moved on without her. Does she have a place with her team, her friends, or her family anymore?

Action Figures – Issue Nine: Hell Hath No Fury – Black Betty is back, and ready to unleash Hell — literally, but can the Hero Squad trust Dr. Enigma to have their backs? Or does she have her own dark agenda?

Action Figures – Issue Ten: Unintended Consequences – The Hero Squad learns that hard way that no good deed goes unpunished and the sins of their past have not been forgotten.

Action Figures – Issue Eleven: Zero Day – It’s the final showdown between the Hero Squad and ShadoWorks, in this, the epic conclusion to the Action Figures core series.

The Action Figures Omnibus – Volume One: Stepping Up – Collects the first three books in the series (Secret Origins, Black Magic Women, Pasts Imperfect) and features a new foreward by Patrick Hodges and a new introduction by the author.

How Long Will the Series Run?

The series is plotted out to eleven, possibly twelve books in the main series. There are potential spinoffs in the works, but the core Action Figures series will come to an end by 2023.

Where Can I Learn More?

Read can read sample chapters from Secret Origins, short stories set in the Action Figures world, buy signed copies, connect with me through social media, and get regular updates at my website: innsmouthlook.com

Weekly Update – May 9, 2023

So, about the Writers Guild of America strike…

Long story short, it’s totally justified and I support it.

Below I’ve posted the most recent list of the WGA’s demands, and the studios’ responses to them, so dive it if you want to, but the gist is, writers want more money and greater job security. They’re not getting as big a cut of streaming revenues as they feel they deserve, and they want safeguards in place to stop studios from using AI writing programs to do the work instead of talented, skilled humans in order to save money.

Now, take a look at the dollar figure at the bottom of page two. If the WGA got everything it wanted, the cost to Hollywood would be $429 million per year. The Hollywood film industry recorded revenue of — depending on your source — between $5.99 billion (yes, Billon with a Capital B) and $7.37 billion, and that is just the domestic box office take. Add in global box office and now we’re in the realm of $26 (+/-) billion. Hollywood’s total global film and TV market is worth $267.61 billion (2022).

The WGA’s demands equal .07 percent of the lowest figure cited above.

Hollywood can easily afford the WGA’s wish list.

They can also afford to provide writers with job security by A: not reducing them to gig workers, and B: not using AI — which, frankly, can’t write to save its artificial life, certainly not in the way Hollywood needs it to write. Scripts are not simply created, passed on to the production team, and never touched again. They are frequently rewritten on the fly, on set, and AI can’t adapt to that kind of environment. Don’t take my word for it, go read this thread by Sera Gamble (The Magicians, Supernatural) about what an on-set writer does during any given production.

And I’m not going to dive down the rabbit hole of AI as a substitute for human talent, but I am going to give a hearty “fuck all the way off” to anyone who dismisses the importance of human writers and advocates for AI to take over, especially if their argument involves anything along the lines of “writers are overpaid” (they bloody well are not) and “anyone can write” (no they bloody well cannot).

If you enjoy movies or TV at all, you should be behind this strike. You should be supporting the writers. You should not be playing cheerleader for a multi-billion-dollar industry trying to screw over hard-working, skilled, talented artists whose contributions to visual media are the literal foundation for everything. Every movie, every TV show begins with the writers. Without them, you have nothing to build on.

WRITING PROJECTS

The Adventures of Strongarm & Lightfoot – Draconian Measures: First draft underway.

APPEARANCES & EVENTS

None scheduled

MISC.

If you’d like to make sure you don’t miss any news from me, remember that I have a newsletter that features some of the stuff you see posted here plus new, newsletter-exclusive material. Click this link to sign up.

Weekly Update – May 2, 2023

The next book in the Adventures of Strongarm & Lightfoot series, Draconian Measures, is almost done! I was lucky enough to have two full writing days over the weekend, and I put them to excellent use plowing through the last of the big finale sequence. I still have a bit of denouement to wrap up, but once that’s done, draft one will be in the can. After that, I plan to put it aside, let my brain cool down, take care of some long-neglected jobs around the house, and then get to work on my next project before returning to tackle draft two of Draconian Measures.

And what is this new project? That’s going to be kept under wraps for a while. When I’m ready to make it public, you’ll be the first to know!

WRITING PROJECTS

The Adventures of Strongarm & Lightfoot – Draconian Measures: First draft underway.

APPEARANCES & EVENTS

None scheduled

MISC.

If you’d like to make sure you don’t miss any news from me, remember that I have a newsletter that features some of the stuff you see posted here plus new, newsletter-exclusive material. Click this link to sign up.

Well-Behaved Women – A Series Overview

What’s it About?

Rose Booker remembers how she died. Both times.

Rose’s pursuit of the truth behind those memories leads her to discover that she was in a past life the legendary pirate queen Mary Read — and that she’s not the only infamous historical figure who has returned from the dead.

Who is this Series For?

Well-Behaved Women is an urban fantasy trilogy featuring a predominantly female cast. I wrote it for everyone looking for an action-packed adventure tale driven by complex heroic (and villainous, and somewhere in-between) LGBTQ women.

Is it Suitable for Young Readers?

No. The series contains violence, language, and sexual content that make it inappropriate for younger readers.

What are the Books in the Series?

Awakening: Nearly a year after being shot and left for dead, Sergeant Rose Booker returns to active duty with the Worcester Police Department, hoping to put the past behind her — except she’s not sure it’s her past that’s haunting her.

When hard-drinking hellraiser Julie d’Aubigny enters Rose’s life, she promises to reveal the truth behind Rose’s nightmares — or are they memories? — of her death at the end of a hangman’s noose.

But first Rose must stop the mysterious madman waging a bloody campaign of vengeance that threatens to turn the city’s streets red. All she has to do is uncover his identity — and his own dark secret.

Transition: The adventure continues as Rose and her friends deal with the aftermath of the events in Awakening and face off against a new, deadlier enemy hellbent on revenge.

Endtimes: Rose, Anna, and Julie face the fight of their lives in the conclusion of the Well-Behaved Women trilogy.

All three titles are available to read for free through Kindle Unlimited, and are available as audiobooks on Audible, narrated by Darci Cole (Target) and Heather Auden.

Where Can I Learn More?

Read can read sample chapters from Awakening, buy signed copies, connect with me through social media, and get regular updates at my website: innsmouthlook.com