What is Dan Working On These Days?

I post a lot of weird not-really-hints about my current writing projects on Twitter and Facebook, but what, exactly, are my current writing projects? There are a ton, so buckle up.

1) Extreme Makeover: Apocalypse Edition

This is, without doubt, the biggest chunk of my time these days. It’s a modern-day science fiction novel, half about cloning and half about corporate and social satire. If you’ve come to any of my signings or events in the past year or so you’ve heard me talk about it. I’ve had to back-burner it twice due to commitments with the Partials series, and I have now a very brief window between finishing Partials #2 and starting Partials #3, so I’m trying to get it completely finished. It’s a weird, weird, awesome book, and I hope you all love it as much as I do, and I hope I can somehow manage to finish it on time.

By the way: I create playlists for every book I write, and the playlist for MAKEOVER is awesome. I don’t know what, if anything, this music will tell you about the book, but I’ll post it for you later this week with some added commentary.

2) I.E.Demon

This is a short story I’m working on for the “Books for Heroes” anthology, being prepared by George Scott of Peerless Book Store as a part of his Books for Heroes charity, which sends books to men and women in the armed forces. It’s a great cause, and I was delighted to be invited, but my ignorance of military life and terminology is showing. Every story in the anthology is a military thriller of some kind, and despite having zero military background I want to make sure I get the details right. I spent a lot of time getting the story more or less intact, then sent the manuscript to friends and friends-of-friends who’ve actually served in Afghanistan. Their notes, when they come in, will inform the next draft significantly, and then I’ll send the story to some non-military writer friends to refine it further.

3) Unnamed Short Story #1

I’m writing another short for the anothology “The Crimson Pact Volume 5,” the only requirement of which is “put some demons in it somewhere.” I haven’t written anything specific yet, but I want to do something related to I.E.Demon, and maybe expand that world a bit.

4) Unnamed Short Story #2

I have the opportunity to participate in another horror anthology, though this one is still kind of up in the air, so I won’t reveal any details. Suffice it to say that it won’t be about demons or military personnel.

5) Unnamed Novella

I just signed a contract to write a novella for a very cool, very specific venue, which unfortunately I’m under an NDA about so I can’t tell you anything. But it’s awesome, and I’m a big geek.

6) Partials #3

Last of all we come to this, the major project that serves as a deadline to everything else. I have to start outlining this in November, at the latest, and writing it in January, so any of this other stuff I can’t finish in time will get crushed under the mighty treads of the Partials world. Or more likely, I’ll end up writing and editing and polishing several different projects all at once. I’ve never had this much work at one time before, which is awesome but kind of terrifying, because I’m really, really concerned about getting it all done on time. I will, I’m just concerned about it. Who needs sleep anyway?