Hey all,

I wanted to send some love towards a friend and colleague who is Kickstarting the third and final novel in his awesome epic fantasy series, The Lays of Anuskaya.

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/2119763779/the-flames-of-shadam-khoreh

I met Bradley P. Beaulieu back when he was prepping for the launch of his first novel, The Winds of Khalakovo and I was repping for Night Shade Books (via Diamond). We’ve met and hung out at conventions since, and I’ve found Brad to be thoughtful, generous, and warm.

Brad published The Winds of Khalakovo and The Straits of Galahesh with Night Shade Books, but has bought back rights on the third book and is putting it out himself. I’ve really enjoyed the series, and I’m definitely looking forward to reading the conclusion.

There are a number of reward levels, including limited edition hardcovers, as well as levels which will come with all three novels at once. Please consider dropping by and considering getting in on The Lays of Anuskaya awesomeness.

Today completes my two-part appearance on the marvelous Roundtable Podcast with Episode 53. If you missed it, you can catch my ’20 Minutes With’ episode here.

Here are some notable links to elements/ideas that I mentioned during the episode, as well as the website of the creageous author, Linton Bowers, who shared his idea and let us put it through the Danger Room of workshopping.

For me, I think the most fun of this story was digging into the thematic implications of the setting and the lead’s powers, and the thread that followed to a version of the story that was heavy on the satirical but also lead to the possibility of the lead’s internal conflict closely mirroring the external conflict.

I’m very excited to see what Linton does with the story, and extremely grateful to the folks of the Roundtable Podcast for having me on their fine show.

Here are some links to projects/properties I mentioned in the show:

Ken Hite’s axes of design: http://www.rpglibrary.org/utils/wild_talents_axes/

Women in Refrigerators: http://lby3.com/wir/ — I mistakenly recalled this as being titled ‘Girlfriends in Refrigerators’, directly referencing the infamous example of Alexandra DeWitt being brutally killed to strike at her boyfriend, Green Lantern Kyle Rayner.

The cartoon show where the lead creates nanomachine constructs is Generator Rex.

Linton’s website, sharing his process and thoughts on his writing journey: http://lintonbowers.com/

Last month, I had the great honor of recording with Dave Robison and Brion Humphrey of the Roundtable Podcast. The first of two episodes from that recording is now up here:

http://www.roundtablepodcast.com/2013/03/20-minutes-with-michael-r-underwood/

The first episode is more interview-y, talking process, my journey to publication, and cool stuff like plotting novels like they’re RPG games, martial arts, and more. The folks at the Roundtable Podcast are energetic, earnest, and all-around great gents.

Please go and take a listen, and make sure to investigate their great backlog of episodes with luminaries from across the SF/F world.

Since my partner is signing for the apartment today, I should probably let everyone know that I’m going to be moving.

Meg, my partner-in-awesomeness, has taken a great position that will require her to live in Maryland. And since my Angry Robotic overlords are gracious, I will get to continue my position and work remotely.

That means that your favorite Geekomancer is going to be re-locating to Baltimore, MD!

But Mike, didn’t you just move to NYC? You might ask. It’s true. We moved to NYC in October, but the job Meg was applying for has a very long processing period, so there was no way for us to know when an offer might come through. But come it has!

I’ve had an incredible time in NYC, since this is the beating heart of the English-language publishing industry, and home to incredible food of all types – especially pizza, my One True Food.

This means that my March is going to be more than a little chaotic, but the end result will be great. I’ll still be visiting NYC once or twice a month for work, so I’ll be able to carry forward some of those connections made over the last few months, and Meg and I will be making trips back into the city to keep enjoying the many amazing features of the Big Apple.

I spent three years working remotely as a field sales rep, so I’m well used to that model – it’s all about discipline, and while I’ll lose out on the office cameraderie, I’ll be totally in control of my working space, which means I can read manuscripts from a treadmill, take sanity breaks to practice my longsword forms, and awesome things like that.

SFWA has posted the nominees for the 2012 Nebula awards (and associated awards)

http://www.sfwa.org/2013/02/2012-nebula-awards-nominees-announced/

This was my first year nominating, and it’s great to see the amazing work of friends and colleagues recognized by my professional guild.

Break out the Conga Rats!

This weekend, I started my first novella. Up until now, I’ve very much been a novelist, even when I’m writing short stories. My average length for a short story is about 6000-6500 words. Growing up, I read short stories, and I read novels, and not a whole lot in-between.

For those not familiar, novella is a story category describing stories between 17500 to 40,000 words. Publishing-wise, a lot of novellas that get sold as digital singles are 30,000 to 50,000 words. The top end of that range is about the size that older SF novels used to be (especially if you go back through the Golden Age to the pulp years – those books were short!)

The rise of digital reading has opened up that middle ground into a whole new market – a chance to give readers a taste of a world, to tide over a publication gap in a series, and more.

Progress has been great so far, averaging more than 2,000 words per day. Right now, I’m attributing that success to a few factors:

1) It’s a world I know well.
2) As a shorter work, it’s easier to hold the whole thing in my head at once.
3) I’ve got the whole story outlined, chapter-by-chapter.

If I can keep this rate up (not too likely), I’ll have a rough draft done in about two weeks(!)

If you missed my interview on Dungeon Crawlers Radio last night, you can listen to the archived episode here:

http://www.dungeoncrawlersradio.com/10/post/2013/02/mike-underwood-interview.html

We talked about Geekomancy, growing up geek, GenCon, and how I used RPGs to re-teach myself how to be sociable. I had a great time with the DCR team, and I hope to be able to go back and chat with them again this summer.

I’m pleased to be a guest on the Dungeon Crawlers Radio tomorrow, Monday the 11th at about 6:15 MST/8:15 PM EST (the show itself starts at 6PM MST/8PM EST). I’ll be on with the hosts talking about Geekomancy (and, in all likelihood, all sorts of geekdom – as the Geek is Strong with the Dungeon Crawlers Radio folks).

http://www.dungeoncrawlersradio.com/

There will be a link to listen live, but the episode will also be archived on their site, so if you can’t tune in tomorrow, I’ll post the link when it’s available.

This morning, during breakfast, I saw a hit on my Twitter feed, and discovered something amazing!

Presenting today at the Ray Browne Conference for Pop Culture on @mikerunderwood‘s Geekomancy, @syfy‘s Warehouse 13 & aura in the info age!

— Jacob Brown (@biffbampow) February 9, 2013

As an ex-academic myself, this was a double-dose of awesome.

Before my publishing career, I was a pop culture scholar in undergrad and in my M.A. work at the University of Oregon, presenting at conferences with paper topics like “Can I Get Change for That Plot Twist?: Dramatic Currency for Communal Narrative Shaping” and “Holy Genre Trouble, Batman!: The Dark Knight as a Pulp Vigilante Trapped in a Superhero World.”

You can read part of the conference program here, including what appears to be Brown’s abstract:

http://share.pdfonline.com/8c5735697b904059a31e260dabc483cd/Page%2013.htm

I’ve reached out to Mr. Brown, and soon I hope to have a copy of the paper/presentation to peruse.

So cool!