This one is going to be brief. I’ll wait while you recover from your bout of fainting at that news and as you wrestle desperately with your skepticism. Swear to god, I’ll be brief. Briefish. Somewhat succinct.

Man, it’s hard to do. It’s like asking Hemingway to write a Shakespearean play.

OK, first off, some programming notes. I just got back from vacation on Tuesday (I was at GenCon, more on that in a bit) so I’m a little behind.

Coming later today will be a first here at Me and My Shovel: a podcast. You read that right. Very soon, you’ll hear my gratingly irritating voice for the first time broadcast over the Internets. Because you know my love for keeping things short, this podcast lasts only an hour and 37 minutes. You’re welcome.

What is this podcast, you ask? Well, if you read my last post about Realm of LARP (and you should), you’ll know the man I’m interviewing. It’s none other than Sir Barrington himself, the much-maligned knight on the webseries. His real name is Christian Gebhart, and he graciously agreed to sit with me for however long I wanted him to as we discussed the show and LARPing and other nerdly things. We had fun. You’ll be able to tell which voice is mine because I was drinking throughout the interview. I think you’ll like it. At the very least you can laugh at us. For an hour and thirty-seven minutes.

Early next week, I’ll have some stuff about Crown of Ash, the latest novel from Steven Montano (the Coolest Man in the World) in the Blood Skies series, specifically about aspects of world-building. Also, I’ll have a full review of it forthcoming, but here is my quickie version: go buy it. It’s dark and grim and excellent.

After that? We might see some more podcasts in the future – well, actually, there will be more in the future, so I’ll apologize in advance – and some other cool stuff, like posts on writing (based off of things I learned at GenCon) and other things like that. So there you go. Mixed in there will probably be a rant about something incredibly trivial like stamps or buttons.

OK. So, GenCon. GenCon was awesome. Great friends, great convention, great town, great writing panels, great amounts of Bacardi and diet. Fantastic time. I met and talked with the amazing artist Todd Lockwood about books and writing – he is just getting ready to publish his first novel and has a couple short stories in anthologies, which is cool – and learned some interesting perspectives about writing from him. I attended writing panels led by small press and magazine publishers and editors and authors, learned some pretty cool things and received great advice about the business aspects of writing and self-editing and things of that nature. I even asked a question in one of the panels, and considering that it was early in the morning after a LONG night of drinking that was a feat in itself. The things I learned from gentlemen like William Horner III of Fantasist Enterprises and John Helfers (editor and author) and Jason Sizemore of Apex Publications have already taken root and changed my approach, and this week I began re-editing The Storm of Northreach using the information and ideas they brought to the table.

So yeah, go ahead, pick your jaw off the floor, because I actually learned something about writing. I still refuse to refer to it as the craft.

So, that’s what’s coming. And check this out: less than 600 words. Close to a record for me.