The little prompt in the text entry field says “Start writing…” and, my dear style helpful machine, that is entirely and one hundred percent the plan. I just have this little BOOK LAUNCH to get through first. And… “oh wait, that’s today!”

DEAD HAND RULE is out now wherever fine books are sold. If you prefer to read in audio, I believe that edition is coming soon—on the order of weeks, not months, unless they managed to move up the schedule and get it out on release day. You can buy a copy from Bookshop.org, Barnes & Noble, the big river company, or, of course, from your friendly local indie bookstore (Porter Square Books is mine). If you do order a copy from Porter Square Books, you can ask for it to be signed or even personalized - I’ll be there tonight at 7pm with Elizabeth Bear to talk about the Craft Wars and to sign copies.

Release day is a funny moment; I work so hard on books before they arrive at your local bookstore shelf, and when the magic day comes, my first instinct is to work even harder! But this is also the moment my engagement starts to tail off as a portion of the book’s… life in the world? Let’s say the book takes eight hours to read from cover to cover; if even one thousand readers finish it, that’s about four years of full time work, unless I fudged my math somewhere. I will, of course, read at readings, appear at appearances, and sign copies at signings, I will show up for my own work on social media, and most of all I will pledge myself to the keyboard as I write the next and final book in the Series. But so much of the book’s life now is out there, with you, rather than in here: it’s going out to be read, talked about, traded, borrowed from the library, left behind at youth hostels (that’s how I found my first Wild Cards book!), dog-eared and coffee-stained and in the world. Because that’s how this whole thing works: through conversations and connections and recommendations, and through trust. Thanks for coming along for the ride.

As for what comes next: I have a complete and detailed outline for the final book, and the outline rocks. I don’t always write with an outline, and even when I do there’s often a time when the outline needs to be re-worked1, but I have a good feeling about this one, mostly thanks to the number of scenes I can’t wait to dig into. I’m about thirty thousand words into the draft, having had to put it on hold for a few other important projects over the last couple months. But now the road is clear.

I plan to keep posting this newsletter while I work, but (after I finish one essay I’ve been working on for a minute now) it’s likely to thin out a bit, and become more of a “how writing has gone this week” / link-roll kind of project. I’ve done this before without communicating about it, and I felt a bit sheepish about the thinness on the page; this time I’m just coming out to say what’s up.

Now, I’m off to take a walk, and maybe play some Slay the Spire before tonight’s event.

Happy reading, friends. And Happy Halloween.