While Will and I were out running errands, he took me into our neighborhood Borders (at 100 Broadway) and showed me the six copies of Nerdvana in the LGBT section. It was very exciting to see a book with a story of mine on the shelf and so we documented that with a quick picture!

Meanwhile, I’ve started reading Nerdvana to see what the other stories are like. Once I finish with it, I’ll write it up over on jeffandwill.com.

In other writing news…

• The dance competition-set short story is in the final revision stages. A couple people have read it and I’m tweaking it based on the comments and doing some overall tightening.
• I’m trying to come up with an idea for Dreamspinner Press’ Necking anthology. I’ve got until March 1 to submit. I’ve got a couple thoughts on plot, but I haven’t decided on anything for sure yet.
• I’ve been outlining/writing random bits of scenes for another story (or maybe a novella) for Mitchell and Alex from “Rivals.” I’m not sure where that may go, but I keep scribbling down things as they come to me.
• I’m finding time to be an obstacle on the Neutral Zone revisions. I’ve been working on those about one day a week while trying to get other things written. I wasn’t helped last week either when I ended up sleeping in a couple of mornings because of not sleeping at all well one night. I’ve got to be better about getting up and using those two hours wisely.

Nerdvana (Edited by Fred Towers | ISBN: 1934187577) is finally fully available! I got the STARbooks newsletter in my email box yesterday afternoon and there it was. You can check it out on the Starbooks site. You can also pick up the paperback and Kindle versions on Amazon.com. I hope to find my author copy in the mailbox soon so I can check out the other stories.

For some reason, Nerdvana hasn’t come out yet. It was listed on Amazon and other sites as releasing on November 17, but it remains in pre-order state. I don’t know why that is. As soon as it becomes available, I’ll certainly write about it here.

“Rivals,” meanwhile, is full steam ahead for release on Monday as part of the Dreamspinner Press Nap-Size Dreams series. With “Rivals” I had my first brush with e-book piracy this week. I discovered “Rivals” was already available on a file sharing site. I took the appropriate steps to get that removed, which happened within a couple of days. Sadly, it’s not a big surprise that it was there (except for the fact it wasn’t out for purchase yet). Since I’m being published by Dreamspinner I’ve been granted access to their Google author group and I’d already seen several posts about this problem. Luckily there were emails with directions on how to get the files removed from these sites so I was able to take action quickly.

“Rivals” is the first time I’ve taken out a copyright myself so it was kind of fun to go out there and defend it. With other stories I’ve had published, I’ve let the fact that they appear in a physical book or magazine take care of the copyright. Since “Rivals” is an eBook, I filed with the copyright office for it so there is no doubt that it is mine. Having Google Alerts set up for “Rivals” was a handy tip I learned from the Dreamspinner Group. It’s how I’ve been following the web presence of the story, including its inclusion on the file sharing site. I set one up for Nerdvana too so I can see what’s going on with that book as well.

Meanwhile, since work has calmed down I’ve been back to the editing and revising of Neutral Zone. It’s great to be back here. My goal is to have it revised by the end of the year so I can do something meaningful with it in 2010 (as in get it in front of agents and/or publishers) . Wish me luck on that endeavor!

I also killed a story, or at least put a story in a coma, since I blogged last. I was working on a piece for an anthology around sexy skateborders. The idea flowed on to paper pretty well, but it just didn’t gel into something I liked. Needless to say I didn’t submit it. Will is taking a look at the story and might try bring it back to life. It might turn into a co-writing adventure … and that would be fun.

On November 17, Nerdvana (edited by Fred Towers / StarBooks Press / ISBN: 1934187577) hits book stores with my story “The Adventures of Jake #1.” I’m looking forward getting this book, not only to see my own story in print, but to read what the other authors wrote on the idea of sexy nerds.

On November 23, Rivals publishes as part of Dreamspinner Press’ Nap-Sized Dreams series (ebook ISBN: 978-1-61581-293-6). Rivals official blurb reads like this: “Hockey player Mitchell Turner’s high-school crush on cross-county adversary Alex Goodman never came to anything… until they meet again four years later on Thanksgiving Day. Then Mitchell agrees to a coffee “date,” and suddenly his holidays are looking merrier than ever.”

One note on both of these titles: The each have adult content so please purchase accordingly.

In other news, Nerdvana (edited by Fred Towers, from STARbooks, ISBN: 1934187577, list price: $17.95) is up for pre-order now from Amazon and other sources. I’m excited about this since “Adventures of Jake #1″ will be the first story I’ll make a little money for as well as my first story in a book that will be available nationwide. It’s going to be fun to read the other stories in here too to see what the other authors created from the theme. (Caution: Nerdvana contains adult subject matter)

Over in Neutral Zone land, things have been static. Work picked up for the summer and I haven’t been able to give time to it and get the short story done. Work kept me from finishing a short story for the Games in the Dark anthology. I’ve got a good chunk of that story written so I am going to finish it and hope to find somewhere else to shop it to. Work will lighten up by mid-October so I can get back to Neutral Zone and finish that editing job. Reading David Inside Out by Lee Bantle further drove the point home that I need to finish working on Neutral Zone and work to get it out there. There is a market for this kind of story–Martin, Bill and Lee have all proven that to me this year.

Meanwhile, there’s no news yet on Neutral Zone and its status at the Twenty-Sixth Annual Delacorte Press Contents for a First Young Adult Novel. I can’t decide if I should be encouraged or not that I’ve heard nothing and it’s  mid-March. The rules say “Writers will be notified between January and April as submissions are evaluated by the editors.” The winner (if there is one) is announced “on or around April 30.” I’m trying to stick with the “no news is good news” mantra for now.

I’m still working on the Untitled Dream Project, writing some scenes and sketching out the main characters to see what I have there. I’ve also hatched an idea recently for a story set within a reality show… too early to tell what might come of that idea.