[link]

Just trust me and click. Cliiiick. Click and bookmark. A madcap scheme of mine has finally come to fruition and you must SEEEEE!

Life just continues to be hectic for me, doesn't it? I'm secretly wondering when and if it will slow down. I'm still writing (fiction, fanfiction as well as articles for Suite101--check my stuff out if you have even a passing interest in comic books) and traveling as much as I can (since my last blog, I've been back to Alabama, in Chicago half a dozen times and in St. Louis; I'll be going to Indiana, Missouri, Iowa and Chicago again before I leave for Alabama for Christmas -__-; )

The biggest projects that loom on the horizon are:

1.)A stretch of write-as-much-as-possible over the next thirty days(not quite NaNoWriMo, but pretty close).

2.)A four page comic piece for a charity anthology to benefit the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund.

3.) More articles for Suite101.

4.) Lettering, editing and general upkeep of the upcoming webcomic 'Villainy', co-written by with art by

5.) General busy-ness.

I really, really wish I had time to putter here, but I can't. However, since so many CATverse fans are attached to my dA account, I'd like to ask you all to please, please, please spread the word about us any way you can. Signatures that link to us, pimping us on Live Journal, forums that you hang around on, communities here on dA or even in your blogs elsewhere will be a great help in getting Villainy off the ground to a running start.

I don't hang around dA much anymore, chilluns, but if you need me, you can reach me either through e-mail (bitemetechie@yahoo.com--and please, make your subject lines to the point, like "I'm a fan!" or something 'cause I get waaay too much randomly titled spam to sort through it all) or you can keep up with me on Live Journal [link]

Okay? Okay. I'm going to go back to work now. Take care!

ETA: Oh! Right. I forgot. For aspiring writers, I've published a book of prompts, via lulu.com. If you've ever gotten stuck or needed something to spark your creativity, The Big Little Book of Writing Prompts contains 1,001 (literally--I counted) prompts to get those creative juices flowing. Purchasing it will help fund the CATverse/Villainy site. After all, server space doesn't pay for itself.

I've been super busy lately. Let's see:

I went to Alabama for my birthday. It was a week of goofing off with friends and checking out the campus. I may move to go to college there, and I'm going back again in a week for further investigation.

I just turned twenty two. -throws confetti-

I got to attend Wizard World Chicago this past weekend. I didn't get to see Warren Ellis or Bruce Timm as I had originally hoped, but I lucked out in that I spied Ellis at the airport when I got back from 'Bama. I've never been so glad my ride was two hours late in all my life.

On the fiction front, I'm currently working on a new superhero comic book mini-series called The Pessimist. It's a tongue-in-cheek sort of satire. I'm very excited about it. Also, Penny Dreadful and the Shilling Shockers, another, darker mini-series that fits into the supernatural/Chaos! Comics mold is on the back burner for the time being, but research is being done.

Production of Discordia: The Unraveling has stalled, due to the fact I'm having a very hard time finding an artist who wants to work on it. By all means, if you do sequential art and have any interest in the book, let me know.

I'm currently working for Suite101 as an article and review writer. When not writing for them, I'm writing for RetroJunk. RJ has gotten me a lot of opportunities recently and I'm ranked at 102 in their contributor's list. Which is spiffy.

I've been offered the opportunity to co-host a podcast for This Week in Geek based around the new X-Files movie; whether this will come to fruition or not remains to be seen. Things have been hectic all around, both for the producer of the show and for me.

I'm going to be lettering a web comic co-written by and myself, drawn by . It's slated for release through Keenspot.com, with the grand opening of the site tentatively set as January 2009.

And...I believe that's about it, for now. I'm tired and sore. The past three weeks have been unbelievably busy and I've been depriving myself of sleep in order to get things done that neeeeed to be done. Now that WW is over, I get to spend a couple of days resting before I have to prepare for my next cross-country flight.

This summer promises to be the busiest of my short existence.

Okay, here we go!

"A few months back, I sat down and spent a week and a half cranking out a three issue, open ended mini-series that had been bothering me for awhile (it became part of my NaNoWriMo wordcount, actually). A couple weeks of wildly intense revisions came about afterwards and then I went out and found an artist for it (over on Digital Webbing). In the intervening months, he did all the character designs for the entire series and the first sixteen sequential pages (the first six of which I've got). I was pleased beyond belief and then...

He dropped out on me without warning.

After I got done shaking my fist at the heavens and cursing my bad luck (which has ironically turned inordinately good since then), I decided to take the opportunity afforded me by the artist's drop-out to start another round of revisions to tighten up anything that's not perfect.

That's where you guys come in. I trust you to be brutal. Tell me what you like about it. What you don't like. What bugs the hell out of you. What could be improved. What you'd like to see if you picked this up in a comic shop. What works, what doesn't and why. Does it make you want to keep turning pages? Is there anywhere that it drags? Be honest.

All I ask is that you don't try to make me cry.

Before we get started, I give you: The Quick and Dirty Pitch.

The main character at the center of Discordia, Laura Johnson, is part Catwoman, part Buffy with a side of Xena and some Ash J. Williams sprinkles on top. A cat burglar at the beginning of the series, she unwittingly winds up with the highly destructive, near uncontrollable powers of an ancient Greek goddess and gets in way over her head as a result. Her only guide through this life altering event is the mysterious Caretaker, who will help her understand what's happening to her as well as the horrors she's likely to face because of her new divine gift. The series has elements of both mythology (ranging from the River Styx to Hellhounds) and traditional horror (zombies and werewolves), blended together into a fast paced, fun romp.

The first three issues can either stand alone as a single mini-series, or as the opening arc to an ongoing series of minis. If it became ongoing, there would be more in depth looks at the characters, whereas now there are only little glimpses of what makes these people tick. Hopefully, those glimpses are enough to make the audience want to know more about them...

(Because frankly, I have the second mini in the planning stages already and dammit, I like the characters, even if nobody else does.)

And now that I'm done yakking, behold! Discordia: The Unraveling, #1-3.

(Seriously. Comment and critique is love, guys. If I can't get it from you, who can I get it from?)"

Issue 1
Issue 2
Issue 3

Okay! I'm really sick and tired of seeing the same journal entry on my page, so...hi. -waves happily-

Here's what's gone down in the past...oh, month and a half:

1.) I've managed to get happily settled into my new apartment; my action figures and comic books have places of honor and I couldn't be happier.

2.) As you know, the artist I had attached to my comic book mini project bailed out on me. That's okay, the joke is on him and I'll explain why in a moment.; the first six issues have undergone quite a few revisions (you can read the scripts here, if you're curious) and I'm pretty happy with them. They're threatening to expand into a continuing series of minis (which was always the plan, but I didn't think the franchise would start to explode inside my head to the size it has), and I'm preparing myself to go on the hunt for another artist. This time around, I intend to publish the comic as a webcomic first, page by page, then when it's done, I'll shop it around to companies. If nobody wants it, self publishing and selling via the web it'll be!

3.) I went to and worked at CODcon in April (it's one of the midwest's biggest gaming conventions) and--here's where the pointing and laughing at my former artist comes in--met a publisher who was the guest of honor. He chatted me up (I went in costume on the last day of the con, you see--Golden Age Catwoman, to be precise--so I was approached by every Tom, Dick and Harry that wanted to meow to me all day), and when he asked what I do when I'm not working cons, I informed him I'm a freelance writer (before I even knew he was a publisher, mind); I told him about Discordia and I wound up giving him my e-mail address. A couple weeks later, he wrote me, telling me that he's looking to expand his small press company with more authors and I expressed interest (obviously; I'd be an idiot not to). So I am in the proverbial tub of butter on the merits of my personality alone.

4.) Six more comic book series are in the works now: Villainy (a kind of riff on the Gotham City villain archetype aesthetic, which follows the antagonists rather than the hero of the universe), A Fool's Errand (a sword and sorcercy pieces which is the equivalent of a D&D campaign on crack), Discordia: Chaos Rising (sequel to Discordia: The Unraveling), Penny Dreadful (what I've really been dying to write, a Chaos! Comics Bad Girl-esque mini series), The Pessimist (a humor/parody riff on superheroes, based on a short story I wrote ages ago) and Noctem (a character driven, post apocalyptic supernatural vampire vs. werewolves vs. witchcraft vs. crusaders tale).

5.) As requested by a load of my fans, non-profit anthologies of my fanfiction are now available in print form on my website.

6.) The fanfiction awards I run, The Skiffy Awards, which celebrate the best character centric pieces around, are in full swing once again, taking up what little free time I have when I'm not working.

7.) The CATverse, which is a labor of Batman fanfiction love between myself and one of my best friends, has expanded to such monsterous proportions it's starting to scare me...but it'll also be drawing to a close sometime within the next year, most likely. It's even got fanart, which you can find in my favorites, in the collection 'Giftage' (go look, seriously).

8.) There are...um...-counts- four original novels in the works, currently, though I'll admit I've been slacking more than a little bit on those. One is a reworking of a fanfiction storyline that I came up with years ago, two are retellings of fairy tales (Cinderella and Little Red Riding Hood) and the last one is a coming-of-age caper with two unwitting, accidental criminals at the forefront.

So, my friends! That's a fraction of what I've been doing with my time, and I should really be cleaning my apartment right now. so...later.

Oh, and: if you haven't seen Iron Man yet? Do. Seriously. I pretty much danced my way out of the theatre, I was so happy. And stay after the credits!