That gum you like is coming back in style.

I’ve uploaded the next piece of flash fiction. It’s titled “Joyride” and you can read it here.

Channel Zero was featured on deviantART on Thursday, which led the way to more exposure and feedback, and that’s never a bad thing. It’s had over 2500 hits since I uploaded it five days ago. I think that’s a new personal record. One of most consistent questions asked was, “Is this part of something bigger.” The answer to that question is “yes and no.” Yes, as in, there are three other flash fiction pieces that tie into the same futuristic world; No, as in, I hadn’t planned for anything else.

Of course these questions got the gears turning in my own head about the possibility of expanding upon the story. As I told my friend Phill the other night, I think I may be able to squeeze a novel out of it. The story would focus on multiple characters in almost a pulp-like manner; individual lives all living underneath this futuristic system, and the multiple ways it affects them while, at the same time, a killer is running around, trying to disrupt that very system. Or something like that. It’s still up in the air, and it’s not my top priority.

Salli and Charles, the folks behind Soundzine asked me quite a while ago about doing an audio recording of A Life Transparent. Way back in January, this was one of the things I wanted to accomplish, but time issues and the necessity of a simultaneous launch with the printed version made this nearly impossible. Now, almost a full year later, the prospect of doing it one part at a time with Soundzine doing only one release every few months makes it a serial production, and in doing so has the potential to hook new readers well before the story is told, prompting them to go buy the book to find out how it ends.

Unfortunately I was sick all week, so I couldn’t begin the recording process as planned. I now have until the end of the month to at least record something that doesn’t suck. Let’s hope for the best.

Aside from that, my main priority is editing my novel, imagiNATION. It’s been over a year since I completed the first draft, and over the course of this year every time I would go back to begin the second draft, I found that I was not ready to do so. I’ve got a few pages of preliminary notes, covering topics and themes that are already featured and should have been featured, but were not. I estimate I’ll have to rewrite about 45% of the novel. That’s quite a task, considering the novel is approximately 108,000 words. Yeah, I’ve got my work cut out for me.

Tomorrow’s going to be spent doing a lot of housecleaning with Erica. We’ve both been sick and haven’t felt like doing much of anything so our apartment is a disaster area. I’m hoping to settle down sometime tomorrow evening and begin recording; once the first part is done, it’s on to the wonderful land of editing.

Oh joy.