Coronavirus got you down? Locked in your house for the foreseeable future? Stuck gazing out the window at the COVID-zombies shambling through the deserted streets, wishing you'd paid attention when all those kooky right-wing radio talk show hosts were warning about the apocalypse and trying to sell you gold?

Maybe you wish you had a book about ponies to tide you over?

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Hey friends,

I'm going to beat the same drum I always beat -- if you want to be a better writer, you need to do three things:

1. Write (duh)
2. Get feedback on your writing
3. Adjust your writing based on the feedback

Repeat until you're happy with your writing.

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I started work on Salvation almost four years ago. In fact, technically, I completed Salvation back in 2012.

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Hey folks,

Few things. First, you may have noticed that Salvation just updated. There are only two chapters remaining, and I expect to have them out by the end of the year.

Second, I just finished doing something unusual with Salvation -- I retconned it. When I started writing this story, three years ago, things were a lot different. Twilight was still a unicorn, the library tree still existed, there was no castle, there was no crystal empire, etc, etc.

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Hey folks,

So, Japan has been pretty awesome. That has nothing to do with today's post, which is all about artwork, a sneak-peak at the new Salvation chapter, and some updates about stories coming down the pipeline.

But it's true: Japan is awesome. For the rest of that stuff, see below the break.

First, artwork!

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Hey folks,

In about 12 hours I'll be publishing an update for Salvation. Salvation is one of my most beloved stories, but I have completely failed to do it justice with regular updates. The most recent chapter before today’s was published back in May of 2014, when I was still in Afghanistan. Since then, I have:

Published the following full-length stories:

- For Whom We Are Hungry
- The Last Trumpet’s Call
- Forever Summer
- All the Mortal Remains

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Hey folks,

As of today, I have either nine weeks or 13 weeks remaining in Afghanistan. Normally I would know for sure, but things are in a bit of a flux over here right now.

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Our unit just held a remembrance ceremony by the flagpole. We read the names of the two-hundred some members of our unit who've died in Iraq or Afghanistan, and held a short moment of silence for them.

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Most of my posts on Afghanistan -- the exciting ones, basically -- have been about my time in Gardez. That was my second deployment -- I'm currently on my fifth. Unfortunately, the work I do now isn't anything I can talk about in public, even anonymously on the internet. The closest I can come is this short little sketch.

I was in the JOC today
(that's a Joint Operations Center),
watching a dozen windows on the world,

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There was an article in the Washington Post a few days back about all of the unexploded munitions being left behind by the US. Apparently they're causing some number of civilian injuries and deaths.

I find that very easy to believe. Afghan children don't seem to be frightened of the same things that I – a grown man and experienced soldier – find terrifying.

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So you may have noticed this "50 Questions" thing bouncing around. It started over with bookplayer, an author I hadn't run into before this, but in just the past few days I've had several reasons to see what she's about, and I'm pretty impressed. She has a neat list of blog topics over at his user page -- go hit her up.

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It always amazed me that people would chase around wars, like a surfer who lives in a tent on the beach just so he can chase after the biggest waves as the morning tide rolls in.

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Hey folks, short update here. I just wanted to let everyone know that I've made it to Afghanistan safely, that I'm semi-online, still writing, and will be posting stuff soon.

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Many of you who follow me know that I'm very much event-driven. That is, when something happens that catches my attention, it also tends to direct my actions for a bit.

So, when some people got to talking with me about Salvation the other day, I felt an almost magnetic draw back to that story. End result? New chapter! It's meant to be read with the previous chapter, which should be obvious from the title.

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