Veteran’s Day often gets glossed over these days because people fail to recognize how much has been done to provide and protect the freedom they so enjoy. This series of cartoons that came out last week just nails it, so in lieu of these, I share these as a reminder. Whoever served in your life, whether family or friends or strangers, take the time to say thanks today and every chance you get. They earned it. And you can never say it enough.
Today started out badly. But never has a day so quickly turned completely around and gone off the map. I mean toilet overflow with chunks kinda day. Yep. That’s what I dealt with first thing this morning. Disgusting. Sorry to share. But there’s a point.
Then, just reading my Facebook wall, I find this: http://bookclubs.barnesandnoble.com/t5/Explorations-The-BN-SciFi-and/The-Best-Science-Fiction-Releases-of-2011/ba-p/1241244
As usual, I check it over and prepare to send it out for others to see. Then I get to the Honorable Mentions. Just scanning, mind you. And my mind is blown.
My debut novel is listed.
I know Paul from Facebook and B&N Book Clubs. Nice guy. We’ve chatted a few times. He invited me to send my novel, so I did. In August. Never heard a word. I figured he didn’t review it. Maybe he didn’t like it. Maybe it just didn’t catch his interest.
I am stunned, amazed, humbled and honored.
I feel legitimate in a whole new way. And so privileged.
If you haven’t seen it, you should check it out here https://bryanthomasschmidt.net/the-worker-prince/
And if you’ve read it, please review it on B&N, Amazon, Goodreads, etc. Sales are steady but slow. And I guess I feel like there’s an audience out there who would enjoy it I’d like to see discover it.
Thanks to all for the support and encouragement!
Especially those mentioned on my Book Day Thanks. Thanks to Paul Goat Allen as well!
Bryan Thomas Schmidt is the author of the space opera novel The Worker Prince, the collection The North Star Serial, and has several short stories forthcoming in anthologies and magazines. His second novel, The Returning, is forthcoming from Diminished Media Group in 2012. He’s also the host of Science Fiction and Fantasy Writer’s Chatevery Wednesday at 9 pm EST on Twitter, where he interviews people like Mike Resnick, AC Crispin, Kevin J. Anderson and Kristine Kathryn Rusch. He can be found online as @BryanThomasS on Twitter or via his website. Excerpts from The Worker Prince can be found on his blog.
4 5-star & 8 4-star reviews THE WORKER PRINCE $3.99 Kindlehttp://amzn.to/pnxaNm or Nook http://bit.ly/ni9OFh $14.99 tpb http://bit.ly/qIJCkS. Honorable Mention on Barnes & Noble’s Best SF Releases of 2011.
We all have our Writer’s Journey and it’s different for everyone. Although I thought of this story idea in my teens, it wasn’t until 2008 that I actually began to seriously dream of being a published novelist. To be there three years later, is still unbelievable. Here’s the Acknowledgements from my first novel, reprinted here because these people all deserve so much thanks. In this case, I just don’t have words.
Acknowledgements
The idea for this story came to me when I was a young, fifteen-year-old science fiction fan living in a small Kansas town where it sometimes felt like dreaming was the only way out. Over the years, I lost my original notes, but the idea in my head and the names Xalivar and Sol stayed with me.
It took me twenty-five years to start writing it and I wrote daily through some of the toughest trials I’ve experienced in my life. So this book you hold in your hand is a victory in many ways, and I’m very excited and proud of it and hope you’ll enjoy it and share it with others.
Thanks go first to Lost Genre Guild for inspiring me to try writing for Digital Dragon and to T.W. Ambrose for encouraging me to write more space opera stories, and then agreeing to publish them. An abridged version of the prologue to this novel first appeared in Digital Dragon’s May 2010 issue.
Secondly, thanks go to fellow authors like Blake Charlton, Ken Scholes, Jay Lake, Mike Resnick, Leon Metz, Jason Sanford, Moses Siregar and Grace Bridges who have supported, encouraged and advised me time and time again, no matter how silly my questions were or how many times they’d heard them before. Special thanks to Blake and Grace for taking time to read and offer more specific advice to help me grow as a writer and to Mike Resnick for advice in figuring out this crazy business.
Thirdly, thanks to first readers and friends like Larry Thomson, Tim Pearse, Jeff Vaughn, David Melson, Todd Ward, Mike Wallace, Andrew Reeves, Chris Zylo Owens, and the members of the FCW-Basic Critique Group for actually seeming to enjoy my writing even in its roughest form and for giving me feedback which helped me to improve it greatly.
Fourthly, thanks to friends like Charlie Davidson, Aaron Zapata, Mark Dalbey, Nelson Jennings, and Greg Baerg, who, along with some of the guys above, have helped me escape from behind the desk and keyboard and laugh a little bit when I needed it.
Fifthly, thanks to Mitch Bentley for actually reading the book before creating the awesome cover art. And thanks to Randy Streu, Jen Ambrose, Paul Conant and Darlene Oakley for their editing and advice, the El Paso Writer’s League for encouragement and fellowship, and Mike Wallace for the science of the Boralis solar system. Thanks also to Jeana Clark for the solar system map which brought it to life for me.
Thanks to you, the reader, for taking a chance on a new, unknown writer. I hope you like it enough to come back for more.
Thanks to God for making me in His image and giving me the talent and inspiration to do this and continually opening the doors. I look forward to seeing what’s behind the next ones.
Let me add a few names of people who weren’t mentioned but would have been at this point if I wrote that today, including blurbers and others who’ve supported me so much: Mitchell Bentley (what a cover–sorry, I meant to add you in!!!!), Maurice Broaddus, Saladin Ahmed, Jaleta Clegg, David Lee Summers, my parents–Ramon & Glenda, whose thanks comes in the book’s dedication, Jamie Pearse, Sarah Hendrix, John H. Stevens, Kaolin Fire, Lee Gunter, Louis B. Shalako, Michelle Ristuccia, Shaun Farrell & Adventures In SF Publishing, Kevin J. Anderson, Mary Robinette Kowal, Kat Richardson, Sam Sykes, Patrick Swenson, Eric Reynolds, Johne Cook, John DeNardo, Charles Tan, John Ottinger, Lyn Perry, Mike Ray/RedstoneSF, Anthony Cardno, David Rozansky, John A. Pitts, Brian Knight. I know I’m still forgetting someone, but at least this is a better list.
Bryan Thomas Schmidt is the author of the space opera novel The Worker Prince, the collection The North Star Serial, and has several short stories forthcoming in anthologies and magazines. He’s also the host ofScience Fiction and Fantasy Writer’s Chat every Wednesday at 9 pm EST on Twitter, where he interviews people like Mike Resnick, AC Crispin, Kevin J. Anderson and Kristine Kathryn Rusch. He can be found online as @BryanThomasS on Twitter or via his website. Excerpts from The Worker Prince can be found on his blog.
