Return to podcasting

You may or may not have stumbled onto Uncle Warren's Attic #53, now available in a podcatcher near you. But he made an announcement that I'm kind of pleased about, in that OMG-what-am-I-getting-myself-into kind of way.

UW, who launched into the podcasting world with his reading of my first tome, The Imaginary Bomb, will be doing the same for my novel under construction, The Imaginary Revolution. We have worked out a weekly schedule where he will read three chapters a week for eight weeks, beginning Aug. 10 with UWA #54 and concluding with a gangbusters UWA #61 on Sept. 28.

This is partly a shameless marketing exercise and partly an incentive to keep me writing the remarkable story of Raymond Kaliber and independent Sirius IV, which I plan to inflict on the world around mid-October. As such, it may remind longtime readers of the debacle that was The Imaginary Lover. The difference between that uncompleted novel and this one is that, unlike that one, I know how this one ends. In fact, I have the final chapter mostly written already. This puppy is coming. The only wild cards that could throw off the schedule are the day-job factor and unexpected life events.

Uncle Warren's technology has advanced a bit since he bragged about the wonderful analog system he used to record the I-Bomb. That iMac of his has capabilities to do things that would have been pretty unwieldy to accomplish with the old stuff alone — but the old stuff is still part of his system. So the new novel may sound, shall we say, different from the I-Bomb.

And it is different. It's not a sequel in the sense that the I-Lover was, although it does take place in the same future universe as the I-Bomb, and there will be some references to the events of the first novel, as the time lines of the two books intersect at one point. In the first book, the declaration of independence by the encampment at Sirius IV was a subplot that partially drove the action. In this book, that declaration is the main plot.

Alas, I have not figured out a way to bring Bob Whelan, Pete Wong and Baxter Hetznecker into this story, so this is not a continuation of their story. Do you have to have read The Imaginary Bomb to fully grok The Imaginary Revolution? Probably not — but if you want to buy The I-Bomb anyway, I ain't stoppin' ya.

I heartily suggest you visit or subscribe to Uncle Warren's Attic over the next couple of months if you haven't made it a habit already. The geniuses at Richardson & Bluhm are working hard to make it worth your while. OK, we're playing hard, actually, but the result is very similar.

The joy of writing

This will seem a bit odd, but then I hope you've come to expect that from me: I forgot how much fun it was to write the adventures of Bob Whelan, Pete Wong and their mysterious new friend Baxter Hetznecker, until old buddy Wally Conger wrote a nice review of The Imaginary Bomb:

What’s this science fiction novel — at just 24,000 words, it may be more of a novella — all about? Well, it’s a comedic romp posing as an intergalactic political thriller. It’s an apocalyptic space opera told with a grin and a wink. Which isn’t to say that The Imaginary Bomb doesn’t have its share of edge-of-your-seat moments.

All during the last couple of years, since I pulled this old manuscript out of the basement and polished it up for the podcast and book versions, and as I tinkered with the aborted sequel, The Imaginary Lover, it was work. Satisfying work, I must admit, but work. Maybe that's why the sequel barely got beyond some minor tweaking. It took Wally to remind me it was also fun.

I just may slip into my old skin as the relatively omniscient narrator and see if I can find my way back to that "Are we having fun yet?" attitude. Thanks for the reminder, Wally!

P.S. Thanks to everyone for making The I-Bomb #38,157 at the Lulu Marketplace! We have nowhere to go but up ...

Cross-posted to B.W. Richardson's Imaginary Age

I-Bomb: The 200th download

By most standards of the marketplace, The Imaginary Bomb has not been a spectacular success. The next person to download Warren Bluhm's podcast reading of Chapters 1-3 will be only the 200th since it was posted last May 15. Slightly less than half that number - 87 - have stuck with the story long enough to download Chapter 27, the end of the adventure.

Those stats represent the real reason why I haven't gone ahead with my once-dream of self-publishing a print version, and why I haven't felt motivated to continue the saga of Baxter Hetznecker and his friends, although I did post what I've finished of the sequel, The Imaginary Lover.

Friends tell me the I-Bomb is a fun story, and probably the main reason the podcast barely made a ripple is that I don't know marketing from a hole in the ground. I will gladly entertain suggestions about how to reach a wider audience - send me an e-mail.

On a psychological level, The Imaginary Bomb has been an enormous success. This little novel - more of a novella, really - burst out of my head in an explosion of creativity in the late 1980s, and after making three paltry attempts to attract a publisher, I packed the thing in a cardboard box and left it in the basement for 17-18 years. Only when Warren slapped me upside the head early last year did I agree to take this baby step of exposing my story to the world, but at least it was a step. Instead of continuing to hide my stuff under a bushel basket, I lifted the edge of the basket and said, "Hey folks, take a peek."

Bluhm has since made great strides in home recording - although I should snidely point out that Uncle Warren's Attic hasn't exactly made him a household word, either, even though he is twice the marketer I am (read: Twice nothing is ...) - so we freely admit it's not the greatest podcast novel ever produced, but all of these things aside, I am celebrating the pending 200th download. That's about 190 more people than ever were exposed to the novel before last May 15, so I've expanded my audience by a factor of 20. If I did that every year, I'd be J.K. Rowling before I die, assuming I live as long as my grandfathers did and my father has.

Thanks to all who have sent and even written kind words about The I-Bomb, and if you haven't heard it yet, hey, you could be the 200th "reader" by clicking here - tell me what you think. As Pete Wong might say, this could be the beginning of a beautiful friendship.

Done. For now.

For folks who were curious about the truncated second installment of my imaginary physics saga but weren't into reading only one chapter a day, the whole unfinished mess is now online, complete with an explanation of where it was going when my creativity shut off.

The whole sordid affair is here; chapter-by-chapter links are here.

I'm not exactly sure where we go from here, or when, but I think I'll be in a position to say sometime this spring. Stay tuned, as they say.