Introducing The Shattered World Series
I've been writing a novel for years, trying to outpace current events. I'm publishing it here first.
It’s late 2008. Barack Obama has won the election, but there is a part of my brain that won’t let go of Sarah Palin. A story tickles at the edge of my consciousness: what if Sarah Palin is emblematic of a new kind of politics?
What if she runs for election in 2012 or 2016 and does the unthinkable and wins? What if she’s such a disaster as President that there’s a contested re-election, and the USA falls into Civil War because we’re so divided by her low, populist, Mean Girl style of politics?
This story percolates around my brain for months, until finally, my Muse getting bored with me not actually writing anything down, it fades.
It’s early 2017, and I—like much of the rest of the world—can’t believe that Donald Trump was elected the President of the United States, running as a low-brow, mean, populist.
My Muse is kicking me in the head repeatedly, telling me that I fucked up by not writing this story. I tell them to shut up and go away.
Later, as a consolation or perhaps an apology, she comes to me with a story idea: a scrappy group of college researchers in post-Civil War America discovers how to create linked quantum portal pairs. No magic, no aliens—just a freakish luck-meets-genius breakthrough that has the chance to change the world. But for better, or for worse?
I get excited, build the story out in my head, and then, you know, life gets busy and I sort of let it fade. My Muse comes to visit, kicking me in the head again and again, but I’m reluctant to put keyboard to pixels.
It’s March of 2020, and for the sake of amusement, let’s imagine that one night during the early pandemic, I sit up in bed out of a dead sleep, and realize: I’m 50 years old. If I’m ever going to live my dream of being an Award-Winning Beloved Science Fiction Author, I kind of need to start, you know, writing things down and trying to get them published.
I also, conveniently, realize that these stories that have been bopping around in my head for years are the same story woven into a multi-book series I start calling the Shattered World series.
My Muse shows up, and rather than kicking me in the head, they see that I’m ready to get to work, and start whispering ideas to me—lines of dialogue, characters, backstories, maps, hooks, lines, sinkers—the whole schmear.
I work diligently, but life, as always, gets in the way. Sometimes the writing flows, and sometimes I have to beg it out of a dessicated rock like a dying man in the desert.
But I keep at it. I write chapters and chapters. I draw the maps in Photohop. I find an amazing book coach in Erin Michelle Gibes at Erin Writes Magic.
But time keeps slipping into the future, and current events keep threatening to outpace my writing.
It’s March of 2025, and Donald Trump is somehow, impossibly, the President of the United States again.
Things I had written in my book ages ago that seemed fanciful, or daring, or just downright stupid have now come to pass. Every day feels like I am racing the clock to get things done, even as the novel splits into two, and then three books.
A follow-on trilogy springs into my mind, and then a trilogy after that one as well! Now that I’m writing, my Muse is bringing me ideas by the bucketful, and I’m running out of space and time to fill everything in with words.
I start writing short stories, because sometimes when the words for The Book won’t come, other words bubble up in their place.
All I want to do is get back into that Flow Zone, where the words fall out of me like I am God’s Own Mouthpiece. It feels so good being a channel in those moments that I am like a junkie, always chasing that high.
I am in love with this book. I am in love with this story, and these characters. I want to bring them to life. I am honored that they have chosen me to write their lives into being.
We all look at publishing—the time, the possible rejection, the wait for a yes, the churn to finally see a book in print—and it fills us all with dread and impatience.
It is March 19, 2025, and I have just added a section to my new Substack for The Shattered World series.
I am writing this update, to explain to you what I am doing, and why.
I have this story to tell. We do—me, my Muse, all of the characters that I’ve been taking dictation from for years now.
We want to tell you this story, chapter by chapter. Sometimes with maps, and Author’s Notes, or glossaries, or glossilalia, perhaps. In this format, the Front Matter and the Back Matter can be happening everywhere, whenever we want or need them to.
Every great idea or turn of phrase you’ll read comes from The Great Mystery Thing That Compels Me To Write. Any errors or flaws or drudgery comes from only me—the imperfect vessel trying to do a thing that I am called to do, even though I don’t know what or why or how.
As we go, I’d love your thoughts, your feedback, your comments, and maybe, if I am really lucky and have done something right, your fandom.
Enough blather. Now you know why I am doing this, so without any further ado, welcome to The Shattered World series. I hope you love reading and thinking about it as much as I have loved writing it.
Happy Reading!