Omachuck: Blog

This story should have been posted months ago, but Charlie has been fastidious in making sure the Swarm authors agree that he is within canon. I was one of the editor/reviewer/proofers and highly reommend the story. You will probably see me using some of his concepts in my next story.

Enjoy! Mike

I was checking my story stats and noted that this week marked over 800,000 downloads. More important, there were almost 17,000 times someone took the trouble to vote. I'm not sure if the downloads measure the times a whole story was read or just a chapter. Whatever the measurement, I appreciate you readers and raters very much.

Since my neck injury a little over a year ago, my ability to concentrate has suffered, and my work in progress is stalled. I hope to get back to it soon.

I'm about to have a pleasant Christmas with family and hope that whatever holidays you celebrate around this time are happy for you as well.

Mike

Good intentions slowed.

I had fully intended to complete and post The Beard long before now, but...

1) My committee of proofreaders, readers, and editors are pretty adamant that it needs new chapters, expansions, and resolutions.

2) Last October, I fractured several cervical vertebrae and injured some other stuff. What I hope is the third and final surgery was on July 20th. Just got out of the hospital and recovering well, but the fingers still work wonky.

3) Some forthcoming travel (50th anniversary) may continue to slow things...

It has been heartening to see that my stories continue to be read, the ratings climb a little on some. THANKS for both.

The Gangriel Incident posts sometime today.

Reminder: This is a DARK story with triggers. Please pay attention to the codes.

The Gangriel Incident is the last Swarm Cycle story written by Benjin, and contributes to the overall gestalt. However, I asked the moderators to turn off voting for this one, but feel free to comment.

I checked this morning, and found Benjin has read your comments, and in some cases, responded to them. I'm glad he is seeing the continued interest in his stories.

Upon reading some of the comments on Benjin's stories, I responded, then decided to summarize here.

You folks have some good and interesting thoughts. Here are some of mine:

Early on, one of my editors and I set out to proofread Benjin's stories. As you said, there are both typos and 'expressions' that come from his native German. We got through one and half of another, and I decided it wouldn't work without Benjin participating. A BIG reason was the temptation to edit as well as proof, and the 'flavor' changed. Another was that there would be two versions of the same story on different sites. I didn't even keep the two stories in my own files.

On the other items, you have to remember that these are stories that were written very early in the Cycle. Other authors, including me, have expanded on such ideas. One reason we are so protective of 'canon' is to let us poke at ideas without treading on each other. I think it works pretty well. Above all, I wanted to 'port Benjin's stories to show the origin of some of the basic ideas/tenants of the Cycle. Benjin laid a LOT of the foundation.

If we could get permission, I'd be more than happy to 'port other stories from ASSTR, but we do need to consider copyrights.

Omachuck