That’s right, the results of the vote for my next short story – one that will be available for free download from here – are in. What did they show me?

That I have an extremely silent readership.

All told, I received two votes: one from one of my most loyal of readers, and the other from one of my bloody co-workers. To say that I’d wished for a larger voting audience would be true, but there also used to be days when I’d have no one that would vote at all. With that in mind, I’m still happy with the outcome.

So what is the outcome, you wonder?

1. Science Fiction: 1 vote.
2. Western: 1 vote.

So,  a tie between some more SciFi and a Western. What does this mean? It means we’re gonna have another short story that takes place in the Dark Stars universe.

What do I mean by “another short story” from Dark Stars? Nobody’s heard that title before, so surely I must be blowing smoke out my bung hole, right?

Wrong.

You see, I actually created the blueprints and foundations for an entire Science Fiction universe that I could tell any number of stories in. My own sandbox, if you will. I planned for aliens, corporations, rural colonies in fringe worlds, ect. I then also wrote a short story that took place in this universe, one that I hope you’re all familiar with. Its name was Dawnstar.

That’s right, folks. Dawnstar wasn’t simply some little one-off short story that I popped out of nowhere (well it was, but hush), it was part of a much larger universe that I have in mind and notes. Here, with this new short story that will soon begin construction and formulation, we’ll see more of it. Where does the Western part come in? Well, you’ve only seen a tiny part of the Dark Stars universe so far.

So what process will this story undertake? Well, I’m currently planning and mapping out the idea of the story. I’ve got a couple concepts in mind, just deciding what to do with it. After that comes the writing part (obviously), followed by getting it cleaned up. Now what will the “cleaning up” entail? Well, hopefully it will entail a beta reader or two, and/or some time in a workshop. Don’t want to host some raw hunk of space-turd now do we?

Now I’m pretty sure that, if you’re still reading, the question that’s likely on your mind is this: “How will we get to read it?”

The answer is pretty simple. I’ve established a Box account, which is now currently hosting a .zip containing multiple formats (PDF, mobi, and epub) of “A Call to Arms”, a collection of my poetry along with some extras. With this, I’ll be providing downloads to the story in multiple formats (again: PDF, mobi, and epub). I’ll also be changing a couple pages of the website so that the “Poetry” tab will be changed to also have a link to said story, posted – in full – here on the website.

This story, along with the poetry collection, will all fall under Creative Commons. That, in layman’s terms, will mean you can download it, share it, print it out and use it as toilet paper, whatever. You can do all of that for free, with only the small request that (if you do share it) you provide either credit to my name or a link to this website. Seriously folks, it won’t be that bloody hard; it’s not like I’m charging you or anything.

So there you have it, folks! Completed contests, new stories on the horizon, and (hopefully) good times to be had by all.