The House of Grey Blog

Collin and I have been feeling the pressure to finish up The House of Grey for some time now. And while that is well underway, I looked back and realized that we let this pressure get the best of us. The forum has been neglected and lately the blog only has updates on the next episode and the episodes themselves. Don’t get me wrong, I get that The House of Grey is a great story and we’re working on it as fast as we can, but at the same time it is just the beginning of something much larger that we want to share with everyone. So in light of this reinvigoration, here’s what’s going on outside The House of Grey that y’all can look forward to:

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So 40 is being honed as I type. Collin is wrapping up the story, crossing his I’s and dotting his T’s…or something like that. We’ll both be off at the end of the week so I can put the thumb screws to him and hopefully have this out too y’all very soon.

Our wonderfully talented friend and fellow author (who has a very alluring reading voice I might add) Starla Huchton just added her tale The Dreamer’s Thread to Podiobooks.com. If you haven’t started listening to the story from her feed, head over and grab it from Podiobooks.com. She is crazy talented, the book has a serious who’s-who cast of the podcast universe, and it is a wicked good story to boot.

Remember way back when, we asked all of our fans to drop us their short stories? Well, since we are close to the end of The House of Grey, I am piecing together all of the tales we will be featuring. This will be a side project from Collin’s normal writing and will feature a number of our fans that have put their own fantastic yarns down on paper. We’re working with another local artist for the music, but you can get a preview of her work by heading over to her site.

That’s it for now. Have a great Turkey Day!

Yep…it’s official. The House of Grey is up for the Best New Speculative Fiction Podcaster/Team award.  If fact, many of our fellow Podiobooks.com authors made the short list.  So Collin and I will be visiting the greater Atlanta area over Labor Day weekend at Dragon*Con. If any of our fans hail from there, give us a shout out and we can hang out. Super big huge thanks to everyone that has supported The House of Grey. Without you folks, we’d look pretty weird standing in a closet reading a book to no one.

Collin hits the Bar Exam on Tuesday. Send good vibes. After he regains consciousnesses, the last four episodes of The House of Grey will drop in rapid succession, so get ready. It will be both intense and sad. Intense that the flood gates of answers will unleash their retained waters and sad that the book will be finished :’( .  Oh but don’t worry my friends, we have lots more to come. Tournament of Blades, a few other Modern Fantasy Thrillers, the short story contest, and so much more.

On a final note, by the time most of you read this, HoG will have surpassed all of last month’s downloads. We’re talking over 13,000 just in July. Again, we can’t say thank you enough. I think we’ll have to start learning other languages just so it doesn’t sound so redundant! Let’s see…. Gracias, merci, arigato….

I was rifling through a bunch of stuff late last week and came across a to-do that had seen better days. I wiped off the Diet Pepsi and Cheetos residue and saw that way back when, Collin asked me to integrate a shoutbox into the blog (Drop us a line over there to the right) and a chat function into the forum. Well item one was crossed off, item two was… well, Cheeto’d. So I dinked around and long story short, you can now chat with anyone logged into the forum. Saves you from that whole PM’ing back and forth when you’re both on. To login, click on the Chat link on the Navigation toolbar and signin.  Once Collin and I get things settled this summer, we’ll start hosting some Town Halls… and they will be way more interesting than Obama’s!

Another thing you can do while you’re discussing the finer points of the book in the  forum, is add your questions to the end of book Q&A thread. There some good ones already posted there so take a peek and then jot down the burning interrogatories that you want answered.

I’m not sure if it was the combined stress of his Chapter 11 Bankruptcy and Secured Transactions finals or the fact that he was hallucinating due to the effects of sleep deprivation, but Collin came up with a few short story ideas that he wanted to pitch to y’all.  I put a poll up to see which one wins.  Now he wouldn’t fork over any details (something about getting manhandled in Call of Duty: World at War when I was talking to him) so you’ll have to use your imagination on what they would be about, but the titles are pretty descriptive.  Anyway, enjoy!

CS

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So if you’ve been in the Forum lately, you would have seen my comments that Collin and I sat down and laid out the rest of the book. You also would have seen that there is so much story to put out that…we will be forced to give you double chapters until the end of the book. I know, I know…I can hear the moaning and groaning already. I’m sorry it had to come to this, but almost all the remaining episodes will be 2-3 times their normal length and stuffed to the gills with content. It was a hard decision to make, but somebody around here had to take control of the situation.  That means that episode 27 will be….almost a 2 hour long cast… just shy of 2 HOURS of non-stop plot unraveling…I hope everyone will be alright with this turn of events…if you need a shoulder to cry on, just send Collin an email or IM him. 27 should be ready by late tonight or tomorrow…so hang in there. 

Be sure to wrap up those short stories and send them in to info@houseofgreybook.com

And remember to visit myspace.com/strangecondition and vote on your favorite of the 3 tunes for the Tournament of Blades podcast.

Wow, what a great milestone.  Thank you, thank you, thank you for helping us reach 50,000 downloads!  Seriously, all of you ROCK! 

Also, we are rapidly approaching the deadline for submissions on the Short Story Contest. If you are still working on something, finish it up and send it to us (info@houseofgreybook.com).  This will be a great way to get your stuff out in front of people without a lot of the headaches.  We take care of the production stuff, you provide the content, what could be easier.  I talked Collin into extending the deadline to March 7th.  So get them in.

Episode 27 is in the works…and I am working Collin over to make it another double chapter release. Any encouragement you want to provide I am sure Collin would appreciate it. 

That’s it for now. Be sure to check out the forum and let us know your thoughts.

Chris is back from India!!!! YEAH!!! Now that is exciting. This is good on a variety of fronts and to celebrate we are going to do a double release for you all. (Probably 24 and 25). It was Chris’s idea so you should all show him some love. Again welcome back Chris, we missed you! 

SHORT STORY REMINDER: 

A few more reminders remember we have the SHORT STORY contest deadline quickly coming. So if you are interested in having your 15 minutes of fame you’d better hurry. I would remind you that we’ll be putting this book on podiobooks.com, iTunes and all the other podcast catchers. We have some great stories lined up,  so don’t miss your chance.  Thank you to John and Hilary for getting their entries in.

Neither do I, but he’s the best I could find. Just Kidding!!! I love you Chris.

 Anyway, if you like Chris’s voice and you write short stories then this little contest is for you. During the two months where I’m going to be studying for the bar (meaning not writing anything!!!) Chris is going to be reading (podcasting) some short stories. A couple of them are up and coming authors who are working on books currently, some will be from your’s truly and Chris (if he ever gets his done) and some will be from YOU. Yes, you. If you write short stories and would like to have Chris and or myself read your story to the world then send us an email, come to the blog or forum. The only rules are they have to be family friendly and can’t be longer then 18 pages single spaced. Chris and I will judge the winner. The prize will be a free signed copy of the House of Grey (2009 baby!!!), a spot in the short story book that will be loaded to Podiobooks and Itunes and possibly an interview for the blog. So getting writing everyone and show us what you got!!!! Entries are due by February 1st!!!! 

Not long after we start Tournament of Blades!!! Look forward to it!!!