With the Summer of 2015 plodding along, I have to admit that I was doing some plodding of my own. You see, I had a self-imposed writing assignment that was taking forever to finish.
Upon the announcement of the G.I. Joe Kindle Worlds project a few years ago, I immediately decided to join in on the fray and write my very own G.I. Joe story. As you’ve seen before, I love the G.I. Joe property and have all sorts of ideas on how things work in that world created by Hasbro.
I started work on my story right away — selecting my Joe team, determining the Cobras they would battle and the nefarious plot the villains had pulled together. As the plot moved along, the story got longer and longer. More and more characters joined that particular battle.
By the summer of 2015, the Kindle Worlds story was more than 18,000 words and still needed another 10,000 or so to finish up. As I pecked away at the story in June, it became my solemn promise that it would absolutely be done by the time fall rolled around.
And when you make a promise to yourself, you know it’s an ironclad contract. That is, it’s an ironclad contract until something really important comes along.
That’s just what happened.
The Hancock Announcement
One afternoon, an announcement surfaced on social media. Tommy Hancock, the publisher and co-owner of Pro Se Productions had been ill — really ill — and was going to undergo surgery very soon.
Among the crowd of creators that contribute to the New Pulp phenomenon, an idea was floated around and quickly took shape. Within a few days, Publisher Ron Fortier was inviting all comers to contribute to a benefit book in Tommy’s honor.
By the time I personally got wind of it, I was the 40th or so writer to join the cause, and happy to do so. After all, I owed Tommy Hancock one. Early that year, Tommy published my first novel, “Tommy One and the Apocalypse Gun.” He also was great enough to keep OKing other projects I proposed to him. At this point, he has two short stories of mine that are slated for upcoming anthologies from Pro Se. After all, it’s not every day that some one says “Why yes, I would like to read about one of the Three Musketeers fighting Mr. Hyde,” and “You’re right, a crooked, game-fixing hockey player is the kind of character that make people buy a book.”
So, like I said, I felt I owed Tommy some of my time. He has always been great to work with and I wanted to show my respect for him. I jumped at the chance, in fact.
Of course, signing up for the Tommy Hancock benefit book meant that my poor, neglected G.I. Joe story had to be put on the back-burner once again. So be it.
Tommy Helps Tommy
In a few short weeks (well, maybe a month or two), my contribution was ready.
Yes, I’m proud to say my second Tommy One story is now in the books.
Featuring art by Shannon Hall, “Tommy One and the Legion of Neptune” is now available in the massive “Legends of New Pulp Fiction” Airship 27 benefit book. You can order it via e-edition or as a phone-book sized softcover. The profit for every order goes to Tommy Hancock and his family as they try to make due after his surgery.
If you happen to be a fan of “Tommy One and the Apocalypse Gun,” you’ll be interested in my 8,000-word contribution. Let me tell you why …
Tommy One’s Further Adventures
The benefit book’s “Tommy One and the Legion of Neptune” is just the first of many short stories I have in store for Tommy One. The stories, called the “Olympus Series” will arrive over the next several years, and at this point I have the titles (and some of the plots) all worked out.
Why write them? They’re intended to be depictions of Tommy’s adventures between the more substantial full-length books. Just you wait. They’re going to be awesome. The stories AND the books.
Coming up next? Keep an eye out for “Tommy One at the Jupiter Wall.” Well …. coming next after that darn G.I. Joe Kindle Worlds story gets done.
Until all those great stories show up, grab a copy of “Legends of New Pulp Fiction,” you’ll love it. In fact, buy two. Tommy Hancock deserves that kind of support.
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