To all my patient followers and interested parties: I feel your pain. I, too, cannot stand not knowing what’s going on. I’ve always said that if folks (individuals, such as editors, and business entities, such as publishers) simply let people know what is going on, most all the angst would evaporate. It’s the not-knowing that aggravates, the continued not-knowing that kills support and interest. So here goes.

Trying very hard not to whine, yet still deliver a coherent tale, this is my – thus RBE’s – life at this moment: My family and I sold our house (for multiple reasons) after being on the market 6 months. Pretty good in this economy, but we did have a nice home that we did a ton of work on. We’ve been looking at homes since before we put our last house up for sale – close to 300 homes in total. Nothing existed that was in our price range and achieved/justified those reasons we had for selling. Nothing still existed after we sold our home. And still existed two weeks after we sold our home…and we had 5 days to find a home or not have enough time to close a mortgage on a new home before ours was no longer ours.

We started to look at renting. Nothing doing, for reasons that would make this story far too long. We started looking at multiple houses in an afternoon, like a dozen homes in 5 hours type stuff. Still nothing. This supposed buyers’ market wasn’t. So, with barely any time left to negotiate on a home, we made an offer on a house that had a completely renovated first floor and totally unfinished upper that would allow us to do as we pleased with it. The folks wouldn’t budge. They were determined to get the price of a finished two-story home despite it not being one. It possessed many of the characteristics and the location that we wanted. Yet we couldn’t afford to buy the house and make the renovations – so we lost the house. With two days left on our mortgage lender’s extended time limit for a mortgage, we revisted a home we had liked previously but eliminated due to location (on a very busy road vaguely close to where I wanted to live) and price (slightly above what we had set as our limit and still requiring some work, fencing for the dogs, finishing a bathroom, etc.). Ironically enough, it is probably the second-nicest home we looked at and could afford.

We were desperate. Thirty, no, twenty-nine days away from our own closing, we had nowhere to move to. I didn’t relish moving twice, so wasn’t keen on the renting for now and finding something later idea. Once we got really desperate, I determined wherever we moved would be it, we were staying there, renting or buying. So we went back to the above house for a third time, they had just lowered the price $10k, and we made an offer. They countered, we countered, we both agreed. Then came the home inspection.

The basement wall was caving in. It’s basically a bi-level, so this is not only a foundation wall, it’s a finished wall. One day of destruction pulling down that finished wall, one foundation engineer, and TWO weeks of the sellers’ indecision on whether to repair the wall or take the house off the market later, they had fixed the wall, passed the city inspection, and the closing was days away. With nothing in our favor and time against us, we couldn’t negotiate or force a better deal – they fixed the basement wall but we were left with a torn up house that we had to return to livable condition. And then we closed and moved in.

Moving days turned into a nightmare, as all of the scheduled helpers cancelled one by one the day before until only my wife and I were left to load the UHaul. Then the sellers wouldn’t let us move things into the house or garage the night before…then the buyers of our house who said we could take the day of closing to move out since they weren’t moving in that day showed up with a group of friends to paint the house…and were pissed we were still there. Fortunately one friend came by for half a day and one of my daughter’s friend’s family came by and helped us literally throw everything onto the UHaul and then unload it at the other end. Fortunately as well, we seem to have only lost 5 or 6 items to breakage…

So we were in. That’s when we discovered that we had not accounted for storage. Fourteen years in one place allows one to cram a lot of stuff all over the place. Not only had we not been able to sell off some surplus furniture, we had moved from a ranch with a finished basement (that included one whole room of storage) and a two-car garage to a bi-level with almost no closets let alone storage and a one-car garage. Needless to say, the room that is supposed to be my library/office has been the reservoir for all things Waltz. I finally hacked out a corner to set my desk up in, but otherwise I’m still working out of boxes.

And so we’re in. The next day the toilet’s wouldn’t flush very well. Three days later, after extensively trying to resolve the issues ourselves, we learned why: tree roots had clogged our sewer. With a little more research we learned that our ‘newly remodeled, move-in condition’ home (and they did do a sweet job on the first floor and an okay job on the lower) hadn’t been truly lived in for almost three years. Two years vacant and one year where the sellers only ‘lived’ there on paper. So those roots had taken over everything in those three years. Three plumber visits and something like 20 hours of cutting and cleaning and sucking later, the sewer was clean and our toilets flushed. Then the shower leaked. And the garage door caved in. And the air conditioning didn’t work. And the gas leaked.

A zillion technicians and workers later, we have addressed some issues and have a plan of attack for the remainder. Or did. Today we just learned that we’ve been air conditioning the neighborhood. So there probably really wasn’t any problem with the air conditioner. I’d be under-performing too, if I’d been working nonstop against never-ending heat. So now, instead of finishing that bathroom and adding two closets that was going to happen next week, I’ll be gutting the under-the-house garage and re-insulating and sealing and drywalling and tracking down any other area that of the house that allows the conditioned air to escape. Then we’ll be doing the closets and such.

Throughout all of this my spouse has stressed, despaired, stressed, raged, stressed, wept, stressed…as have I. I’ve gone from 1st shift to 3rd shift and now back to 1st shift hours and we’ve continued to maintain dual work schedules and dual childrens’ schedules and dual dogs’ schedules. And I’ve tried to stay abreast, or at least afloat, with RBE matters. Which AT&T’s Uverse has made even more difficult. I’ve been on DSL and without cable and using a VCR and on a standard corded phone forever. I was joining the modern world with this move, and advanced technology to cable/uverse, DVR, wireless networks, and cordless phones. It’s been interesting. The potential is there, I can see it, but it sure ain’t stable. At least not here. Four AT&T visits later, my TV and DVR work, my computers are networked and those connected via hardwiring work (mostly) fine; my laptop seems to be hit-or-miss, and as it’s my primary work tool, it’s messed some things up – like one of my file submissions to the printer, we discovered my connection broke mid-upload and then reconnected, so it seemed as if all went well. I’ve been catching that happening more often now. My emails and posts at various venues have vanished…again apparently interrupted. And my phone connection/reception generally sucks. It seems that I shall have to talk to Time Warner to learn what options they have for me and if they’re any better.

In the mean time, in regards to RBE matters, I screwed up the first file of Rage of the Behemoth I was supposed to send to the printer and so had to rebuild it. During all the above. So I finally got it done, sent it in, only to have it kicked back for a missing font. Then again for missing totally. Now, I am happy to say, I have received the email that the proof is in the mail. Come Thursday, I should know if RotB is officially available or not.

And that brings us to Demons. Again, almost everything related to Demons has been done during this tumultuous transition I’ve been living. Originally submissions were open until June 15th. Then I received a glut of killer stories, or at least stories that delivered the goods in the first two pages. These stories were advanced for final consideration. Before I was aware of it, I had over 30 stories advanced…and only – at most – 15 slots to fill. Time to close subs. Then I couldn’t get online through all the above messiness. By the time I did, dozens of more subs had come in. Once all was officially closed, I had 41 advanced tales. 41 tales I had read in complete, but over the course of the entire last month.

I write personal acceptances and rejections. I have yet to write a simple ‘Dear John, Your story is rejected.’ I feel that the author not only took the time to write that tale, but also took the step to send it out to my attention in hopes of someday seeing it published. The least I can do is spend a little moment of time telling that author why I am not interested. Normally, these rejections ocur soon after reading the story. If not right away, I may jot a comment or single word about the story, but usually my rejections aren’t held onto very long. Until now. And I’ve made a mistake.

I did not jot down those comments or single words while reading these stories in between home buying and repairing and having internet access. And after having lived through all the above events, outside of those stories I put “Accept!” next to, I’ve forgotten the contents of the rest. I have been faced with simply sending out form rejections or actually having to reread those stories and type my rejections immediately. This, while still working around the house and the internet, has proven to be very slow. I know many of you have emailed asking the status of your submissions. For that I apologize. I simply cannot take the time to individually repond to each until I send your rejection – or acceptance. Five, maybe six, of the remaining 30 tales will be being accepted…I just have to sort through them all.

Others of you have waited patiently for contracts. Again, I apologize. My intentions have always been nothing but for the best for both parties, both the author/artist and RBE.  Without you all, RBE doesn’t exist. I know that RBE’s position in this highly competive market consists of reputation – product and service and me. Right now, on the market, for sale, RBE has only Return of the Sword. RBE needs more exposure. I am doing my best to accomplish that, both for RBE and for the contributors to each of RBE’s titles.

My timetable as of right now is this:

• Demons: Finishing accepting/rejecting
• Demons: Contracts & edits
• Rage of the Behemoth: Get the damn book! & begin shipping it out to all the contributors and pre-release buyers!
• Rage of the Behemoth: Get it reviewed and blogged and twittered and moving! It’s a great anthology and it should be being talked about more.
• Short story collection: Contract, & final edits, and art, and cover
• Demons: Into layout and printing and still scheduled for an August 15th release!
• Short story collection: Layout and printing, hopefully for a September release!
• Poetry & Prose collection: Contract & edits and art and cover
• Demons: Reviewed & blogged & twittered
• Poetry & Prose collection: Layout and printing, hopefully for an October release!
• August 1st, the next Rot? anthology will be announced

Lots ahead for RBE, and much depends upon what time I can carve from this demanding house, but there it is, all laid out in black and white. I hope you’ll understand why I am not personally responding to every query about a certain story or even about RBE at this time. Feel free to add any comments or questions here, as if one thinks of a thing, I am sure someone else will too, so we’ll keep everyone informed that way.

To you Demons’ submittors, if you just want to have your rejection immediately, I understand and am willing to provide simple form-like rejections if you so instruct me. Of course, your story just might be under consideration for those final few spots…