In honor of International Pixel-Stained Technopeasant Day, you can expect a significant post next Monday taken directly from the pages of Dreamdarkers.  This will be more than a cursory excerpt.  This will be a rather aggressive chunk of text—the equivalent of a healthy digital manuscript chapter.

After saying “[t]here will be no more excerpts from Dreamdarkers posted here,” why in the world would I commit to sharing with you a robust piece from the novel?

It’s quite simple.

Some brainless idiot holding an executive position within the SFWA proclaimed that anyone offering original content on the web via blogs is akin to a strike scab, the kind of person who betrays his own brethren in order to make money.

That’s right, he called online writers “webscabs.”  In his own words:

I’m also opposed to the increasing presence in our organization of webscabs, who post their creations on the net for free. A scab is someone who works for less than union wages or on non-union terms; more broadly, a scab is someone who feathers his own nest and advances his own career by undercutting the efforts of his fellow workers to gain better pay and working conditions for all. Webscabs claim they’re just posting their books for free in an attempt to market and publicize them, but to my mind they’re undercutting those of us who aren’t giving it away for free and are trying to get publishers to pay a better wage for our hard work.

While Nick Mamatas does a great job of hitting the dufus between the legs with significant force, I’m joining the rapidly expanding guild of writers who are intent on offering original content next Monday in an intentionally spiteful move.

What can you expect?

I can’t be certain what part of the manuscript I’ll provide.  It could well be a portion of the text containing some tidbit you’ve already seen.  Considering I’ve not posted more than small samplings from the book, that shouldn’t be a major concern.

I don’t know how much I’ll post.  I do know it’ll be far more than you’ve seen to date.  And it’ll be presented in a single post.

I’m not too worried about doing this since even a hefty part of the work offered here will still not provide more information than is necessary.  That is, it won’t ruin the final product by revealing too much information.

Besides, I’m talking about giving you a healthy snippet from an unfinished manuscript.  What you see could well change—even significantly—before the final book is published.

Nevertheless, next Monday, April 23, you can look forward to reading a lengthy bit of prose taken directly from the working copy of Dreamdarkers.

I hope it’s worth your time.