Month: March 2025

Wrap-around art for the Full Negative cover with the title of the book centered.

Saturday Update – Now with more art and add-ons!

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It’s Saturday, which means it’s time for another update! By popular demand (and because I have no self-control), we’ve added some of my back catalog as add-ons. If you’ve already pledged but now find yourself thinking, Wait, I need that, don’t worry—you can update your add-ons by heading over to ‘Manage my pledge’ in your account. We’re also teetering on the edge of hitting 200% funded—less than $100 to go! When we cross that line, there’s a solid chance we’ll land on Backerkit’s front page under the ‘Hot Now’ section, which would be amazing. Meanwhile, work on Part 1 of the Setting Guide is moving right along. We’ve already got two fantastic pieces of art, plenty of snarky text (because of course we do), and a whole lot of juicy historical lore. If you haven’t seen the cover preview yet, it’s lurking over in the Promos & Merch section of the Discord. That’s all for now. Thanks for indulging me as I ramble about this—it’s kind of a big deal, so… yeah. Excited. See you …

The cover for the first part of the Full Negative Settings Guide: The Past, copyright 2025, Jenn Lyons

Part I: The Past – Our Launch Story and Goals

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Well, dear friends, we are now officially launched and funded. It’s just a matter of how high we’ll go. Hopefully high enough to unlock all of the setting guide, but for now, I’ll happily deal with what we have, namely Part I: The Past. For anyone who’s curious as to why I spread out the setting guide over multiple update goals, I can explain it pretty easily: Because I’m doing all the art. Time spent doing the art is not time spent writing or being paid for that, so…if I let it be tied to a single stretch goal, then I might easily find myself committing to months of work for far less than a livable wage when all was said and done. So much as I want to do the whole thing, prudence prevailed. Basically: tell your friends so they can pledge, too, and we can afford to create the whole guide. (We get the whole thing funded and I might start looking at making physical print copies available, too, and not to just …

The Complicated Nature of Simple Systems

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Keep it simple. We grow up being told that, don’t we? Or rather, Keep It Simple, Stupid, so it has a funny and memorable acronym, KISS. And as a society, we certainly do seem to prefer that, don’t we? Keep the solutions simple. Make it easy to understand. Tiktok and sound bites and break your ideas into bullet points so you can thread them together on X. To be fair, I’m not on X anymore. What does this have to do with writing? Nothing. Everything. When I was first learning how to be a project manager, I was introduced to two individuals who would change my life. (Not personally introduced, you understand, but introduced to their work.) One was a statistician, mathematician, and engineer and the other one was a banker. I speak of W. Edwards Deming, whose management and quality control techniques helped shape the Japanese automotive boom, and Dee Hock, the founder of VISA. I don’t know if they ever met each other. I rather suspect they wouldn’t have gotten along. While both …

Wrap-around art for the Full Negative cover with the title of the book centered.

Join the Adventure: Crowdfunding for ‘Full Negative’ Launch

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I have a story to tell you. One that’s been waiting for its moment in the spotlight for a long time. It’s called Full Negative, and if you love explosive space opera with a touch of noir, betrayal, and all the high-stakes action you can handle, this is one you don’t want to miss. But first, I need your help. On March 18, I’m launching a crowdfunding campaign to bring Full Negative to life, and I want you to be part of it. What Is Full Negative? The best way I can describe it? Think X-Men meets Star Wars by way of Jason Bourne. It’s got everything you’d expect from one of my novels: This is space opera at its best—fast-paced, full of heart, and built on a universe I’ve been developing off and on for almost forty years. Why Crowdfunding? Since you’re here on my web site, you probably know me as the author of the A Chorus of Dragons series and The Sky on Fire–all best-selling epic fantasy books available from Tor. But …