For several years, I would publish a new, free short story every month, keeping about six of them up at a time and unpublishing an old one every time I published a new one. I was able to do this because I was constantly writing short stories, in order to submit to the traditional short story markets (Asimov’s, Analog, Clarkesworld, etc). Typically, each story would go on submission for a year or two, and if it didn’t get picked up by a professional or semi-pro market, I would just publish it myself.
All of that changed in 2023 when I decided I was done trying to pursue the traditional short story markets. When I landed a story in the conservative (or at least anti-woke) anthology Again, Hazardous Imaginings, and that story (“The Promise of King Washington”) was reviewed favorably on the conservative review site Tangent Online, I saw a marked rise in my rejection rate—and all of them form rejections, too (about 10%-15% of my rejections were personalized before this, which typically indicates that an editor likes your writing but doesn’t want that particular story).
It was at that point that I realized that every professional short story market (and most of the semi-pro ones) is ideologically captured, and that my odds of getting published as a straight white male conservative were essentially zero. So I stopped writing short stories, and in 2025, after cycling through the last story from the submission queue, I unpublished all but one or two of my free short stories and discontinued the series.
The free short stories used to make up the backbone of what I like to call the “Vasicek Free Library.” I patterned it after the Baen Free Library, and it’s basically a list of all of my free books, including permafree first-in-series like Brothers in Exile and, of course, the free short stories. It’s basically a way for readers to sample my writing, and hopefully go on to buy some of my other books.
Long story short, I have decided to bring back the Vasicek Free Library, this time not just with short stories, but with a rotating selection of standalone longer works, too. I’ve got about half a dozen standalone novellas and novelettes, plus a couple of novels like Queen of the Falconstar where I’m currently writing the sequels. I’m going to rotate slowly through those, keeping each one free for a few months, and also rotate through my back catalog of 60+ short stories similar to how I was doing it before. And I plan to do this for the foreseeable future.
I’ve been playing around some more with ChatGPT, working on cover art for the Falconstar Trilogy. The best way to do it, I’ve found, is to make the art with AI, but to do the typography myself.
Anyhow, here are the test covers. What do you think?
The one that I feel most ambivalent about is Queen of the Falconstar. I really like how Zlata turned out, and the Falconstar looks pretty cool too, but the background… let’s see if I can fix that:
So we are more or less moved into our new (old) house, though there is this overdue kid’s book from the library that somehow got lost during the move, and we haven’t been able to find it… but aside from that, we are more or less settled in. Our five year-old has started kindergarten, my wife is starting her new job, and by the time this post goes live, we will have acquired office chairs from the BYU surplus sale, so I won’t have to be standing all the time like I am as I write this.
I’ve already gotten back into writing my epic fantasy, The Soulbond and the Sling, and am making steady progress on it again. The AI draft is about 66% complete, and it’s good enough that if I were writing it under a secret AI-only pen name, I would feel comfortable publishing it as-is. But my personal standard of quality is higher than that, especially for epic fantasy, so after the AI draft is complete, I will rewrite the whole thing without any AI, to put it in my own voice (and will probably add a whole lot of other stuff to it too—you know, the kind of setting and character details you’d expect in a proper epic fantasy, giving it much more depth).
(Also, as a side note, I do not have a secret AI-only pen name… though I must admit, a part of me kind of wants to start one. With a little bit of market research to figure out the pulpiest genres where I could really excel… but no, with two (soon to be three) small kids and a wife who works full-time, there are only so many projects I can work on at a time.)
I’m also working on The Road to New Jerusalem for my J.M. Wight pen name, though that one has been going much more slow. I really have no idea how much market appeal this one is going to have, and doubt it will do much more than help me to flesh out the world for a potential series in the same universe (a post-apocalyptic Mormon polygamist romance, which also probably has limited market appeal). However, I feel impressed that this is a book I need to see through to the end, so my goal is to finish it before October, at which point I will probably focus on The Soulbound King.
Beyond that, I’m also working on two other novels that I hope to finish before the end of the year (or, more realistically, sometime early next year, since I’m sure the new baby will throw things off for a while. The first is The Unknown Sea, a Sea Mage Cycle book, which is going to be a lot of fun. The rough AI draft is already done, and I had a real blast writing it.
The other one is Captive of the Falconstar, the sequel to Queen of the Falconstar. The rough AI draft is also done for this one, but the revised AI draft is going to take a bit more work. Also, I need to redo the cover and blurb. But I’m really looking forward to getting this one out, and completing the trilogy, which has stood unfinished for nearly a decade now. Yes, I really need to finish these unfinished series, and fully intend to do so—not just with this one, but for all of them.
Over the next year, I hope to transition from being a science fiction writer who occasionally writes fantasy, to a fantasy writer who occasionally writes science fiction. My two big unfinished sci-fi series are the Falconstar Trilogy and the Outworld Trilogy. The plan right now is to finish Falconstar first, knocking out the last two books almost at the same time (the rough AI draft for Lord of the Falconstar is also complete), and then spend a little more time on Return of the Starborn Son to finish that trilogy strong. For a long time, Star Wanderers was my flagship series, so I want to do right by it. But I haven’t even outlined book 3 yet, so it’s going to be a while.
And when Return of the Starborn Son is done, I will probably release another volume of my author’s notes, since hey, why not? But that won’t be for a while—probably not until this time next year, at the absolute soonest. However, Return of the Starborn Son probably will come out before The Soulbond and the Sling, since for marketing reasons I don’t want to release an epic fantasy trilogy until all three books are ready to rapid release. And yes, I fully blame George R.R. Martin for conditioning epic fantasy readers not to try out a new series until it is complete. It is what it is.
So that’s the long-term plan. I will probably start a few new projects as well, including a relaunch of my Christopher Columbus stories, once I figure out what I want to do with that series. But for now, I’m just going to focus on The Road to New Jerusalem and The Soulbond and the Sling, until we are back into a new routine. BYU classes start on September 3rd, so it will probably be a little crazy until then. And the way things are shaping up, I half-expect they will induce my wife at the tail-end of September. So maybe we won’t actually get into a new routine until sometime next year. But either way, I’ll do my best to keep writing.
Queen of the Falconstar is one of my lesser-known novels, probably because I haven’t finished the trilogy yet (and when I do, I will definitely get better cover art). But I’m currently writing the second and third books, and hope to publish them both later this year, so I figured it was a good time to run a free sale on the first book.
If you want to pick up this novel, you can get the ebook free through this weekend on my online store, or wherever you get your ebooks. Or you can pick up the AI narrated audiobook for $4.99 on my online store, and get the book free as well (as a side note, the book is always free whenever you get the audiobook from my online store). And if you want a print copy, I will sign and personalize it for free if you purchase it from my online store (ebook free with purchase as well, but shipping only for the US. Check Amazon for the paperback if you are international.)
Queen of the Falconstar
She volunteered to be a captive. Now she must become a queen.
Zlata has always dreamed of escaping the stifling monotony of Graznav Station, but not like this. When space nomads raid her home, she volunteers as their captive to save her friend Sonya from a worse fate. Brought aboard the Falconstar as a slave to the enigmatic Lord Khasan Valdamar, Zlata quickly realizes that her only path to survival lies in the treacherous world of intra-clan power politics. Using her cunning and ruthless pragmatism, she must navigate betrayal, conspiracy, and deadly power games to rise from slave to queen—all while her friend is slated to be sold as a slave.
Zlata never wanted to be a hero. She just wanted off Graznav Station.
When nomadic space raiders from beyond the Outworlds attack her home and carry off her friend, Zlata makes a split-second decision and volunteers to be taken captive with her. It’s an impulsive decision that will either save them both—or doom them to lives of slavery among the stars.
Aboard the warship Falconstar, Zlata becomes the property of Lord Khasan Valdamar, a fierce warrior-lord whose star clan teeters on the edge of extinction. Hunted by his enemies and betrayed by his allies, Khasan desperately needs to restore his clan’s shattered honor. What he doesn’t need is a scheming slave with dangerous ambitions of her own.
But Zlata is no ordinary captive.
Cunning. Ruthless. Pragmatic. She sees opportunities where others see only chains. In the treacherous world of Hameji politics—where honor is won through blood, and betrayal lurks in every shadow—Zlata begins an audacious climb from slave to queen.
Joe Vasicek fell in love with science fiction and fantasy when he read The Neverending Story as a child. He is the author of more than twenty books, including Genesis Earth, Gunslinger to the Stars, The Sword Keeper, and the Sons of the Starfarers series. As a young man, he studied Arabic at Brigham Young University and traveled across the Middle East and the Caucasus Mountains. He lives in Utah with his wife and two apple trees.
Preview
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This is a genuine question: I don’t have any new information or tea to spill. But there have been some rumblings recently that make me wonder if Brandon has gone over to the woke side—or indeed, if he was always quietly there to begin with.
Most of these rumblings have come from the recent videos that Jon Del Arroz has put out on the subject. Before you post your angry comments, know that I am already aware that JDA is an extremely polarizing figure (which doesn’t necessarily speak ill of him—or good, for that matter). Personally, I don’t have a strong opinion about JDA either way: I don’t know him personally, so I can’t speak to his character, and while he does seem to have the right enemies, that only says so much. A lot of his content does seem to be clickbaity and hyper-partisan, and the way he wears his Christianity on his sleeve can make me uneasy at times (though I do appreciate that he’s open about his beliefs).
With all of that said, JDA has broken some very interesting and important stories in the recent past, such as the very serious sexual abuse allegations against Neil Gaiman—and more importantly, the way the publishing industry and legacy media have been working to downplay that story and even cover it up. So when he started covering the controversy surrounding Brandon Sanderson’s recent release of Wind and Truth, the fifth book in the Stormlight Archive, and how some of his fans are reacting to what they perceive as a woke sell-out, I perked up.
But the thing that prompted me to write this blog post is what Brad Torgerson posted, and which JDA quotes in the above video. I’ve chatted with Brad on several occasions, and I know and like him a lot. He’s also a bit of a polarizing figure in the fandom, mostly for spearheading the Sad Puppies movement in 2015, but he’s always struck me as a good guy and completely undeserving of most of the crap that he’s taken, including some local convention drama. Brad and I are both Utah writers, and we both run in the same circles, though we only cross paths maybe a couple of times a year.
As for Brandon, it’s been a few years since the last time I spoke with him, but I did take his writing class at BYU, and one of the members of his writing group is also a member of our writing group. In fact, I’m very curious to talk with her the next time we meet, because a couple of months ago she did cryptically mention that there were a couple of things in the early draft of Wind and Truth that she read that she really, really did not like, and advised Brandon to cut. Are those the same things that are behind the controversy now. Perhaps—though she did make it seem like Brandon’s agent and publisher were also advising him to cut them, so whatever it was, I don’t think he added it because they pressured him to, and he “sold out,” as JDA characterizes.
Also, I think JDA takes it a little too far when he says that Brandon is denying his faith. As a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, I’ve served in a bishopric before, and participated in church disciplinary councils where excommunication and disfellowshipment were on the line. From what I can tell, nothing that Brandon has said or done would warrant a formal church council—not even donating to the Utah Pride Center, though if I were his bishop, I would want to talk with him about that. The church is a place for sinners and doubters, which we all are in some degree. If Brandon were to explicitly denounce the Family Proclamation, that might (or might not) warrant a disciplinary council, but I don’t think it’s fair or accurate to say that Brandon has denied his LDS faith.
With that said, if Brandon is putting gay romances and transgender characters in his books, that’s awfully hard to square with the Family Proclamation, which explicitly states that “marriage between a man and a woman is ordained of God” and “gender is an essential characteristic of individual premortal, mortal, and eternal identity and purpose.” Personally, I sustain the Family Proclamation wholeheartedly and without reservation, and it saddens me to see other members of my faith take issue with it. I firmly believe that these are the words of living prophets, with the same scriptural authority as the Bible and the Book of Mormon, and I look forward to the day when the Family Proclamation is officially canonized in the Doctrine and Covenants, which I expect it will be.
You have to leave some room for nuance, though. My book Queen of the Falconstar, which is currently available as a free ebook (no, I didn’t plan it that way), has a LGBT main character, whose bisexuality is an important part of the plot. The book does not “celebrate” her bisexuality, or promote it as a morally justified lifestyle choice—in fact, it’s a major driver in her downfall in the second book, which I’m currently writing. When I was writing the first book, there were many times when I wondered if I should scrap this part of her character, but when I prayed about it, I got the distinct impression that I should keep it in. In fact, there were many times when I wondered if I should trunk the whole book, and the only reason I ultimately wrote and published it was because I felt prompted by the Spirit that God wanted me to write this book.
Of course, stating it in these terms means I’ve basically alienated everyone from either side of this issue. But it’s true. The book is neither woke nor anti-woke: it has a bisexual main character whose sexuality is a liability and an obstacle. Guaranteed to offend both sides. Also, I firmly believe that this was a book God wanted me to write—and for that reason, I’ve been careful not to write it in such a way that it disparages or denies the Family Proclamation, though the characters themselves would probably not agree with it. Which is also guaranteed to offend basically everyone.
Enough about Queen of the Falconstar. I only bring it up to make the point that you have to leave room for nuance, if you want to write truthfully. But if Brandon’s conservative fans feel he has betrayed them, that feeling is totally legitimate—and frankly, the part of this story that interests me the most. Is that what’s going on here? I’ve only ready partway through book 2 of the Stormlight Archive, so I’m not up to date on the series. A cursory glance at the Goodreads reviews shows that there’s some interesting discussion about this, but I’m not connected enough with the Sanderson fandom to really say what that means.
However, I did find this article on Brandon’s blog, dated back to 2023, which makes me think that he’s always been symathetic to some, if not all LGBTQ causes. Then again, he does talk about how his LGBTQ friends have been “patient” with him as he’s “come a long way,” so maybe there has been some recent influence on him? I honestly don’t know, though I suspect that all those sensitivity readers have been leaning on him pretty hard. His scalp has got to be worth quite a lot.
Jon, if you’re reading this, thanks for covering this story. I’m not particularly close to Brandon anymore, but I do run in many of the same circles here in Utah, and count him as an early mentor of mine, so I’m following this story with interest. Also, thanks for reading from the Family Proclamation on your channel. If you want to talk, feel free to leave a comment or shoot me an email.
I’m really happy with how this short story turned out. It pushes the edge in a lot of interesting ways, with the main character having to choose between duty and honor and doing what is right, and a forced abortion situation that puts the lie to the “women’s right to choose” insanity. It will probably get me blacklisted at a few more magazines, but at this point I really don’t care.
Once again, I used the Mythulu cards to come up with this story. Here are the ones I used:
CLONE: Many available forms, including: duplicate, twin, rebirth, alternative life path manifested, time traveler overlap, actor, understudy, etc. Can even mean a second chance or a relapse.
ABANDONED: Indicates a severe problem in the environment that prior ihabitants were unable to solve. Draw +1 Habitat.
COASTAL: Peaceful threshold where the ocean meets land. Known for caves, karsts, and dunes. Represents unsolvable relationship problems.
ERODED: Extensive, exponential deterioration of a foundation due to long-neglected defense.
MARRIAGE OF HONOR: A permanent relationship initiated to help someone else avoid shame or discredit.
TATTOO: Marked to identify, warn, or remember.
GUILTY: Responsible for the worst thing that has happened recently to everyone around them.
BODYGUARD: Primary purpose is to protect something else, at any cost.
VELVET: Labor-intensive weave of fabric that mimics the soft fur on a young buck’s antlers. Worn to inspire reverence or respect.
BLOOD: Represents the energy invested to keep something alive. The only element which affects the soul beyond mortality. Can taint or purify.
SLIPPERY: Wants freedom and is hard to hold onto. Often enjoys the chase.
BUREAUCRAT: Keeps others in bondage with words. Diverts enemies toward illusions to exhaust them into giving up.
CATALYST: Initiates or accelerates a chemical reaction without itself being affected. Gifted at getting things moving.
NECRO: Things that were once living, but no longer are. Draw again to decide what died. Draw +1 Habitat or Element.
PET: Healthy codependence with a clear heirarchy, usually between members of different species.
TORN: Forcibly separated parts, which often continue to exist separately. Indicates a lost privilege or reduction in status. Symbol of anger.
SIGIL: Symbols that have power to force or bind. Used in communities to rally groups together.
I’m going to keep going through until I’ve used all of the Mythulu cards in a story at least once. So far, they’ve proven to be an interesting way to not only generate story ideas, but to send my stories off in different and interesting directions. It usually takes me a little while (or sometimes a couple of different draws) to figure out how to fit everything into a coherent story, but I’m getting the hang of it, and the process is actually pretty fun.
As for the spring shorts challenge, it’s Memorial Day today, which means that the challenge is basically over. I only ended up writing four stories, which is a lot less than what I’d hoped to write, but I think these will turn out really well after I rework them a bit, so I’m counting it as a partial success.
For June, I plan to write two more short stories in order to fill up the buffer. My writing group meets once a month, so with two more stories to critique in June, that will give me a buffer of six months by the time July rolls around. I also plan to fix up all four of these spring shorts stories and put them on submission for the next few months, before I publish them as free singles.
I will try to do a new short story each month, in order to keep the buffer at six months, but I may do another short story nanowrimo this year if it turns out that I need more. As far as other WIPs are concerned, though, after I write these next two stories in June, I’m going to go back to novels. My plan right now is to write the first three chapters of The Sword Bearer and Captive of the Falconstar by the fourth of July, then decide whether to go on with one of those or to keep working on Children of the Starry Sea.
It’s been a long, long time since I attempted to do NaNoWriMo. Usually, I have something else on my writing schedule which prevents me from taking off a month for another project. I think my last NaNoWriMo attempt was in 2013, but even then I was juggling that with another WIP, and the WIP won out.
This year, though, I’m trying something new and workshopping my current WIP, Queen of the Falconstar, through my writing group as I write it. Since I can only workshop up to 4k words per week, I’ve been lining up a sizeable backlog that already runs through the first week of November. In the next couple of weeks, I think I can line up writing group submissions through the whole month, which frees me up to work on something else.
Instead of a novel, though, I think I’m going to shoot for 50k words of short stories. My submissions queue has dwindled down to only four stories, and it looks like I’m going to end up publishing three of those in an anthology soon since they’ve pretty much exhausted the available markets. So I really need to write more short stories.
I’ve got a couple of stories planned, but not enough to fill all 50k words, so there’s going to be a fair amount of discovery writing going on. Hopefully that helps to throw my creative mind into a higher gear, which is kind of the point of NaNoWriMo in the first place: to show that writing under pressure can actually make you more creative. Since there are also five Sundays in November, and I make it a practice not to write professionally on Sundays, that amps up the pressure yet again, since it means that I need to write more than 2k words per day.
It’s going to be a challenge, and there’s a good chance that something will come up and I won’t be able to make it, but I’m shooting for it anyway. Wish me luck!
So last Monday, I woke up with post-nasal drip and a sore throat, which quickly turned into a 101 degree fever. Needless to say, I was out for the rest of the week. I’ve mostly recovered by now, though I’m still coughing up gunk from my chest, and should be back up to 100% in the next couple of days.
Coming back is giving me a chance to re-examine the way I’ve been doing some things, and to make some adjustments that will hopefully yield some positive dividends. This includes reworking my writing goals, writing process, and publishing schedule, updating my business plan, and figuring out what I need to focus on with regards to marketing and publishing.
The biggest thing is that I’ve decided to trunk Queen of the Falconstar, just because it’s not the kind of story I want to write or be known for. I’m still working on Edenfall, but enough time has passed that I’m going to call it a new draft. The current one is a bit of a mess, so I’ll take the next week to clean it up before hopefully going into it full-speed.
More stuff to come, but I’ve got to run so I’ll share it later. With luck, I’ll be back up to blogging weekly again soon.
Wow, it’s been more than a month since the last time I posted on this blog? This needs to be rectified, and by more than a solitary post.
It’s been a bumpy few weeks. Not rocky, but not smooth either. Between working unpredictable odd jobs and unexpectedly finding myself in a romantic relationship, it’s been difficult to get into a productive writing and publishing routine—hence, the less frequent posting on this blog.
That said, I’ve seen a marked increase in book sales recently, which is encouraging. Getting a couple of Bookbub featured deals definitely helps. By my calculations, I have about six months of expenses in my business savings, which includes things like Bookbub deals and convention costs. The goal, though, is still to build my email list, and that’s proceeding a lot slower than I would like. I need to find new and better ways to get my books in front of the readers who will love them.
Writing-wise, things are proceeding at a slow but steady pace. I’ve put Queen of the Falconstar on the back burner for the time being, to work on Gunslinger to Earth. If all goes well, I should be finished with that WIP by mid-January, and release it in April. That will complete the Gunslingers trilogy!
I think it might be cool to release a few excerpts in audio as well as on this blog. What do you guys think? Record a few MP3s of my own narration, release them as downloads. Or maybe put them up on YouTube. It’s a bit ironic, because Gunslinger to Earth is a first-person book from Jane Carter’s perspective, but still, I think I can pull it off. It will also be good practice for audiobook narration, which I hope to do more of in the following year.
In other news, I’ve decided to hold off on self-publishing any more of my short stories until I’ve sold the first publication rights. Up until now, I’ve been fitting them into my publishing schedule for the months when I don’t have a novel release. But I think that holding off to publish them traditionally, even with a market that pays semi-pro rates, is better than self-publishing them just for the sake of having something to release.
Don’t get me wrong: I still want to self-publish my short stories, I just want to sell them to a magazine first. In the short term, this means that I won’t have as many things to fill out my publishing schedule. In the long-term, it means that I need to write more short stories now in order to have more content to submit to the magazines, and ultimately to fill out my publishing schedule later.
So my goal from now on is to write at least one short story a month, on top of my regular WIP schedule. Some of these will be in the same universe as my novels, much like Starchild or Jane Carter of Earth. I’ll probably self-publish those first, to promote my new releases. But the other stories will stay on submission until they sell, preferably at professional rates.
I really need to up my short game. Speaking of which, Larry Correia just released the cover art for his second short story collection, and it is hilariously badass, much like Larry himself. I love the fact that his wife is in it too.
Looking ahead, I hope to get back into a semi-regular blogging routine, with more book reviews. I’ve read quite a few books recently, and it would be good to share a few reading recommendations. And I’m still writing regularly. Just because I’ve neglected the blog doesn’t mean I’m neglecting everything else.
That just about does it for now. Take care, and thanks for reading!
It’s been a couple of months since I wrote a blog post that wasn’t just a new release, or a bunch of book promos. Life got a little bit insane for a while, and I neglected the blog to take care of other things.
Life is still pretty crazy, but it’s starting to fall into more of a routine. Thankfully, even though I dropped the blog for a while, I’m still writing—in fact, I’m writing more than ever. A couple of weeks ago, I wrote the first draft of Gunslinger to the Galaxy, and I should be finishing up with the revisions in the next couple of days.
Also, I started work on Queen of the Falconstar, a bridge novel between Sons of the Starfarers and Gaia Nova. This is my first real attempt at making a detailed outline, and if the outline turns out to be true, it will be my longest novel yet. The deadline is February 2nd, 2019, and I hope to do three revision passes as I write it.
It’s all very organized, which is a relatively new thing for me, since I always used to think of myself as a “pantser” or “discovery writer.” But my opinions on that whole paradigm have changed, which will soon be the subject of a lengthy blog post.
I also ran my first BookBub promotion last week, with some pretty incredible results. I definitely hope to do some more promotions with them in the future. Retooling things to make that possible.
So that’s what I’ve been up to. I’ve got a new release scheduled for every month from now to December 2019, with all-new full-length novels to come out every four months for the forseeable future. My writing schedule is booked from now to May 2020. Again, it’s all very organized, and that organization is starting to bear fruit. Now I just need to make more time to read, seeing as I have a tendency to acquire books faster than I can read them. Also, it would be fun to post some book reviews.
