Oh hey, I ought to mention this around here.
Project Salamander is what resulted from an insane idea of mine: To write a round-robin novel with those writers I’d assembled to put together Writers Cantina, the speculative fiction writing conference that debuted this past July; I thought it could act both as a promo piece and a fundraiser. I wrote the first chapter — a genre-agnostic story springboard, really — and then turned it over to one author at a time for following chapters. It immediately took a hard turn from where I had imagined it progressing, adding characters, storylines, conspiracies, intrigue, and gunfire and explosions.
About halfway through, at the urging of some participants, I pulled some rules from what had gone before to guide future chapter contributions.
Then once everyone who wanted to had had a stab (some more than once), I edited it together, trying to harmonize disparate pieces, and wrote the last two chapters to wrap it up. More of a novella than a novel, really, but I think it actually works well, in an “entertain like an old Ace Double” sense.
Here’s the full co-author list (in alphabetical order — you have to read the contributor bios at the end to see who wrote what):
- Holli Anderson
- Graham Bradley
- D.L. Campanile
- J.C. Chambers III
- Lance Conrad
- Jared Garrett
- C.H. Lindsay
- Craig Nybo
- Nathan Shumate
- Scott William Taylor
- David J. West
All the profits go directly to funding Writers Cantina.