The Three Body Problem. Never have I ever encountered a more appropriate meme.

Packing up advance review books to hump them down to the post office today! Had a batch I wanted to ship last week but then I got floored by a head cold, so if you requested an ARC paperback but still haven’t received it, I’m sorry, I’ll get it out today.

As a writer, having a wife who’s a costumer and cosplayer who’s also an avid dancer AND skilled with knives and crossbows is incredibly valuable when you’re writing a female gangster in a society where dance is an important part of the culture. #AmWriting

Blog post: Some thoughts on canting languages: My Talespinner and I are on to a new novel, this one following a member of the criminal Warisan Kita. We created an unusual quasi-canting language in which communication is sidechannel, not main channel. blog.franklinveaux.com/2026/01/some...

Two days of sleep, tea, and ibuprofen and I’m once more back among the living! I’ll be at Bold Coffee and Books tomorrow in downtown Portland, 1755 Southwest Jefferson Street, from 5 to 7. Stop by and say hi! I’m the guy in bunny ears.

Lived in Florida for years. Can confirm. This kind of shit goes on all the time.

Sound asleep this morning feeling poorly when I got jolted awake by a FedEx delivery…for a dude named Alex, who lived here in 2021. From the size and weight and the battery stickers on it, it’s probably a laptop. Now I gotta hoof it down to FedEx to send it back.

I still feel like hot death in a microwave, but at least there is a solitary spot of light amidst the gloom and drek: it seems to be ordinary everyday crud, not COVID.

Ugh, I’m feeling miserable. Run down, slight fever, chills, achy, generally blah. If I still feel like this tomorrow, I’m taking a COVID test.

Regular reminder: beginning writer or seasoned pro, NEVER sign a publishing contract before you email beware (at) sfwa (dot) org This free service helps you avoid scammers and publishers with poor reputations listed on the Writers Beware list of predatory book publishers.

Writing pornography is EXHAUSTING! For this new novel I’ve had to research Malay and Singlish slang, Singaporean cuisine, combat dance forms, traditional East Asian clothing, and Polymer-Dispersed Liquid Crystal fabrication. #AmWriting #AmWritingErotica

Today is Thursday! That means I’ll be at Bold Coffee and Books (1755 Southwest Jefferson Street, a short walk from the Providence Park Max stop in Portland, OR) from 5 to 7 writing. Stop by and say hi! I’m the guy in bunny ears.

So I lived in Canada for a few years a while back. I just started working on my 2025 taxes, and I’ve made a discovery: My book royalties have been continuing to have Canadian taxes withheld from them, even though I moved back to the US in 2018. Fixing this is gonna SUCK.

Me: *sits down to write a sex scene in the near-future hyperurban gangster noir novel my Talespinner and I are co-authoring* Me: *gets distracted talking with her about permitting, building codes, ventilation, and food processing in the immense miles-wide building that is the city*

Just saw the first review of Spectres, the collection of erotic novellas and short stories my Talespinner and I wrote that pubs this June, and it’s absolutely GLOWING. One of the best reviews I’ve ever seen. I am absolutely flying, y’all. (Still have a few ARCs left!) #AmWriting

My Tentacle Love blog has had CRAZY traffic over the past 48 hours, like completely bonkers. Huge numbers of new subscribers with names like “817687888-get your free cash here-gruntwrg.swtest.ru-highest bonuses999898”. I’ve just deleted over 1,000 users. Might simply ban Russian IP addresses.

I’ve heard people say silly things like “oh, it must be so romantic to date a writer.” Ha ha ha no, if you date a writer they’ll (a) put you in a book and (b) sometimes do stuff like get up in the middle of kinky group sex to go write. That’s what dating a writer is like.

The grocery store where I shop had bakery-made chocolate chip cookies on sale today. Mixed in with the boxes of chocolate chop cookies was a box of raisin cookies. I have made a terrible, terrible mistake.

I have some more advance review paperback copies of the upcoming books The Temperance Engine and Spectres! Want one? DM or email me (franklin at franklinveaux dot com)! I also have epub versions I can email you!

Remember, lust has a direction and a magnitude but doesn’t sum as a vector. If Sally is 30 degrees to your right and you lust after her with magnitude 10, Lisa is 30 degrees to your left and you lust after her with magnitude 10, you don’t lust after the toaster in front of you.

Oh my god. I just heard for the first time the SD-DW Hypothesis, which posits that all entertainment media falls somewhere on a spectrum between Scooby Doo (“the alien was Old Man Miller all along!”) and Dr. Who (“Old Man Miller was an alien all along!”), and it explains SO MUCH.

“As a reasonable centrist, I think the paramilitary death squads need better training.”

This has been another frustrating day of errands, but I’m listening to VNV Nation and I just found this sticker on a street sign and both those things made me happy.

Wow, way more response than I expected to advance review copies of The Temperance Engine and Spectres! All the paperback review copies are spoken for (I may order more), but I still have ePub copies. If you want one, sing out! blog.franklinveaux.com/2026/01/adva...

Reminder, I’ll be at Bold Coffee and Books near Pioneer Square in downtown Portland, Oregon tonight from 5:00 to 7:00 PM writing. Come say hi! I’m the guy in bunny ears. #AmWriting

Me: *walks to store* 15 year old kid: “Hey, why are you wearing bunny ears?” Me: “They were a gift from my girlfriend.” 15yok: “Your girlfriend gave you bunny ears?” Me: “Yup.” 15yok: “Man, that’s AWESOME! You are so lucky!” Me: “I know.”

Indie book lovers! I have two ARCs available, in ePub and a limited number of paperbacks. One is an anthology of supernatural erotica, the other is...um, I’m not sure what it is. Erotica, historical satire, and social commentary? Want one? Lemme know! blog.franklinveaux.com/2026/01/adva...

I’ve just been given a programmable RGB LED strip. It would be silly to put it on the edge of my bed, connect it to a RasPi, and have it change color as my web firewall reports more or fewer attacks on my websites, right? Asking for a friend.* *Me. I’m the friend.

Y’know, here’s something I don’t get. I’ve been asked why I support rights for trans people when I’m not trans. I’ve been asked why I support gay marriage when I’m straight. Is this…is this actually difficult to understand? Human beings who aren’t like me deserving equal rights?

(CN: Child abuse) Blog post: The first rule of social media: Sites that don’t act against romance scammers become ch*ld p*rn sites. Quora in the past few weeks has become a haven of organized CP rings, and seems curiously helpless to act on it. blog.franklinveaux.com/2026/01/any-...

I remember when a writing teacher asked us to raise our hand if we've made more than $5 from our writing. Three of us did. We were told that's enough to put us in the top 1% of most successful writers through history. A little hyperbole, but not far off. I still think about it.

So I found a phish (a fake website that tries to steal your passwords) on Fastly, a web hosting provider, and emailed their abuse team about it. Received a reply this morning saying the phish site has been removed. I sent the notification to them on June 10, 2025.

Facebook keeps showing me ads for a 3-in-1 digital oscilloscope/digital multimeter/waveform generator and I have no use for it but I want it so bad. HOW DO THEY KNOW? WHY IS THIS HAPPENING???! (Like seriously, my finger keeps hovering over the Buy Now button.)

Portland peeps! I totally forgot to put out a reminder, but I’m at Bold Coffee and Books near Providence Park writing from now til 7. Drop by tonight (or any Thursday) and say hi! I’m the guy in bunny ears.

Blog post: The Copytrack saga continues: I have received bogus copyright complaints from Copytrack, a notorious scammer that sends fraudulent copyright claims, even after I told them I was represented by counsel. They kept at it, so I took a new approach. blog.franklinveaux.com/2026/01/the-...

The reward for finishing one book is…getting to start the next! With the third draft of Spin done, I just started a new novel in a genre my Talespinner and I seem to have invented: retrofuturist hyperubanized court-intrigue gangster noir. #AmWriting #AmWritingFiction

Noted without comment: Never forget.

Blog post: Stories from the Past: The BeBox. I was present at the MacWorld 1996 unveiling of the BeBox, a new computer running BeOS. When it ended, I raised my hand and said “How long until you quit making hardware, pivot to software, then go bankrupt?” blog.franklinveaux.com/2026/01/stor...

Listen, if you’re in a relationship with someone like this, it’s time to go.

It’s 1:30 AM. I just finished the third draft of Spin, a far-future, post-Collapse magical realism literary novel (and by far the most challenging, ambitious novel I’ve ever co-authored), and I am a wreck. The end of this story is harrowing. #AmWriting #AmWritingFiction

You know that ha-ha-only-serious joke that if you let a Nazi into your bar, and you don’t throw him out, you now run a Nazi bar? On social media, if you allow romance scammers on your site and don’t throw them out, you will sooner or later run a child p*rn site.

Me: “It’s almost midnight! I’ll just finish editing this chapter and go to bed.” Me: *looks up fifteen minutes later to see that almost two and a half hours have gone by.* Me: “...oh.” #AmWriting #AmWritingFiction

It’s half past two in the morning. I was up late writing, happy with the work I got done, so I went to bed, had just slipped under the covers, was reaching for the light, and I knew what happened next. I sighed, got back up, and started writing again. But hey! Chapter finished! #AmWriting

I truly, sincerely don’t get people who gatekeep obscure bands or niche books or hobbies or whatever. I meet someone else who loves a band that 20 people have ever heard of, I’m like “This is AWESOME! Someone else likes this cool band I like! Woohoo!”

Don’t flirt with me. I will be your best bet for a long night of fun and laughter until you are satisfied with the outcome. Oookay then. Type “don’t flirt with me” and let predictive text finish it.

Anyone else feel like we’re in a strange mix of Idiocracy and Wag the Dog except it’s hundreds of sex scandals and actual people are hurting simply because a bunch of #MAGAmorons would rather support a warmongering pedo rather than admit they fucked the poochie? #releasetheEpsteinfiles #Venezuela

Yep. Years of progress down the drain.

Walking down the street in Portland, I just passed a huge line of cars flying the Venezuelan flag and honking. Not sure if celebration or protest. Guessing protest; Portland isn’t exactly MAGA Central, and you-know-who isn’t exactly loved or respected around here.