Yes, Virginia, there is a Pitched! 3

In my head, at least.

After two comic anthologies, both of which I'm very proud -- thanks to my collaborators, Pitched! and Pitched! 2 were quite awesome -- it would be natural to assume a third is on its way. And in fact, as I've posted, Pitched! 3 was at one time in progress.

Key words being "at one time." Life happens. A host of factors (none of which are necessary to go into here) ground it to a halt this spring. Though there were brief moments throughout the late spring and summer when I thought maybe I could light a fire under it and get things cooking again, that never materialized. Not the time. Not the energy. Not the people.

And most importantly, I came to the realization that for now I was okay with that.

Portions of Pitched! 3 do exist. There is some unfinished material kicking around. Some scripts and plots and sketches and ideas. Quite a bit, actually. A whole mess of stuff that could turn into two new anthologies. A fully storyboarded and scripted science fiction story, a fully thumbnailed and scripted crime story, some concept sketches and plot for a mythology-meets-noir tale, and more.

But the fact is, projects like this take time, energy, and a whole lot of management. For me the tough part wasn't the writing. To be honest, that came pretty easily. The tough part was juggling the work of upwards of a dozen people from across the country, keeping them energized and eager to work despite it taking a whole lot of their precious time (without pay, no less), making sure everyone stayed on task and stayed on schedule, and seeing the whole damn through to the end ... not to mention getting word out about it, formatting for the printer, and all that other crap that isn't writing.

It's a lot of work, and life -- both mine and my collaborators' -- didn't want it to happen right now.

Maybe some day. But not right now. So Pitched! 3 will just have to wait.