Sci-fi, fantasy, and everything in-between
Shorts
Hey, look at that…
01 year ago
Oh Table Of Contents, you’re such a wonderful tease: Electric Velocipede, Issue 21/22.
Random news update thingy
01 year ago
Please stand by for a random information dump…
Contract signed
I received and signed the contract for The Stonecutter, which will be appearing in Electric Velocipede! John Klima is really a great editor to work with. He’s got a good eye for the detail, and the changes he requests, while minimal, are always absolutely essential. Or so they seem to me once he’s found them. Here are my thoughts upon receiving them:
- My story is completely broken! WAAAAAAH!
- Wait, I can fix these with tiny line edits! My story is made of awesome! YAAAAAAY!
I had these thoughts more or less simultaneously.
I’m reading The City and The City by China Miéville
Actually, technically speaking I’m stealing ![[info]](http://stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small}
floatingtide‘s new copy of the book and reading it in furtive dribbles when she’s not paying attention. The basic premise is.. frankly, it’s too weird and wonderful for me to spoil it for you here. Go read it. You owe it to yourself.
I’m writing again
Betcha didn’t know I stopped. Well, I didn’t really completely stop, but I wasn’t writing at my usual levels for a while. Life got too busy and hectic, so I gave myself a brief vacation to Get Shit Done. And the Shit? It got Done. Mostly. We do still need a new bathtub and a new car (no, the two problems are not related in any way).
New car?
Yeah. Our old one needs a couple thousand dollars of work on it. It’s a great BMW, and whoever buys it off us and puts in the work will have a seriously kick-ass car, but we don’t need a kick-ass car. We actually need a nice and simple family vehicle, which we can buy for the cost it would take to refurbish our ridiculously over-powered street racer disguised as a sedan.
New bathtub?
Tree roots in the walls. Let me say that again: Tree roots. In the walls.
That’s what we found growing in the gap between our old tub and the plaster. We had to rip the tub and a good chunk of the walls out. We decided we want to replace the tub with a nice claw-foot while we’ve got the opportunity, but it’s a big pain in the ass, and we had to wait for a long time while the roots in our goddamn walls dried up and died. Well, they’re dead now, so I guess it’s time to get crackin’.
Exercise
Look at your man. Now back to me. Now back to your man. Now back to me. I… am not Isaiah Mustafa. But I have been working out, and it’s beginning to show. I bicycle a lot, which keeps me more-or-less trim, but I was beginning to have lower back pains again, which only go away when I’m getting enough upper body exercise. Being tall is a mixed bag. Sure, I can reach the top shelf, change the ceiling light, and annoy the guys behind me in the movie theater when I sit up straight, but I also have the odd back and neck trouble, and I probably hit my head more than is healthy, strictly speaking.
In any event, I’ve been hitting the gym again. If enough people request it, I will post photographic evidence thereof. Perhaps I will wear a towel, like Mr. “Old Spice Guy” Mustafa.
Baby due December 19th
I have mentioned I’m going to be a dad again, haven’t I? Well, I am. We’re expecting our second daughter in December. Now you know, internets!
OK, I think that’s about it for now. If my real life is too boring, feel free to provide some additional details of your own devising in the comments below.
Sequels and self-pity
01 year ago
Wacky. I find myself writing my first short story sequel. I’ve got a few settings I’ve used for multiple stories before, but never for direct sequels wherein one story naturally flows from another.
It’s fun and frustrating at the same time. Fun, because I get to tie up some loose ends from the previous story and deal with a big leftover problem that I hadn’t even realized was there until the idea for the sequel came to me. Frustrating, because the story needs to be able to stand on its own merits, without requiring readers to go back and read the first one. That means finding ways to fill the reader in on the events of the first in a way that comes across as back-story instead of a full (and poor) retelling of the original.
I’m normally skeptical of sequels on general principles — to use a movie example, for every Matrix, there’s a Matrix Reloaded. But damnit, this is a story I want to tell, and it doesn’t make any sense as anything but a sequel. So that’s what I’m doing.
On a side note, thanks for all the well-wishing after my last two self-pitying mope-fests, but what I really needed was someone to smack some sense into me. Oh boo hoo, I don’t have time to finish my novel before my self-imposed deadline that matters to no one but me. Waaaah, the news is depressing so I can’t write optimistic science fiction. I wanna go back in time, just so I can say, “Man up, Nancy” to myself.
I’m a published author, with more stories on the way. I have a happy and healthy family. Life is good. So Mopey-Me can have a nice, tall glass of STFU.
Of novels, short stories, and pascalines
01 year ago
Not too long ago, I found myself writing a zombie horror story. Not my usual thing, but a great deal of fun. That story is done, and sitting in my rewrite queue, growing rancid and moldy — like its subject matter. I’ll take it out, cut off the bad bits, polish the good ones, and send it out after I feel like enough time has passed.
Most of the writing I’ve been doing for the last few weeks has been of that nature, rewriting stories that are complete but need work. At the end of the month, I plan to submit a few of those to short story markets prior to the big novel push.
But right at this moment, I’m working on a pre-Victorian science fantasy story. It’s got Renaissance-era cybermancy, mystical pascalines, heroic aethernauts and… Well gee, it’s an awful lot of fun writing it. And somewhere down the line, the world its set in might have room for a novel. That would be nice.
February goals update
01 year ago
Egads, I had no idea what a mess some of those “almost finished” stories actually are. I think I’ll probably end up with no more than 16 or 17 stories in the mail by the end of the month. But it’s all well and good. I’m really pleased with some of my edits, especially the rewrite I’m doing of a rather tragic necromancer story.
Speaking of fantasy stories and tropes, I’m embracing fantasy more and more lately. I’ve always thought of myself more as a science fiction writer, but if the muse is filling my head with magic, who am I to argue?
All this is leading up to March, wherein I will begin my descent into novelist madness. By the end of the year, I will have an 80,000 word novel. It will be fully edited. I will submit it to an agent.
Obviously, I’ve lost my goddamn mind.
January goal wrapup, February goals, and looking ahead
02 years ago
So January is done, and I feel very much like I kicked its ass. Sure, I didn’t manage the 25 story submissions I hoped for, but that was largely because I managed to get everything worth circulating back in the mail. For those keeping track at home, that’s 15 stories total, with something like half of them edited (or re-edited) and pulled out of submissions purgatory.
Yes, I feel like a writer again.
I have some new goals in mind for February. I’m going to maintain my short story circulation, obviously, and I’m going to take any remaining stories that require only light edits and get them polished for submission. I figure I should end February with 20 stories out, assuming none of them sell. I’d be happy to fail at this goal for a reason like that.
Another business-related goal: Get my financial tracking in order. Writers — if they’re trying to make a profession of it — can deduct a lot of writing-related expenses on their taxes, but only if they know what writing-related expenses they’ve had. I need a simple application I can enter such expenses with, preferably on my Android-powered mobile phone. I don’t need a full-fledged financial app, just something I can make quick, easy line entries in. I’ll be researching that myself, but I’m happy to take recommendations.
Finally, it’s high time I became a novelist. This month, when all my short stories are in order, I’m going to figure out which of the four novels I’ve written is actually good enough to bother rewriting. For the rest of the year, that novel will be my writing focus. You read it here first… I will query my first agent by December 31st, 2010.
Aw yeah.