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My October Projects*
Novel editing has taken a pause in order to attend to two anthology submissions I want to finish. The good news: finished one last night, edited it tonight, will submit in just a bit. It takes place in the world of The Aldersgate, featuring three familiar faces to those who follow such things: Sir Gawen, Sir Renmen, and Sir Din. It takes place ten years before the events in the book, and tells the story of how Sir Gawen–once known around the Continent for his prowess and crazy mad skull-crushing skills–gave up his cushy captainship and joined the Order of the Asp. The second story is posing more of a…
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A moment of blatant self-promotion
The Mammoth Book of Steampunk is looking for reprint recommendations. And whaddya know, but I’ve got a bunch of stories that would qualify for just that. They’re seeking suggestions over here. So if you’ve read something of mine that you like, please feel free to let them know! (I added some notes to help you remember each story.) “The Brass Pedestal” – Steampunk Tales #4, Short Story category, November 2009 (Sophronia seeks revenge on her philandering, relationship-destroying brother by getting a bug implant and a metal corset) “Dead’s End to Middleton” – Crossed Genres #16, Short Story Category, February 2010 (seven gun-toting, alien-killing sisters in the American West, and the…
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The Pits of Research
I did it. I fell into the Pits of Research. Don’t get me wrong. I love research. At a point in my life I wanted to be a professional researcher, i.e. a professor, so the hankering to discover new information is definitely strong with me. However. There are good and bad ways to go about these things. I’ve been adding to and editing Pilgrim of the Sky, which, as I mentioned, has a lot to do with religion. Sort of. In the book, the premise revolves (haha, revolves…) around eight worlds. These worlds are all connected, are part of infinite worlds, yet still have similarities between them. The main character’s…
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I have an announcement…
Today is September 22nd, which happens to be the birthday of Frodo and Bilbo Baggins, give or take. And while this day is perfect for gorging on cheese and mushrooms, taking walks in the park among the trees, and starting adventures, it’s also a good one for announcements (or so I’d like to think). No. I am not disappearing. I have no magic rings, and even if I did own one, I’d probably have lost it by now or else left you entirely. I’m far too much of a Took to let a ring sit in an envelope for years. The announcement is this: I have sold my first book!…
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Weird Tales Uncanny Beauty Issue
I’ve been waiting to talk about this until it was official but, hey, look: official! And awesome. I had the privilege of coming up with a project together with Brigid Ashwood, a brilliant artist and fellow lover of speculative fiction. The piece in the upcoming issue is entitled “The Wakened Image” and it’s a look at some of the “made” women in mythology, taken from the Mabinogion and Ovid’s Metamorphoses. Brigid helped me brainstorm the subject, and then I wrote a three-part poem in blank verse; Brigid provided some astonishingly beautiful pictures to accompany the text. The issue isn’t available yet, but soon. I’ll keep you posted. I am so…
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Homesick for fiction.
Having finished the draft of Indigo & Ink, which has occupied the last seven months of my life, I’m now feeling a bit down in the dumps. You know, I really miss writing the book. After that last edit, I had a sense of finality, and while it was very thrilling, in some ways it also left me feeling a bit empty. This probably explains why when my friend Karen mentioned she’d read some of the first chapter, I about fell out of my chair in excitement. Yes, writers are weird. If you hadn’t figured that out yet, you just haven’t met enough of us. Anyway, I haven’t stopped writing,…
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Draft One, Deeper Into the Murk
So, no longer Draft Zero, eh, Indigo & Ink? This is where things get interesting. I’m not one of those people who can let a book draft sit for terribly long. Okay, wait, no. That’s a lie. I can let it sit plenty after I’ve edited the crap out of it, but otherwise it pokes at my consciousness for days until I fix what needs fixing. We can’t always be as disciplined as Stephen King, and if we all wrote the same the world would be boring (or… something?). When I finished Indigo & Ink, I was in the zone, so I decided to keep going. The draft, at one…
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Draft Zero? Oh Yes!
Indigo & Ink is officially moving from Scrivener to Pages. What does that mean? Why, draft zero has been achieved! So I ended up more than my original plan, but hey. That’s what drafts are for, right? Unexpected things happen. I thought at one point I might not even get to 90k. But this book, well, it’s got a mind of its own. Just like the Mother Squid. Anyway, this book has been very important for me to finish for a number of reasons. Things haven’t been great on a lot of fronts, but this story needed to be told. And I did it. In spite of the crap that’s…
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Beach. Book. Bed.
Just returned today from nearly a week on the North Carolina coast. There was not much writing time to be had, but plenty of time to think of writing. I think I’ve worked out the last three or four chapters sufficiently. It’s a melancholy end for a melancholy book, though there’s more humor in it than anything I’ve written to date (which is terribly important given the subject matter, I say). Being at the beach was perfect for the plotting, what with the sea air and the sunsets and all. Last night I stood on the porch and watched a huge thunderstorm over the Atlantic ocean–the largest lightning bolts I’ve…
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Just some metrics and a whole lotta words.
So apparently I wrote about 8K today. For some reason I’m almost embarrassed to admit that. I really have done little else but write today! Ass in chair, indeed. Um. Yeah. I call this “end of novel fever” and occasionally it strikes. I’m just glad my fingers are holding up… but not for long. It’s bedtime for me, and man… yeah. I said something a few posts about being surprised if I hit 90K. Well, um. I’m surprised. But it is coming to a close. Sort of. Sometimes characters have little side quests they have to finish, and no matter how much you try to talk them out of it…
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Enter title here…
I’ve been going back and forth with the title thing on this book for the last week, really and truly frustrated that I couldn’t get something that felt right. So today during dinner (no, we were not eating calamari – it was gazpacho and sausages!) the name struck. Indigo and Ink. Ding, ding, ding. We have a winner. Finally something that speaks to two of the main themes of the book and, in my mind, has a rather neat ring to it. And, at least with a cursory search on Google, no other books of the same name. Dark and squiddy. I like it that way. I feel better now.
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Titles, Tentacles, and Trust
Explosition: in a narrative, the presence of excessive exposition. i.e. expository barf Well, 80K has been surpassed. This is good. This is very good. And as I plunge into the last few chapters, I’m realizing I do have more to say in this space. So I’m thinking the draft will be around 95K now… give or take. I have a tentative new title: Mother’s Ink. Or Inkwell. It’s become the center of the story, really (ink that is), and has even lent itself to my own version of the undead. (This is momentous! I’ve never had the undead in a novel before. I feel like I might have leveled as…
