Category Archives: Writing

Novel Status Update

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A little progress on MARE NUBIUM, having crossed the 55,000-word threshold tonight. It’s somewhat slow going, but I’m still having fun with it. Hopefully some readers will get the chance to have fun with it, too.

[BREAK, BREAK]

In the “This Day in Space History” file, ten years ago today the Russians launched Soyuz TM-28 to the Mir space station from the Baikonur Cosmodrome. The spacecraft returned to earth the following February, but one of the cosmonauts stayed aboard Mir for a year. (The Mir station itself deorbited in 2001.*) See this page for more on the Soyuz TM-series spacecraft.

___
*The main character in my story “The Rocket Seamstress,” a worker at Baikonur, considered what she thought of as the ignoble fate of Mir.

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Rising, as opposed to falling, stars

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Only saw one meteor last night, and it was so quick and faint it may have been my imagination — unlike the night we sat behind our house in Nebraska and so many fell and seemed so close I thought I might reach up and catch them. But last night I needed to sleep, since I’m driving to Asheville this morning.

On an up note, however, two rising stars of SF&F — who just happen to be two of my favorite people in the world — are featured in a hilarious interview: Alethea Kontis, author of Beauty & Dynamite (which I am enjoying reading), interviewed Edmund Schubert, editor of Orson Scott Card’s Intergalactic Medicine Show, on topics ranging from how he came to edit IGMS to his “PenguinMan” superhero persona. It’s wonderful. Click through from one of their web sites or read it here.

And take a look at the book trailer for Beauty & Dynamite. It just went up on YouTube recently, even though the book has been out for awhile. The trailer is classy and understated — unlike Lee, who is classy and exuberant — and was produced by a certain daughter of mine.

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Halfway Home

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Passed the 50,000 word mark in MARE NUBIUM, after finally realizing that I’d started the last chapter in the wrong point of view and going back to re-work it. What I probably should’ve done is just inserted a note to the effect of “rework this” and pressed on, but it seemed too big an issue to leave unresolved.

It’s a wonder I finish anything. According to my 100K goal, I’m halfway through with the novel; who knows if the final version will be 90K or 120K, but it will be a wonder if I finish.

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Trinoc*coN Report

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Today I made it to the last bit of Trinoc*coN, the local Raleigh-Durham SF&F convention.

I caught the tail end of a panel on whether Harry Potter is destined to become a literary classic (the panelists and audience were each about evenly split between “yes” and “maybe”), then was on a panel about the paranormal in fiction and nonfiction. We had an interesting discussion amongst ourselves until a few audience members straggled in … but such is the hazard of Sunday morning panels.

I moderated a panel on SF’s broken technological promises, which was okay … but I’m not a very good moderator. The panel was entitled “Where’s My Flying Car?” and one of the panelists took that rather literally — he brought a nice PowerPoint slideshow about flying cars, which we all enjoyed, but we spent so much time on actual flying cars that we didn’t get to discuss some of the broader promises SF has made.

The highlight was seeing Hank Davis and Laura Haywood-Cory, both from the main office of Baen Books. (Laura got me on the guest list in the first place.) Hank was on the “Flying Car” panel, and as the most widely read of all of us he kept us firmly anchored in the genre. Laura did a great job moderating the very enjoyable panel on Southern Fandom.

This year’s Trinoc*coN was a small affair, a “relaxacon” as it’s known — more laid back and less programming-intense than usual — but very well done and I was pleased to be invited to be a part of it. Kudos and thanks to all the organizers and volunteers!

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Back from the beach, off to a con

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Just returned this afternoon, lightly sunburned and heavily fatigued, from a week in Myrtle Beach, and tomorrow I’ll head over to Trinoc*coN, a local SF&F convention. It’s a “relaxacon” this year, with minimal programming, but even so they got a big-name GOH in Catherine Asaro.

I’ll contribute the “minimal” to tomorrow’s programming: I’m on a panel on “The Paranormal in Fiction and Nonfiction” and I’ll moderate “Where’s My Flying Car?”, a panel on the failure of technology to live up to our more fantastic dreams.

For now, though, let’s see if we can add a few more words to the novel-in-progress. Best to any and all!

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Finally — 45,000

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I had such a good streak going of nearly 5,000 words a week, and then July hit and my writing time dropped to almost nil. First was the weekend in northern Virginia for the wedding, then a few nights of Vacation Bible School prep, then the weekend in Massanutten for the family reunion, and then this last week doing Vacation Bible School nearly every night and most of the day on Saturday.

At least I’m a few words closer to the goal for now. This being “vacation week” (so to speak, it’s a working vacation for me), it remains to be seen how much writing I’ll get done. But at least I’m still moving in the right direction.

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Nicest (and most frustrating) Rejection Ever

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If you ever wondered how close you can come without scoring in this game of darts called writing, the rejection e-mail I got yesterday should give you some idea. I’ve redacted the name of the editor and the magazine:

Dear Gray,

This is one of the moments in which I do not enjoy being an editor. After much consideration, _____ will not be using “She Walks Among Them at Night,” and you are free to submit it elsewhere.

As to why we did not accept “She Walks Among Them at Night,” I believe it just became a matter of preference with the limited spots we have. I normally give advice at this point concerning items that were issues for us during the consideration period, but I have nothing for this story. It is well written and engaging.

“She Walks Among Them at Night” was a fantastic read, and thank you for letting us spend so much time with it. I wish I had better news after the lengthy consideration, and I wish you the best of luck with this piece.

Sincerely,
_____
Submission Editor
_____

I think they felt bad for holding the story for over six months. Now, to find another venue where it might fit.

Who knew encouragement could be so frustrating?

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UPDATE:

I was feeling pretty good until I popped in to the Codex Writers Group forum and saw that another member received the same rejection — with only the name of the story changed — a couple of days ago. Now it looks to me like a “standard” form rejection they crank out whenever they hold a story for a long time.

Frustrating, indeed.

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Forty Thousand

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Is it strange to count the progress on my novel in 5,000-word increments? Maybe, but I’m doing it anyway.

As of tonight, MARE NUBIUM is a little over 40,000 words long — which, as my writing friend Eric James Stone pointed out on his blog, is the length criterion for status as a “novel.” However, since there’s also the story criterion — i.e., a story that’s complete and hopefully coherent — I’m not there yet.

But it feels good to be making progress!

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Above the Event Horizon …

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If I’ve read the counter correctly, this will be my 100th blog post. And what better way to celebrate passing the century mark of this semi-sense (i.e., mostly nonsense) than to post a link to Tales of the Talisman, the current issue of which arrived in my mailbox this week and contains my flash fiction story, “Above the Event Horizon at the End of Time.”

I was pleased that one of my writing friends, Rick Novy, also has a story in this issue. His “The Great Basilisk Race” is good story that doesn’t follow the “everything works out fine” formula: the main character makes a difficult choice and then has to live with the consequences. I give him kudos for not giving in to the temptation to wrap things up too neatly — it made his story much more realistic than others I’ve seen.

As for my story, well … as flash fiction, at least it has the virtue of being short. 😉

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