Well that was a full month.
First, a poetry collection assembled by assorted disparate members of my writers’ group has come out. It contains several pieces previously seen here as well as a range of similar-ish things by other writers. I’ve only flipped through it so far but as poetry goes it stands out for being accessible and straightforward as well as poetic. Also, the cover art is gorgeous.
You can find Over Land and Rising at Amazon.
November is home to literary events Wordstock and Orycon here in my ‘hood – that is, three-plus days packed full of writerly events, panels, workshops, and of course shopping. I discovered the urban fantasy Enter the Janitor, which is just as much fun as it sounds like, and a couple of authors I look forward to getting to know. My to-read pile has grown beyond all reason (not that it was reasonable before) and I also learned a few potentially useful things in terms of writing.
Among those things was some insight into the fun world of submitting. The short fiction panel at Orycon opened up a whole range of markets beyond what I already knew – which is good, because the piece I last mentioned having submitted to Uncanny Magazine has now collected four rejections – one of them personalized, with feedback. One of my upcoming projects is to launch that one into a second round of submissions.
Also in the world of submitting, “The Way Home” is finally finished. This time last year, it wasn’t; this time last month, off it went (just for fun) to F&SF whence it was promptly returned. However, that was not only expected, but perfectly timed. “The Way Home” is now available on Smashwords and has been submitted to the Library Writers’ Project, my community’s annual dose of local library love with which I have twice so far been successful. Wish me luck on this one – “Way” is my heart-piece, a bit odd-sized and weirdly shaped for conventional publishing, and I hope it finds a home here.
Then of course there was Nanowrimo. I really didn’t expect much of this; my last Nano fizzled at 25k, and this month was full of travel and literary weekends and wine. It was somewhat to my own surprise that I managed to write 25 days out of 30, even on airplanes – and at 8pm on the very last of them, verified 50,219 words.
All shitty-first-draft, but that’s the point.
I noticed this round that writing without concern for quality allowed all sorts of ideas to come flying up out of the muck. I went places I might not otherwise have considered, opened new doors, tried out new directions. All of these will help the executed projects in the end. On the down side, it was exhausting. 50k in a month is not a sustainable pace for me, though it’s certainly good for a jolt every now and then. My challenge this month is to work out what IS a sustainable pace. 5k a week? 3k? 500 words a day? (not doing so well so far, this being the 5th, but I think vacation is just about over.)
So what’s next??
Nano encompassed two projects: an idea for the BBC playwriting competition I mentioned last time, and something involving wizards, gender roles, and an unkindness of ravens. Both stories have a rough structure, an arc, a beginning-middle-end. Both need a LOT of work to be readable. The deadline for that competition is Jan 31, and my writers’ group has expressed a desire to perform scenes together, so my next task is to get that script into some sort of functional shape.
Once that’s done, then we’ll see about those wizards.
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Walk in Beauty 