I’ve spent all month working on Sweetheartcatalyst. I now have an agglomeration of wordage that I’m calling “Chapter 1″. It’s been very slow going, like wading through molasses. I realized that part of the reason for this is… um… apparently, I’m actually writing [...]]]> Whoa, it’s June. How the frell did that happen so fast?

I’ve spent all month working on Sweetheartcatalyst. I now have an agglomeration of wordage that I’m calling “Chapter 1″. It’s been very slow going, like wading through molasses. I realized that part of the reason for this is… um… apparently, I’m actually writing a crime novel. Something I have zero experience with, LOL. (OK, I still consider the story to be science fiction, but… it’s actually both.) My lack of knowledge and experience causes a phenomenon where sometimes it seems like, every damn sentence I write, I become stymied with “Wait.. would the cops really do that? Before or after? How many times? Who would do it? How long would it take?” This then necessitates sitting & racking my brain, or a trip down Research Rabbit Hole Lane, or even getting frustrated and knocking off for the day in disgust at my inability to write more than 12 words per 24 hours. However, it *is* getting better, because I’ve been researching my @$$ off. I created my “story bible”, which helped a lot. And my fuzzy grip on How Things Work is becoming sharper.

Meanwhile, I’ve gotten an @$$load of incredibly helpful feedback on “The Collapsing Hills”. Of course my impulse is now to immediately jump back into editing that story and sending it out somewhere. If I do that, though, it could easily take me another month. (Yes indeed. I’m just that slow.) Then when I’m done I’ll have to spend more time getting my head back into the novel. I read somewhere that when you are deep into a task and your brain is focused, and then somebody interrupts you and breaks your concentration, it can take 20 minutes to get your head back to where it was before the interruption. I don’t want to do that to myself by constantly switching writing projects every month. My attention span is ADD enough as it is. Therefore I’m going to hold off on editing, and keep plugging away on this novel for another month or two, at least.

One more thing: Inspired by this episode of K.M. Weiland’s Wordplay podcast, I started keeping a writing journal. She has a lovely pic on her web site of a handwritten journal; I just have a text file, because writing longhand makes my paw hurt. But anyway, every time I sit down to write, I make a new journal entry with the date, what I’m working on, & what I’m hoping to get done. I try to keep it fairly short, log book style. So far it’s been really helpful to focus my thoughts on the work ahead, as well as being able to look back and see my progress.

In the wake of the destructive tornadoes which ripped through Alabama on April 27th, 2011, Southern Fried Weirdness Press is proud to present the charity anthology, Southern Fried Weirdness: Reconstruction. This collection of poetry and short fiction features 46 pieces from 40 different contributing authors. It spans multiple genres and presents an eclectic [...]]]>

In the wake of the destructive tornadoes which ripped through Alabama on April 27th, 2011, Southern Fried Weirdness Press is proud to present the charity anthology, Southern Fried Weirdness: Reconstruction. This collection of poetry and short fiction features 46 pieces from 40 different contributing authors. It spans multiple genres and presents an eclectic mix of voices.

It’s only $2.99 and all profits will be donated to The American Red Cross to aid disaster relief efforts.

Now available at Smashwords in multiple formats.

Also available on the Kindle.

February – I worked on detrilogization.

March – I received word that “Algae” had been accepted! Continued work [...]]]> January – I submitted “Algae” to an anthology of novella-length science fiction. I also decided that for my next project, I would condense a pre-existing, old sucky trilogy into a single volume, titled The Free City.

February – I worked on detrilogization.

March – I received word that “Algae” had been accepted! Continued work on detrilogization, then switched gears to write an “Algae”-related bonus story. Finished that, and was about to jump back into detrilogization when I got bit by the Sweet Heart Catalyst plot bunny.

April – Completely abandoned the detrilogization project to work on SHC. By the middle of the month, I had 12,000 words of utter tripe. I also refluffed my official writing blog.

May – I came to the realization that I’d bitten off a big chunk to chew with SHC. I began to split my time between the research rabbit hole (reading about cops and serial killers), and the worldbuilding rabbit hole (inventing new forms of telepathy). I also started a short story, “Wallwalker: Encounter on Planet 352″.

June – I worked concurrently on SHC and “Wallwalker”. Gave the first draft of “Wallwalker” to my writing group for crit.

July – After a short period of unmotivation after returning from Mexico, I jumped back into SHC. Received some feedback on “Wallwalker”. Also started another short, “Desert Walker”, but I didn’t really know where it was going, so I put it aside and began writing yet another short, “Bright Light”.

August – With about 20,000 words on SHC, I realized that I needed to start over from scratch. Also, I finished the first draft of “Bright Light” and gave it to my writing group for crit. Giant home improvement project is competing for my attention.

September – Small amounts of SHC work done, but the giant home improvement project is still cutting into my writing time. Finally received edits for “Algae”, so switched gears to work on that.

October – Sent the “Algae” edits back to my editor. Started revising “Bright Light”. SHC on back burner.

November – Still at work revising “Bright Light”. Then I received the second round of “Algae” edits, so I broke off to work on those, and managed to send the final version back to the editor by the end of the month.

December – Finished the second draft of “Bright Light” and gave it to my writing group for crit. Now getting ready to jump back into SHC.

Looking back at this, it could also be read as the chronicle of my slowness and easy distractibility. I kept switching projects, and I only managed to submit one story in 2010. I was hoping I might be able to have “Bright Light” ready to submit before the end of this year, but that’s looking pretty unlikely.

Alternatively, it could be seen as an accomplishment that I’ve managed to get any writing done at all, what with all the other stuff I’m doing (two jobs, playing in a band, various fitness pursuits, home improvement projects, and travel). I’m honestly not sure which one it is.

Anyway, Sweet Heart Catalyst is the next project. Part of me thinks I should return to my detrilogization of The Free City, but that will have to wait. I feel more inspired to work on something new, and I also think that writing a new thing to completion (even if technically, I’m starting over on it) will be easier and less time-consuming than refribulating an existing thing. I still think The Free City is worth doing (at some point), but I can only work on one novel at a time, or my brain will explode.

See, it took me forever to come up with what I have. First of all, my pesky main character had decided that he was a cop investigating a murder: a giant subject about which I Knew Nothing! (as Schultz [...]]]> Well, I’ve come to a decision: I need to start over on Sweet Heart Catalyst.

See, it took me forever to come up with what I have. First of all, my pesky main character had decided that he was a cop investigating a murder: a giant subject about which I Knew Nothing! (as Schultz would say) So I had to read up on that, which took (and is still taking) time.

Secondly, I tried a new thing when I was writing this story: being deliberately disorganized and un-chronological. I now have a large number of bits and snips that I wrote out of order, at different times, whenever the ideas occurred to me. I’m not saying this was a bad way to write it; it was a different approach that resulted in a lot of ideas coming to the forefront. The only problem is that with this scattershot method, I tended to lack a sense of how the story was going as a whole. I had also avoided writing a lot of the police work related scenes because, heheh, I wasn’t totally clear on what exactly they would do, and needed to learn about it first.

So now I’ve thrown all those bits and snips in a document, in rough chronological order, and I have about 20K of wordage. A lot of it is “dated”, in that, things have changed considerably, particularly with the older stuff. Rather than continue adding to the existing stew of bits, I’ve decided to start a fresh document and write it chronologically from the beginning (which is not to say that I might not fold the spacetime continuum into flashbacks later). I can still keep some of the later material, but there is a lot of earlier stuff that’s going bye-bye.

But that’s OK, because I have the bones of the story figured out, including the police scenes that were confuzzling me before. So there!

* * *

Also, I finished the first draft of Sergio, which has been renamed Bright Light, and have sent it out to my crit group and already gotten some very useful feedback.

But before I do that, I have to finish up that shortie about my bad guy who’s bad, bad, bad, and how he got that way. It’s about 1700 words so [...]]]> I wrote the end of Sweet Heart Catalyst yesterday! Now all I have to do is write the, ahem, pesky middle part

But before I do that, I have to finish up that shortie about my bad guy who’s bad, bad, bad, and how he got that way. It’s about 1700 words so far. For now, the working title is Sergio after the main character, but I hope I can come up with something that sounds a little more badass. (Side note: I apparently really like the name “Sergio”; I just realized that I also have a “Sergei” in another, unrelated story.)

Short stories Encounter on Planet 352 and Desert Walker are temporarily on the back burner.

I recently discovered She Writes, a site for, by and about women writers (thanks to my friend Kat for the heads-up!) It’s a great resource with an active community of writers. I’d like to encourage all you writer folks on my list to join me there. (Men are welcome too, though the site is female-focused).

I had to write an intro blurb for one of the groups I joined on SW, and one of the questions was about our current WIP. So it forced me to think about just what the frell this thing is that I’m writing, anyway. Here’s what I came up with: “A twisted mutant hybrid of near-future biopunk-ish science fiction and political/crime thriller”. Heheh! … although I forgot to add, “with a delicious coating of dark chocolate”.

Thanks to my writing group, I’ve received some very useful feedback on my first draft of the Wallwalker short story, which I’m now calling Encounter on Planet 352. Looks like I have my de-tripe-ification work cut out for me

I started writing [...]]]> Sweet Heart Catalyst progress. Slow, but better than going backwards!

Thanks to my writing group, I’ve received some very useful feedback on my first draft of the Wallwalker short story, which I’m now calling Encounter on Planet 352. Looks like I have my de-tripe-ification work cut out for me

I started writing a new short story that I’m calling Desert Walker. After being on a snow, ice and cold kick for so long, I’m apparently on a desert kick now; Encounter on Planet 352 also takes place in a desert. Although the desert in Desert Walker is considerably more aggro. As in “melt your shoes off, hide in holes in the ground during the day & only travel at night”. Oh, and I apparently also have a thing for characters who, heheh, walk

Also, I spotted a call for submissions for stories about characters who are just bad, bad, bad, and unredeemably evil. I believe I have a character who fits the bill, and I actually have his “origin story” already written. So I’m going to brush that up this week.

The piece is called “He Learned How” and you can read it online here. In the story, A.J. is sixteen and gay [...]]]> As of December 2008 I’m officially a published author. I have one (1) short story out there in the world. I guess it’s a very small thing, but it feels pretty good.

The piece is called “He Learned How” and you can read it online here. In the story, A.J. is sixteen and gay in a nameless small town somewhere in the U.S.A. It could be 1956, or maybe it’s 1982, or maybe even 2009. A.J. doesn’t care what year it is, really. He cares deeply about the person he loves, who has died — but he also cares very much about how other people perceive him, and how he perceives himself. With most of the power in his world being held by others — parents, teachers, church leaders, and his peers — A.J.’s only power is to be in command of himself. In the end he makes the only choice he believes is available to him, so that he can continue to survive in this conservative small town where everyone knows everything about everybody.

This story is actually the backstory of one of the main characters in The Outerlands, my first novel. The Outerlands takes place in the future, in a dystopian upper Midwest which has forgotten it was ever part of the U.S.A.. Here, new societies have arisen, stratified along religious, racial and cultural lines. In order to keep “He Learned How” in the neighborhood of 3000 words, I removed the speculative elements and changed some of the details. But A.J.’s story really takes place in the year 2121, and the setting is not really a sleepy small town, but a small, militaristic country whose inhabitants espouse white supremacy and are locked in perpetual conflict with the equally militaristic, non-white country next door. By the time of The Outerlands, A.J. is thirty-five, a repressed control freak stuck in an unhappy marriage. He’s very good at putting up and shutting up, and he might be the last person who would consider rocking the boat and challenging the repugnant values that his home country is built upon — let alone the lies his personal life is built upon.

Meanwhile, in a nearby third country run as a religious dictatorship, sixteen year old Mercy has fallen in love with a female classmate. Facing an arranged marriage and an assigned job, she at first believes her only option is to put up and shut up. But then, encouraged by a nonconformist older brother, she decides to run away. Eventually, she meets A.J., and not under friendly circumstances. It’s a mental kick in the butt for A.J. He will end up rocking the boat, and so will Mercy. Hell, the boat just might tip over.

And that’s what my book is about. Right now, I’m in the process of revising it — and it needs a lot of work. But I do feel encouraged, because with the publication of my first short story, it feels as if a very small piece of The Outerlands is already out there. The lunar calendar says this is the year 4707, not 2009. Whatever the number, I can’t help feeling that the coming year will be an auspicious one.