At the Wayward trying to write this morning, but having trouble focusing. Figure I’ll review my to-do list and see what needs my attention.
Part of what I’ve been doing is just hitting some low hanging fruit just to get things off my plate. So, taking stories that are damn near done and getting them done done.
I’ll italicize the items I’ve updated.
I’m waiting for the Malware scanner to finish on the girlfriend’s PC before I run off to work on my writing. So I have some random thoughts to offer, and a comment on writing progress.
Last couple days haven’t been super-productive for writing. Doctor appointments, theater tickets, band rehearsals, all have frittered away my time. Today is my one-year anniversary, and I’m holding that sacrosanct from writing.
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I was reminded that I had one other short story that could be considered for a Clarion/Clarion West application: “A Ghost of Christmas Past,” from the Cobalt City Christmas anthology. I think it was off my radar because I never thought of it as a “stand alone” piece, but maybe I’m wrong. I would be open to opinions, especially if you aren’t familiar with the Cobalt City universe.
In my pre-coffee haste this morning, I failed to mention that there are other authors worth noting involved in Cobalt City Christmas. While I don’t know much about Nicole Burns, I can at least dig up a few things about Angel Leigh McCoy (a prolific game designer, author and journalist) and Rosemary Jones (who is most recently known for her recent Forgotten Realms novels, but also has several non-fiction books under her belt).
So if Nate and I are not enough of a draw, Angel and Rosemary may very well be.
Here’s another project that I’d been involved with but was keeping under wraps:
My friend Nathan Crowder has developed his own comic book universe through a series of novels he has put out on Lulu. When he decided to put together an anthology of stories written by other writer friends, I jump on the opportunity. The story I turned out was absurdly fun to write.
The anthology is Cobalt City Christmas.
Diving into it is probably something like diving into a comic book series you aren’t familiar with. If you are interested in this but would like some context, my favorite book in this universe is Greetings from Buena Rosa.
The last couple weeks have been a zoo. I’ve been trying to prep for AmberCon Northwest the last couple weeks.
Additionally, I’m taking a new route with NaNoWriMo this year and doing an outline. In year’s past I’ve belligerently refused to make an outline, instead drawing off of the mad androgynous man in the back of my head that claims to be a muse. I would point proudly at the likes of Raymond Chandler, Roger Zelazny and Phillip Pullman, three excellent authors who did not bother to use an outline. And there’s a power that comes from sitting at the keyboard and having a story pour out that even I don’t know the ending to, in which the story has a life almost independent of me.
But this year I actually have a story arc I want to handle, and that means looking at things in advance. Otherwise I see myself getting painted into a corner around point B and not knowing how to get to point C.
I don’t know that this will be a long-term commitment to the outline. But I know that when I went through a period of GMing heavily structured games for a while, it really helped me get a sense of narrative flow so that it helped me GM by the seat of my pants. So I think having this new approach this year will probably help a lot.
In other writing news, I finished off two short stories that might appear in small print-on-demand anthology chapbook thingies. I’ll post more about those when I know more about those.
I also have cool news to share on Sunday.
First, gratuitous icon post. Saw this on the nano_icons community and had to have. It’s like the 21st century answer to Hemingway’s great white bull.
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