WIP Crackin' Wednesday

Leg Week Edition

My mid-week report to you that covers the three major commitments I’ve made: to write, to edit, and to read.

I considered simply making this a MarsCon after-action report, but decided to do that as a separate post. For good reason; last week I missed an update - the first of the new year, even! - so I want to let you all know what’s going on.

Playing “Here I Stand”. It’s more like three games in one. In 10 1/2 hours, we got through four turns, though - enough for the Ottomans (played by yours truly) to achieve victory.

Writing

I’d say “not a lot” as I was prepping for MarsCon, but… actually, there was quite a lot. I got bitten by the noir bug and started “The Devil You Know” in the first week of the new year, hoping to finish it by January 12th so I could sneak it in for Raconteur’s Pinup Noir 3 call.

After a couple of days, I was unsatisfied with where it was going, so I scrapped it and started again.

Then, after a couple of days, I was unsatisfied with where that version was going, so I scrapped it and started again.

If you’re keeping track, that left me with about five days to get this story done. My original problem is that I was trying to be serious, and the story wanted me to be… less serious. I mean, I can do serious. I know that. This story just didn’t want to go there. I realized I need a different set-up if I wanted to tell the original story, so I might return to it. Eventually.

For this one, though, once I gave in and acknowledged how the story needed to go, I was able to bang it out. I finished on the evening of the 12th and got it off to my wife for editing. If you’re thinking, “Why Sam, wasn’t that the first day of MarsCon?” you would be correct. I spent most of the day playing “Here I Stand” with a tremendous group of people. I played as the Ottomans, so while the Pope and the Protestants were struggling over control of Europe, I ducked over to a nearby table to finish polishing and get it ready for review. End of the night, I got my story done and the Ottomans won. Not a bad evening.

I spent some time looking at my schedule for this year, and I have something like 300k worth of word-smithing I want to do. Not all of that is actual writing. A big chunk of that number is assigned to the Tull anthology I’m editing. MarsCon turned me on to a couple of new projects I might want to tackle later on in the year. Those will require a bunch of research, though. However I slice it, I’m going to need to buckle down and write between 1200-1500 words a day.

Oh! Almost forgot - I also got my first review for One October Night! A positive one, even. Jim McCoy of Jimbo’s Awesome Science Fiction and Fantasy Reviews gave us 5/5 for the collection. Not bad. I’m hoping to collect a few more as time goes by.

Editing

With MarsCon and the Noir Story that Would Not Let Me Go, I have not returned to editing like I wanted to. I may not for a bit now. I need to outline that space opera novella (and make sure I’m aligning with world building done by Zane Voss and Back Porch Writer for… reasons) and I’ve got a couple of urban fantasy anthologies I really want to submit to.

Still, I’ve gotten back a lot of critiques on my moggie noir story that I finished up at the end of last year, as well as the novel outline I was working on. I really need to review and incorporate the comments I’ve gotten from the Alpha Mercs into those stories. I am tremendously grateful for the feedback on both. For the novel outline, in particular, they raised some good questions about historical events and background that I will need to adjust to accommodate. Lesson learned: it’s easier to fix a 5k outline than it is to fix a 100k-word manuscript!

Reading

Not a lot with MarsCon. The rules for “Here I Stand” clock in at 44 pages, so I suppose I can count that as my reading for the week. Especially since it was rather dense.

I did do some prep for my MarsCon panels as well. Reading up about westerns (the genre), romance tropes, and economics. Yes, those were my panels. Of them all, I think the one related to economics was the most fun, for reasons you will see shortly. :)

While I was at the con, I found a copy of “San Diego Lightfoot Sue and Other Stories” in the dealer room. That’s a collection of short stories by Tom Reamy. I loved the title story, but I’d forgotten the author, and not been able to find it republished anywhere. Stumbling across a complete collection of Reamy’s stories was definitely a find, and then the dealer threw in a copy of his novel Blind Voices as well. So I have a couple of things I’ve moved to the top of my pile.

I’ve also realized that I like reading anthologies a lot more now. With writing and critiques, it’s hard to find the time to read at all, and I’m trying to alternate reading for development/research and reading for pleasure. Anthologies let me sample a wider range of authors. When I meet someone for the first time at a con, I like to be able to tell them, “Oh, hey, I read your story in $ANTHOLOGY!” because that’s a wonderful point of connection!

There’s folks I make exception for, of course. You should absolutely go out and buy All Creatures In His Thrall by Scott Huggins, for example. Or Among the Gray Lords by D. J. Butler. Heck, while you’re at it, throw One October Night into your basket as well. I head that Sam Robb guy is a decent writer.

Other

I’m working on doing a book giveaway. Nothing solid yet, but exploring options. If I set it up, trust me - you all will be included, and the first to know.

MarsCon after-action report to follow. Watch this space. There was so much that happened this past weekend, and - in all honesty - I was only part of a fraction of awesomeness that occurred. Definitely stay tuned!

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