My mid-week report to you that covers the three major commitments I’ve made: to write, to edit, and to read.
Writing
I’ve continued my N’Inktober writing in conjunction with illustrations from Cedar Sanderson. She threw some curve balls at me this week, for sure! I think “Toast Partners” was one of the most difficult I’ve had all month. Show me a monster shrimp with a sword, and I am all over that with a dozen ideas. Two people obviously enjoying good books with tea and toast? To me, that’s not a story. That’s a life goal.
Here are links to the stories from last week, with the usual mix. I’m not quite sure what some of these are, but hopefully, they’re all entertaining in some way.
N’Inktober #18 - Sussurration Forget
N’Inktober #19 - Childhood Elephant Bird
N’Inktober #20 - Candor Guarded
N’Inktober #21 - Trust Dragonfly Swarm
N’Inktober #22 - Wolf Bougainvillea
N’Inktober #23 - Hidden Demiurge
N’Inktober #24 - Toast Partners
We’re into the home stretch with this project. There’s a week to go, which means another seven images, and another sever stories. I’m sitting at 26k words right now for everything, with 18 complete short stories and another half-dozen that need to be expanded into something longer before I’d consider them finished. When all is said and done, I’d expect to have about 35k words total for the month, and maybe closer to 60k when I finish the longer stories.
Editing
Still working on the outline for An Understanding. I’m preparing to work on Sigils, which includes getting the Chromebook back into shape - more on that later.
I got edits to one story back to the publisher, so now I’m waiting on final notice of acceptance & a contract. I’ve also got another story back from a publisher with suggested edits! I’m geeked about this one. It’s for a shared universe anthology, which I’ve never done before. I also think it’s a pretty good story that’s a mix of mystery and creepy horror.
Reading
I still have copies of Space Cowboys 3 and All Will Burn in the queue. What reading time I have had has been taken up by the Day Job, as I had to dive into a space that I was completely unfamiliar with. As for pleasure reading… well, I’ll quote a fellow writer about the constant internal conflict of being a writer:
Other
I’ve got a new project at the Day Job, which is going well. It has taken up more time than usual as I come up to speed on some things I’ve never dealt with before, though. I also had to write my annual performance review for work this week. I hate that. Yes, I know, the irony. I’d rather write about space cowboys and lovestruck AIs. Plus, it annoys me. I get told what to do, then twice a year I have to… explain that I did what I was told to do? I just don’t get it.
I do not convert da goils into actual helpers for splitting wood this past weekend. C’est la vie. They have their own lives now. I did get a bunch more done (yay!) and we have a couple of dry days through this weekend, so I’m hoping to get a lot more split and stacked in preparation for the winter.
Oh, the Chromebook? Like I said - I’m planning on doing editing in the month of November. I am also going to be disappearing for 10-12 days in order to accompany a team on a mission trip to Tanaznia. I’m not going to take my regular laptop along for that - but thankfully, I do have the Chromebook. I’m getting it set up so I can work on Google Docs while I’m out of the country. I’m going to have to experiment a bit to see how much use it might actually be, especially in a disconnected mode. If it works out though, it will be my primary laptop while I’m out of the country.
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Thanks for sharing, Sam. And safe travels. 🙏