My mid-week report to you that covers the three major commitments I’ve made: to write, to edit, and to read.
We cleaned out the barn yesterday, so you get a picture of one of our observers. We did not step on snek. The two blacksnakes we encountered were re-homed to my wife’s black raspberry patch, where they will hopefully have a happy time dining on small critters in their new home.
Writing
I started a short story for a charity anthology. This is a short turnaround, so it got my attention this week. 2400 words or so at present, and it will likely end up around 3k total.
I’m particularly pleased with this one as I went from open call, to story idea, to initial draft in under 8 hours. I was ready to have it done by end of week, if needed - as it turns out, I’ve got about a month, so I’ll likely finish it next week.
Editing
I also prepared a dozen or so query letters on different ideas for a pitch session at the Writer’s Cantina. That was an worthwhile exercise in and of itself. During the process, I realized that only half of them were actual stories - you know, with actual characters and a plot and all. The remainder were decent ideas, but need more thought before I can turn them into something entertaining.
I’ve got a bunch of things that I’ve promised reviews on, for my writer’s group and elsewhere. It looks like I’ll have quite a bit of time on the way to the Cantina, so I’m going to download and review docs on the flights out to Utah.
Reading
Les Johnson’s first contact novel, Mission to Methonē.
![Mission To Methonē by [Les Johnson]](https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!Sx7G!,w_1456,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Ff7fefbb9-c511-4979-bc01-522cc1cb6ea5_329x500.jpeg "Mission To Methonē by [Les Johnson]")
I’ve got a number of reviews I need to put up on Amazon this week as well. Those are always fun to write.
Yearly Goals
New section! As I mentioned in my LibertyCon AAR, I have some overarching goals for this year. So where do I stand on these?
Work as an editor: waiting
Publish my first novel: still waiting on developmental feedback
Finish my second novel: working to identify what I’m going to write
Build out #TeamAndMore: every dang day :)
The query letters I wrote for the Cantina are helping me decide on the next novel. As I said, there were a few I had to toss because they just weren’t stories (yet). Of the remaining ideas, working on the query letters helped me refine my ideas and see what really clicked. I’ve been doing informal polls as well, looking to identify what seems to attract readers. Maybe I’ll do a post next week with some of them and see what yinz guys and all y’all think.
Other
As mentioned, I’ll be heading to the Writer’s Cantina for a day-long writer’s conference. This is Year Zero for them, so I’m sure there will be some snags - but that’s part of the fun ;-) I believe they are hoping this will turn into a multi-day event at some point. I’m not sure if it’s something I’ll be able to go to every year, but they’ve got some great writers and I’ve always wanted to see Utah, so dagnabbit, I’m going.
Well, there was the aforementioned barn clean out. My wife spent all of yesterday afternoon on that, then we put in about four hours working together to get the heavier stuff temporarily relocated. We’re going to have to pitch a lot of old wood (no problem, we like bonfires) and get rid of a surprising amount of scrap metal. We’ll have a nicer, cleaner barn when all it said and done, though. Next time this needs to happen, though, we’ll likely hire some teenagers and supervise!
We’ve been doing some strategy/mission sessions with a non-profit I work with. Good stuff, and needful. I’m not one of the major stakeholders here, so I’m focused on facilitating the process, offering suggestions editing support more than anything else.