January 2023 in Review

Hello Funny People.

Here we are. The first weekend of February. A perfect time to reflect on the first month of the year we managed to clear. So, what have I been up to since last I posted? Well, despite my innate laziness, I managed to get quite a bit done on several fronts.

SHORT STORY SUBMISSIONS

The year started off fairly well on the submission front. 

On New Year's Day, I submitted two stories right off the bat. After a few days, I got an R&R request for one (a first for me) , which I'm still working on, and I'm still waiting to hear back on the second. Although my focus this year is on drafting the new novel (which I'll get to), I've managed to submit a total of 14 times by my Submission Grinder numbers.

To add to the early success, I also received an acceptance for a story I submitted all the way back in August of last year.

Sadly, that's been the last of the good news since then on the submission front, but, unlike last year when I was hellbent on getting a few sales, my priorities have shifted elsewhere.

NOVEL DRAFTING 

My main focus this year is to get a draft of my next novel finished. Unlike with A Sword Named Sylph, I don't want to spend four years getting a first draft done. I'm giving myself a year to get this book finished. 

Thus far, I've gotten about six (6) chapters worth of material drafted, which puts me about a sixth of the way through. It's not where I'd like to be, but starting with this month, it'll be the only.project I'll actively be drafting until it's finished. 

I'll admit, this book, titled Boltstone, has been a challenge in some ways so far. Unlike Sylph, which had an innate plot propellant to it (a quest, where characters are constantly moving from one place to another, with lots of action), this book doesn't. It's a quieter story in a lot of ways. Most of the action takes place in a single location, and most of the scenes are characters talking (not a problem for me since I relish writing dialogue scenes). It really brings to mind that piece of wisdom Gene Wolfe shared with Neil Gaiman once.

"You never learn to write a novel. You just learn to write the novel you're on."

Thankfully, this last week, I had a minor breakthrough with this book. 

Unlike with Sylph, which structurally had a more compressed timeline, Boltstone occurs over a six year-period. But rather than showing every stupid day of each of those years, I realized that the better thing to do would be to write each part, each section, as a single week in the life of this character, before leaping ahead in time to the next major event. As someone who doesn't usually see structure in a book before he begins writing, this has made the book seem much less daunting in the long run.

#AMQUERYING

Right at the end of January (this past Monday, in fact), I finally decided that A Sword Named Sylph was query-ready. So, I prepped samples of different lengths, as well as a synopsis, and started looking for agents on QueryTracker. I began, of course, by looking for the names of agents who represented authors I enjoy and placed them on my "query list." Then, once I'd gathered a handful, I sent out the first five queries to the one who I thought might find interest in the book. So far, I've gotten one outright rejection, but that still leaves four potentials out there. Periodically, I've gone through to sift through the agents listed on this site to find more potential candidates, but my list hasn't gotten much longer (yet).

If all else fails, there's always self-publishing. I'd rather not go that route, simply because of the work involved that I'd prefer not to do, but one way or another, I'd like to see Sylph in print.

MISCELLANEOUS ITEMS

Two final items.

One, as confirmed by email last week, I'm now an Associate Member of the SFWA, the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers Association.

Being part of this organization has been a goal of mine for years, and, in part thanks to a recent membership rules change (sometimes, luck helps), I was able to slip into their ranks. I even got a shout-out on a recent release of the organization's newsletter, The Singularity.

Pretty cool, right?

Anyway, I owe my membership to my final item of note, which is that my story "Urtext Redux" will be included in an upcoming anthology titled The Librarian Reshelved from Air and Nothingness Press. It was my first "pro-sale," and I'm looking forward to seeing it in print when it finally comes out. Naturally, I'll devote a whole separate post to "the story behind the story" as I've done in the past with my other anthology submissions, but for now, I'm glad to be included in this book's TOC.

So...that was January. Crazy how much can happen in 31 days.

Until next time, Funny People, stay safe, stay healthy, and take care.