February 2023 in Review

Hello Funny People. Thanks for joining me here once again.

I'm going to be honest and say one thing: T.S. Eliot was fucking wrong.

Novel Drafting 

Some of you familiar with the aforementioned poet's famous work The Waste Land will undoubtedly recall the famous line, "April is the cruelest month," which opens the modern epic. Well, he was wrong as hell on that one because this last month took the cruelty cake.

February was a rough month for me writing-wise on multiple levels. On top of an avalanche of short story rejections, I stalled several times on progress with my current novel. Let me tell you, there's nothing more frustrating for a writer when the words aren't flowing like water from an open faucet. And it started out fairly well.

Believe it or not, I had nine (9) chapters of this book drafted by month's end, which I honestly thought were good. Yet, something at the back of my mind kept telling me something was wrong with this book. It's a hard sensation for me to describe, and I'm sure other writers experience this in their own ways, but I'll do my best. As I drafted those nine chapters, at the end of each session, some of which were so fruitless I ended up walking away with 300 words written that I only ended up deleting at the next session, I kept feeling this anxious tension in my shoulders. It was as if a hawk were digging its talons into the muscles on either side of my neck, only growing worse with every key stroke.

Until last week, I honestly thought this book was DOA. Naturally, where did I go to vent these frustrations? Twitter. Some of you had the misfortune of reading those self-loathing filled texts, and I apologize for doing that. Thankfully, a few of the people who follow me there (God knows why), suggested that maybe I was suffering from burnout—something I've probably suffered from before but never had a label to describe. So, last weekend I took time completely away from writing.

I didn't do anything, writing centric (sort of, I'll get to that). No editing. No trying to get a short story to go. Nothing.

And the strangest thing happened: I had a revelation about my book.

I realized that I'd made a mistake in chapter two that had caused a butterfly effect of issues through the other drafted chapters. Let me explain. A Sword Named Sylph, my previous novel project, was an "ensemble novel," with numerous viewpoint changes to create this panoramic tale...and because I'd rolled directly into writing Boltstone, the current novel, after working on that book to get it into query-able shape, that structure was still in my system. I was trying to take what should've been a narrow focused story and making it an ensemble story. 

So, I cut out everything I'd written in the book from chapters 2-9 that weren't in my eponymous character's viewpoint, slipped it into a spare parts file, and started rewriting. The words started flowing again, as if I'd hit an oil well. 

Honestly, it's rather amusing in retrospect. I'd had the same problem of viewpoint structure with my previous novel, except it was the inverse, and I didn't realize it until 3/5s of the way through. I suppose my sense for these things has gotten sharper after that writing experience

#AmQuerying 

Sadly there haven't been many developments in the last month on the querying front. I've presently got about 9 active queries out to agents for A Sword Named Sylph, but I've yet to hear anything back. I have gotten about three outright nos so far, which was rough, but I'd rather the agents respond fast rather than leaving me time to get my hopes up.

Miscellaneous Items

The Librarian Reshelved is of course still available for pre-order. If you'd care to read my story "Urtext Redux" and sixteen other good stories, by all means go pre-order it from Air and Nothingness Press. 

Given my focus on drafting and querying, this might well be my last statement in the world of short stories for a while—or for good. Not that ever had much to say in the form anyway. I had thought that I might return to the form once I finished drafting this present novel, but I'm not sure. To be a great short story writer, like some of my peers, you have to have a certain kind of whimsy to your imagination. I don't think I have that.

Still, "Urtext Redux," did give me two things: A) my SFWA membership (let's be honest), and B) the place I can point people to whenever they ask me my stance on censorship. If you want to know what I mean, check out the little snippet below 👇

Speaking of that SFWA membership, I got to use it for the first time by casting my votes for nominations yesterday. No, I won't tell you who I voted for, but I will say I only voted for pieces I'd a) read and liked and b) felt as though the author in question could benefit most from the award's spotlight. So apologies to more recent Nebula winners; you're stuff was undoubtedly wonderful, but I think others who've never been on the ballot needed my vote more than you.

One final thing. When I said over that weekend when I was recovering from burnout that I did nothing "writing-centric,"...well, that was a bit of a lie. The Friday afternoon leading into that weekend I did something I haven't done in about 6 years.

I applied to the Odyssey Writing Workshop.

Now, why did I do that? Surely after securing a pro-sale, an SFWA membership, finishing a novel as long as A Sword Named Sylph, and attending not one but two other workshops in 2018 & 2019, I don't need it. 

And you're right. I don't "need it." 

But I applied anyway because I think I could still learn to refine my craft even more under the right circumstances. I could learn something from the program, especially now in its modified form, or at least I think I could. 

My point is, I'm not doing it just for ego, to potentially hold whatever bragging rights I could get for calling myself an Odyssey Graduate. I applied because, despite everything I've achieved, I want to keep getting better. Of course, there's no guarantee I'll get in or even be considered, and if I'm not, oh well. I tried. Never try, never fail, sure, but never try, never succeed either.

Until next time funny people, stay safe, stay healthy, and take care.