June 2023 in Review

Hello Funny People.

Signs of the impending apocalypse—smoky air, ungodly heat, torrents of rain, and general political fuckery—aside, the mid-year month wasn't all too bad.

Report from the Short Fiction Front

Starting with the bad news...

My hold notice story sadly didn't get selected by the periodical in question. My colleague from across the pond, Ray Daley, warned me that such things don't always lead to publication, and this time he was right. 

That said, the editor made it clear in the feedback offered that the final decision not to accept the piece was not easy. The vibe of the zine in question, at least for this go round, was much more melancholic, a tone i don't typically aim for in my fiction. However, having come so close to publication, I may attempt to write something with this zine in mind for a future OC that leans more towards that tone. 

As for better news, I made one final pass over my R&R story for the upcoming open call from Wyngraf Magazine. 

For two submission windows in a row I've failed to get a longer story accepted, but this time, thanks in large part to the highly actionable and specific feedback Nat Web provided me back in January, I have faith in this story. I think it might well be one of the best I've written, at least in terms of plot and storytelling. The dialogue is also rather good as well. And, of course, it features one of my favorite characters in the protagonist role. I'm eager to see it in print, but as I've said time and again on this blog, in the freelance life, there are no guarantees, only opportunities. Hopefully, I've capitalized well on this one. Fingers crossed.

In the meantime, I'm still working on another story for an open call from Air and Nothingness Press later this year. It fits all the requirements, but I'm still trying to get the ending just right. Endings are the hardest part of writing for me, with beginnings being a close second. If you don't get a beginning right, readers won't give you a chance, but if you don't get an ending right, you'll have wasted their time.

I've also got a story to write for the Nature Fights Back anthology with Nikki Mitchell, and I believe an idea has finally begun to coalesce in my mind. I just need to make the time for it.

I'm also still hellbent on seeing my little rejected story in print, so I'm sending it out to every venue I can find that might consider it. Again, fingers crossed.

#AmDrafting

At the end of June, I hit the home stretch on the current novel project. Five chapters away from the end.

That said, owing to my own misconstrued, I failed to account for an extra interlude I'd need to write for the book to keep to its current structure. I'm not worried though. After a little mulling, I knew I'd be able to figure things out. That said, these final chapters are going to be a bit difficult to do unless I make one crucial alteration to what I've thus far been doing. I'm not sure I'll like it or keep it through to the end, of course. But this is a first draft; first drafts, if you're a writer like me, are allowed to be imperfect. They're tweakable until they're in print.

#AmQuerying 

In the wake of all the drafting, I'm afraid I've not been doing much Querying. I did receive another flat out no a while back, this one from Donald Maas, but since then my efforts have forstalled. One thing I've noticed about working with publishers—trying to do things the old fashioned way, as it were—is how agonizingly slow it is. I can see why some indie authors have no patience for it. Still, I'll keep on for now. Maybe things will pick up once I've completed the draft of the current novel.

Miscellaneous 

One thing I have been able to make progress on this last month has been my reading. I appear to have gotten on a science fiction reading kick, given I've breezed through several titles so far, mainly by John Scalzi, Andy Weir, and Gareth L Powell, including:

1. Old Man's War

2. Redshirts

3. The Kaiju Preservation Society (a reread)

4. The Martian

5. Embers of War

6. Fleet of Knives

7. Project Hail Mary

8. Light of Impossible Stars (which I'm still reading)

Apparently, my brain has no problem with the idea of reading fiction while I write it, as long as it's not quite the same genre as what I'm writing. I also somewhat suspect I'm doing unconscious research on the semi-recent developments in the SF genre for a future project, trying to get a feel for something I might try to write in future. Interestingly, all the above titles, except for Redshirts, are written in first-person, but none of the voices, even the voices within the various novels are in any way similar. 

That's all for now, Funny People, until next time, stay safe, stay healthy, and take care 

— IMC 🙃