August 2023 in Review
Hello Funny People,
Happy Labor Day. I hope you're enjoying the holiday weekend where we celebrate everyone who works...by not working 🤔🙃🤭
The month I eternally think of as Ray Bradbury's birthday month (this year marks what would've been his 103rd Birthday), was a surprising one. Things I expected to be my priorities got shifted around, but the results were certainly welcomed.
Plus. I got the most pleasant double surprise...
Report on the Short Fiction Front
As I stated at the beginning of the year, 2023 was not supposed to be a year of short fiction. My novel, Boltstone, (which is still in the cool-down stage between first draft and revision), was my priority. And I wholly expected to stay in that mode by trying to draft another novel in a different genre. Indeed, Ideal for the Job, (my tentative title), the space opera was what I started out working on this month. I managed to get about 3½ chapters done before, out of no where, the short fiction bug bit me again.
Part of it came from needing to finish my story for Nature Fights Back, which is now done. It was both a novel (as in new, bot length), writing experience for me. Not only was it the first time I'd ever used a particular POV before in first person pural, but it was the first time I'd written a character(s) with a dark motivation. Something about that combination of stretching my style and exploring a darker area of motive hot to me. Completing the story made me want to write more short fiction.
The second spark came when I discovered that Lost Boys Press was holding an open call for high fantasy/sword & sorcery stories about rebellion with a 9k word ceiling that ran through November 1st. Well, with that large a window and that high a word count, I couldn't resist. So, I pulled out an idea I'd had for a potential future novel called "The Dark Lord's Finest" and decided to try drafting it as a piece of short fiction. The voice caught fire and within a few days, I had 5k done.
Then another story interrupted it. Having been devastated by the rejection of my R&R story, a new idea for next window of a certain cozy fantasy magazine came to me. In a week, I had a completed draft of "The Offices of Luna & Marquez," a cozy fantasy about an elf accountant, who's tiny firm takes on the task of helping a former friend turned figure of disdain from her past.
So, I then returned to "Dark Lord's Finest," and added another 2k to it before yet another story interrupted me.
With Tales & Feathers set to reopen, I set about to draft another cozy fantasy story for them. "La Carpintera de San Mariana" tells the story of a carpenter who sets to create a new staff for an Hechicero after his ends up broken. This much tinier story is nearing completion in time for the upcoming window, and once it's finished, I shall complete "Dark Lord's..."
However, the biggest news on the Short Fiction Front came in the form of two recent (and unexpected) acceptances.
The first came courtesy of Bryanna Gary, braintrust of The Angry Noodle, who recently reopened the blog for new outside contributions. Seeing the opportunity, I offered her my most recently completed Oscar Ambrose piece, "Oscar Ambrose's Magicpedia Guide to Dragon-Spotting," as she'd been fond enough of the first to publish it.
The second, to my surprise, came from a new market: Flash Point Science Fiction. The editors of this small speculative fiction flash zine accepted "The Culebre of San Moreno" for publication. The piece that endured 32 rejections from various venues and 3 major revisions and title changes since I first drafted it last April will finally see the light of day (and I'll get paid for it). That saga, however, deserves its own special focus, so I'll go into that in a separate blog post.
All in all, August was indeed a good month with a lot of blessings. And considering it was Ray Bradbury's birthday month, having a good short fiction month is definitely apropos to the occasion.
#AmDrafting
Sadly, because of my sudden shift in focus to short fiction, I didn't make much headway on the novel-side of things. I managed to get, as I said 3½ chapters drafted though, and considering how different this project is compared to my recent other efforts, it's taken me a little more effort to make headway.
The structure I settled on for this space opera novel, Ideal for the Job, was absolutely nicked from Gareth L. Powell's space opera novels (which I've been consuming like candy in recent months): alternating first-person viewpoint chapters. Crucial to making this book work is that each character's voice be distinctive. After all, there's nothing worse than reading a book with multiple first-person narrators and having them all sound alike. (People who don't like Frankenstein, one of my favorite classic novels, level this criticism at Mary Shelley, forgetting that she still wrote the damn book at 19, which is sooner than most people.) However, finding each major character's voice was a challenge. Not for all the characters, but two of them.
One of them is a character whose voice I've written in before, so he was pretty easy. His annoying AI sidekick has also been fairly easy as well, as their dynamic was on display the first time I wrote each of them. The voices of the other two, however, have been difficult nuts to crack. I'd never planned to make either of them viewpoint characters, but they needed to be in order to make this book work. Thankfully, I think I've found them both; here's hoping I can maintain them and keep them consistent.
I expect to return to drafting this novel soon. Whether I succeed at completing a draft of it by the end of the year, as I originally intended is unknowable. Even if I don't, I do plan on seeing in through to completion
Miscellaneous
Near the end of the month, I commissioned my friend, Devora Johnson, to craft another piece of art for me. This one will be for this blog specifically. I've favored using the ugly photo as my default image for blogposts for months. However, Devora has kindly agreed to create a logo for the blog that you can see above. It's rather strange to have a logo for a blog, but hey, it'll be nice to have something professional to look at going forwards
I also recently received word that there's a new market soon to open for short fiction writers of fantasy. The folks at Android Press, the small press entity who back Solarpunk Magazine and put out quality books and collections, are starting up a new fiction podcast: Imagitopia. The podcast, at least for now, is limited to "reprints," (i.e. stories that have already been published elsewhere and whose exclusivity rights have expired and reverted back to the author), but according to the fine folks who own and operate the podcast, they are going to open to original stories sometime in the future—presumably once the podcast becomes more financially stable. I'm thinking about offering them "Aisling" at some point, once the one-year exclusivity period ends this September.
— IMC 🙃
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