Yes, It Is All My Fault!

About to embark on the last major trip I’ll have to take for several weeks, yay! I really enjoy traveling, but would prefer a bit more time to recover in-between major jaunts whenever possible. Unfortunately, sometimes it doesn’t work out that way. I am so glad I’ve been in such a physically healthy place lately; not only did I make it through the winter without a major illness for the first time I can remember, but my stamina has held through this last crazy month-and-a-half of running around the country.

My writing projects to-do list has tripled in the past week, as I come up with at least three new things to be working on in addition to the novel-in-progress. I’ve been doing fairly well at continuing to write regardless of whatever else is going on in my life, and I’m testing my (current) limits a bit under the theory that the more writing in various venues I do, the more likely it is I’ll start to earn some income from it. Not to mention continuing to increase my name recognition wherever I can. Also, my breadth of writing ability is being tested, and I’ve never wanted to be limited to just one or two genres anyway.

I’m currently excited, writing-wise, about:

• My novel-in-progress (yes, I get frustrated just as often as excited, here, but today excitement reigns)
• My next novel (I already have most of what I need to jump right into this after the current wip is drafted–plus, it will hopefully be my first series!)
• cleaning up the old to-do list (finally found my notes to finish up a couple of old projects that were put on hold when things imploded several months back, which will be a psychological weight lifted)
• a regular column idea (this one looks to be endless fun)
• an academic-style paper (research for this will hopefully speed the wip along, too)
• sketch comedy work with a friend (the invitation for this came along on the same day that I was talking to Nathan about wanting more experience writing humor, yay!)
• whichever short story comes next (only a couple of idea seeds here, not rushing this since there are plenty of other projects to focus on)
• trolling the trunk (printing out mostly completed story pieces and going over them to see which, if any, can be brought up to my current standards enough to send out)

Whew! I’d say that’s a decent chunk of writing projects. Now to manage the trick of working on several at a time while NOT dropping off work on the novel. At the least I’ll learn more about where my current saturation point is, and I’ll post about my progress here as it develops. I currently have three stories out looking for a publishing home, and I’ve decided that’s my new minimum preferred standard for number of circulating stories.

For those readers able to work on more than one major project at a time (in whatever field), how does that process work for you? I know every person approaches their work differently, but I’m always curious about other folks’ processes.

Whew. Back from 4th Street, which was great, of course. I think I talked with others about writing for about 12 hours on Sunday alone, not to mention all the other wonderful conversations with amazing people that happened throughout the con. I didn’t get to attend as many of the panels as I wanted to (in part due to arriving later than planned on Friday night), but I do have some good notes that I hope to share on the panels I did attend.

I got to meet an old friend of Steve’s at lunch after the con on Monday that involved me missing the post-con Fish outing. I really enjoyed seeing Neil and Steve interact with each other; I understand much better now why Steve refers to him as his “evil twin”. The lunch was delicious, the conversation and stories delightful, and Steve got more exercise wandering around the grounds looking at cool plants and animals than he has in a year! We should definitely go on more walks together, that was fun.

Even though I’ve traveled from California to Texas to Minnesota back to Texas all in the past two weeks, I’ve *still* managed to get two short stories viciously dissected and put back together into (hopefully) better stories during that time. The revisions on the latest one were an especially fun editing mini-workshop with Steve and Nathan on Sunday night when we all probably should have been in bed hours earlier. It was intense but really enjoyable and there was only one part that none of us could agree on or easily fix when it was all through. (Nathan, by the way, shows some early signs of developing into an awesome editor.)

And speaking of editors, one of my few epiphanies of the past weekend is that I don’t tend to categorize writers, even those with some measure of public fame, as larger-than-life in my head…but put me around brilliant editors like Teresa and Patrick Nielsen Hayden, Beth Meacham, Debbie Notkin, Sharyn November (and others I met but didn’t get time to talk with), and internally I turn into a fascinated wide-eyed fan-girl. Hopefully it’s not TOO obvious on the outside…

Okay, back to sending off one of these stories, finishing inputting the edits on the other one before sending it off, and then maybe I can get back to such cat-waxing activities as typing up my 4th street notes. And my main character in the next novel I shall be writing can QUIT hijacking the mental processes already because I won’t write her story until this novel is finished. Back in your box!

That’s right, folks, the anthology I sold my first story to that was published last year just won the Stoker award for superior achievement in an anthology! That would be Unspeakable Horror: From the Shadows of the Closet, available for purchase at the link, in case you’ve somehow missed reading it. I’m very excited, so glad to have been able to attend the conference (thanks again mom!), and I adore my editors (Vince Liaguno, Chad Helder)! They are wonderful, and I’ve really enjoyed meeting them and my fellow contributors, along with many wonderful people too numerous to list individually. I was very impressed by the con, it is by far the most professionally organized con I’ve yet had the pleasure to attend on this side of the ocean. (Tel Aviv’s Icon was the largest and most organized overall, that I’ve attended so far.)

Congratulations to my fellow contributors and editors, I am honored to have been a part of this wonderful project and am looking forward to many more!

I finished an editing and revision pass of “…Elmer the Cat” today, thanks to Nathan, Steve, Andrea, and Lynn for great beta reader feedback. I like the story much better now.

I have a couple of writing post ideas written down so I won’t forget them, but am already behind on packing for my flight leaving tomorrow morning so for now I’ll squee about my trip. My mom and I are going to the Stoker Weekend conference in Burbank, California; I’m excited about it, it’s my first horror writing convention, though I’ve been to several sff conventions. I signed up for the Marketing Workshop and there look to be some good discussion panels as well, so we’ll try to catch a couple of those. My publishers are hosting a signing on Thursday at the Dark Delicacies bookstore, and also the Saturday pre-banquet party. It sounds like it will be a busy and interesting weekend, I’m looking forward to observing some of the similarities and differences in the sff and horror conventions. I also expect to meet a bunch of cool and interesting people, which is always great! And hopefully learn a lot.

See you back here on the blog next week!

It’s unsatisfying at this time, but I have a done draft of “The Explainable and Entirely Expected Expiration of Elmer The Cat”. Done enough to start on the fun of revising it into something good enough for others to read, anyway. It was one of the easiest stories I’ve written recently, the protagonist’s voice was distinct and flowed well through the narrative. I felt rather bad at what all he had to go through by the end, poor kid.

This is a good story, and I still love the title even if it is a bit absurd. And now I revise and go back to working on the novel, where Chapter Three eagerly awaits me. Here’s hoping it writes as smoothly as the first two chapters did!