Isaiah's Attic

Draft #3 of my middle grade novel "The Bone Shepherds" is now finished, and boy am I glad it is. The first draft was an absolute joy to write, but the revision and polish process has been way more tedious than I was prepared for. Trying to put together a decent query and synopsis for this one hasn't exactly been an enlivening experience either (still struggling along on that front).

The novel's not quite agent-ready yet, but I think it's close, about as close as my young adult novel anyway, which I haven't looked at or touched in probably a month now, maybe longer. The idea is to start shopping both of them at the same time so that if I get that "no on this, but I'd like to see your next one" type of rejection, I'll immediately have something else to put in front of them. I'm really hoping to start submitting by August 1st, with September 1st being a hard deadline for myself. I've already done quite a lot of agent research and have made a few notes including pros, cons, gut feelings, etc, but I still need to narrow my list down to a top five, next five, and so on, sort of format. There really is a lot of work involved in all of this, but it's what I love.

Following marshallpayne1 's lead, fifteen short stories/novelettes/novellas that have stuck with me:

1 - Almost Home by Terry Bisson
2 - Fruiting Bodies by Brian Lumley
3 - Yellow Card Man by Paolo Bacigalupi
4 - Voluntary Committal by Joe Hill
5 - Blood Music by Greg Bear
6 - Jeffty Is Five by Harlan Ellison
7 - Flying Saucer Rock and Roll by Howard Waldrop
8 - The Christmas Witch by M. Rickert
9 - Stars Seen Through Stone by Lucius Shepard
10 - Muffin Explains Teleology to the World at Large by James Alan Gardner
11 - Ylla by Ray Bradbury
12 - One Thing About the Night by Terry Dowling
13 - On K2 With Kanakaredes by Dan Simmons
14 - Home Comforts by Peter Crowther
15 - Gallagher's Arm by Peter Crowther

Found this one over at marshallpayne1. List 15 books you've read that will always stick with you -- The first 15 you can recall in 15 minutes. I'm not sure if this is supposed to be just novels, but I'll assume that's the case and play along accordingly (with the exception of the one children's book).

1 - Boy's Life by Robert McCammon (perhaps my favorite book)
2 - Matthew and the Midnight Tow Truck (a children's book) by Allen Morgan
3 - The Outsiders by S. E. Hinton
4 - Spin by Robert Charles Wilson
5 - Tigana by Guy Gavriel Kay
6 - The Catcher in the Rye by J. D. Salinger
7 - The Speed of Dark by Elizabeth Moon
8 - The Wasp Factory by Iain Banks
9 - Dandelion Wine by Ray Bradbury
10 - The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver
11 - The Ice and Fire Series (the first three, anyway) by George R. R. Martin
12 - The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay by Michael Chabon
13 - The Darksword Trilogy (my introduction to fantasy) by Weiss and Hickman
14 - The Midnighter Series by Scott Westerfeld (very recently read, but I know they'll stick)
15 - Gates of Fire by Steven Pressfield

I mentioned last week that I'd be offline for a few days, but I didn't mention that the reason for this was a vacation. Anna and I went west to Waterton Lakes National Park for four days. It's nine hours one way, but definitely worth the drive. The scenery was nothing short of spectacular, although I could have done without the snow. Yep, snow, twenty centimeters of the stuff. Eight goddamn inches. In June. I've got photos to prove it, a few of which are below. We did get some sunshine and the white stuff did melt within twenty-four hours, but all in all, the weather was definitely against us. We still went out horseback riding and hiking, though, and we still got out to see the rams and deer and foxes and bears (four brown and a little black one) out in the wild, although the deer and rams could hardly be described as wild given that a great many of them hang out in town all day, lounging on folks' lawns. All in all, it was a great weekend. It was our first time in Waterton, but we'll certainly be returning.

I came across this website the other day and ended up deciding I wanted to design a War of the Worlds cover of my own, just for fun. This is what came of it.

After a bit of a dry spell, I'm happy to report two new acceptances, one to Tales of the Unanticipated (a near future tale that one of TOTU's readers called "edgy science fiction with a real sense of style"), and the other to Ruthless Peoples (a fun fantasy piece about a naughty little girl). "Myths and Messerschmitts" will most likely be appearing in the August/September 2010 issue of TOTU, although there is a chance it could make it into the September 09 issue (fingers crossed). "Krissy and the Gingerbread Man" is tentatively slated for July 09.  

Found out yesterday that the wonderfully quirky Kaleidotrope will be using an art piece I did a few months back called "Persistence" for the cover of their October 09 issue. There's also a chance that the image will be featured in an Alameda CA newspaper, this thanks to one of the other contributors to the issue, who is apparently going to be featured in an article. I've never been in a newspaper before, so that would be cool. I've had three stories appear in Kaleidotrope's pages now, including an apocalyptic SF piece in the most recent issue, available here, but this will be the first time my art's been featured there. I'll have to sell Fred a poem next just to cover all my bases. :-)

Yep, it's snowing, here on the 14th of May. How depressing.

Must. Finish. Synopsis. For my novel PPFG (proposal package focus group) , which began on May 1st. jdawson001 is running the show, and doing a mighty fine job of it, I might add. We covered query letters first, and will post the first five pages of our novels last, but for now we're working on the dreaded synopsis. I've got a rough one completed, but I'm trying to pound it into shape before posting it, which I'll have to do either later tonight or tomorrow. I'm not sure there is anything more boring to write or to read than a synopsis. Even the really good ones are only so-so, as far as I'm concerned. But it's a skill I need to learn, and so learn it I will, to the best of my ability.

NBC has apparently canceled Life. I'm saddened by this, as it was one of only a few shows I consistently enjoyed. I think the quirky main character might have had something to do with it. The average American (and Canadian, for that matter) audience seems to prefer cardboard leads. NBC also announced two new medical dramas for the 2009/2010 line up. Big surprise there. I'll admit that Life wasn't exactly groundbreaking stuff, being a police drama and all, but do we really need another Grey's Anatomy? Fuck no.  

The April issue of Flash Me Magazine is now live. I hope you'll check it out. We had a really strong batch of submissions this quarter. The seven stories are free, but for just three bucks, you can buy the PDF version, which includes an interview with yours truly, along with three book reviews: Magic Strikes by Ilona Andrews, reviewed by Elizabeth Hull; Revealing Moments by Wayne Scheer, reviewed by Jennifer Dawson; and The Amadeus Net by Mark A. Rayner, reviewed by Janet Paszkowski.

Happy reading!

I don't know why I check box office numbers. I'm almost always disappointed by what I see. It appears Obsessed and Fighting opened ahead of The Soloist and Earth this weekend. I find this depressing. Even more depressing is the fact that Fast & Furious has now raked in almost 150 million, and that's just domestically. Crap begets crap begets...

New cop shows, that is, or "police dramas," if you prefer.

Southland: I tried watching two different episodes, but didn't finish either of them. It's a little too heavy on gritty realism for my tastes, and the main character's partner gets on my nerves.

The Unusuals: Again, watched it twice, and enjoyed it twice. Solid writing, good cast chemistry, and a nice balance of humor and drama.

My prediction: Southland will continue and The Unusuals will get canceled. Unfortunately.

After mentioning in my last post how I ran out of steam right at the finish line with my middle grade novel, I woke up this morning feeling confident I could write the missing scenes and have a finished draft by the end of the day, and lo and behold, I managed to do just that. I had expected the word count to come out at over 40K, but after some trimming and the elimination of a couple unnecessary scenes, I managed to keep it in the upper thirties. I also came up with a title last night, after spending about a half-hour bouncing from one word to the next on thesaurus.com, which is something I often do while title shopping.

"The Bone Shepherds" is a post-apocalyptic fantasy told from the perspective of two twelve-year-old girls named Mindy and Cassiopeia. I had a lot of fun with this one. The plot unfolded so naturally that I can honestly say most of the novel wrote itself.

 

35957 / 35957 words. 100% done!

Polish #2 of my young adult novel "Thimblerig" is now complete at 52000 words. One more pass and I think this will be ready to shop around. My middle grade novel, meanwhile, is only a few hundred words short of being a complete draft. The end is written; it's merely missing a few transition scenes. I kind of ran out of steam right at the finish line, hence my return to the first novel. I spent last night and this morning working on my three sentences for the Book in a Nutshell Contest and I think I finally have something that works, though I'll likely tweak it some more over the next few days since the deadline isn't until Monday. Just out of curiosity, who else on my F-list is entering this? I know one of you sent something in, but I haven't heard anyone else mention it.

A few days late with this, but the new issue of Goblin Fruit is now live. Go check it out, and read my poem "Soul Traps" while you're there. I just love the look of the site. Gorgeous.

I was just reading the submission guidelines for a new magazine that I found a link to through one of the forums I frequent and came across this bit regarding artwork:

"Art submissions are always welcomed for internal and cover use. Please note, will not reject any form of nudity or implied nudity."

I wonder how much porn they'll get before realizing their mistake.

The MG novel is coming along quite nicely, though my projected length is getting more ambitious by the day. Originally, I had set 25-30K as my goal, only to up that to 35K shortly thereafter. And now I have to up it again, although I expect that this time the target will be accurate to within one or two thousand words. I intend to have a complete rough draft by the end of Easter weekend, which shouldn't be difficult at all if I can keep the momentum going. I've written more than twenty-thousand words in the last eleven days.

Hope on a Flatbed

 

33304 / 42000 words. 79% done!

Summing a novel up in three sentences is a pain in the ass. It really is. Maybe I'll try again tomorrow. I can just imagine how much I'm going to love writing my query letter and synopsis. :-)

Moving on...

Managed to get a few things accomplished on the sub front today, one art submission, and two short stories, one of them being my WOTF entry, which went into the mailbox with one whole hour to spare. Only my second entry to WOTF, and honestly, I think the story is a terrible fit. I'll be surprised if it earns me anything more than one of their you suck you didn't win letters (which is what I got last time, just for the record).

I had thought that after last week's word blitz, I might feel a little burned out and need a few days off to recharge my creative batteries, but that hasn't actually been the case. I'm not sure I'll have any 3000+ word days this week, but I did manage to get two new chapters written today without too much trouble, 1755 words, all told. Good words, too, I do believe. I had originally set myself a goal of 25K for this novel, with an upper limit of 30K, but it's looking like it will be closer to 35K now.

Hope on a Flatbed (working title)

 

28838 / 35000 words. 82% done!