So even though I haven’t been too good about blogging this past month, I have been busy writing. Besides the short story in my last post, I’ve been steadily revising Star Wolf, formerly titled HEART OF THE NEBULA. It took me a while to get back into this story, but I’m fully involved in it now and it’s coming along nicely.
So far, I’ve only been revising through about 2k words per day. I’m hoping to push that up to at least 4k words, though, which means that I should finish it in the first week of February. I definitely want to get it done before LTUE, because there are other projects I’m anxious to get working on, especially Sons of the Starfarers. I want to launch that series this summer, but I still have to write books 2 and 3 … gah! Must … write … faster …
In other news, I recently got my schedule for LTUE. It looks like I’ll be on 5 panels this year, including on one with Eric James Stone and Dave Farland. Am I feeling imposter syndrome right about now? Why, yes, thank you for asking. :p In any case, here’s what the schedule currently looks like:
Thursday, February 13, 2014
4:00 pm — Being a Foreign Speaker
6:00 pm — Planet Building
Friday, February 14, 2014
12:00 pm — Writing Romance
Saturday, February 15, 2014
12:00 pm — ePublishing Short Stories
6:00 pm — Starting the Next Project
I’m definitely excited for this year’s symposium! Orson Scott Card is going to be there, as well as Brandon Sanderson, Dave Farland, LE Modesitt, and pretty much all the regulars (except for Howard Tayler–I heard he’s not coming). I’ve also got a bunch of long-time writer friends who will be there, many of whom are on panels of their own. It’s going to be big this year, and definitely a lot of fun!
In other news, a couple of days after posting about my goal to travel to the Czech Republic, a job landed in my lap that seems like the perfect way to save up the money. It’s with Google Fiber, and involves escorting technicians to the various utility huts scattered throughout the city, opening the doors for them, and sitting around while they do their work. With luck, I’ll be able to get a fair amount of writing done while I’m on the clock. And even though it’s an on-call position that might only go 10 or 20 hours some weeks, I’ll be paid for the full 40 hours (and not at minimum wage).
I have no idea how the job will work out yet, but it seems like a great opportunity to save up a lot of money while still having plenty of time to write. We’ll see how it goes.
In other news, Brothers in Exile is out with my first readers right now. One of them already finished it, which kind of shocked me. If they don’t find any major problems, I’ll go ahead and write the next one, hopefully finishing it before the end of March.
Sons of the Starfarers is going to be another novella series like Star Wanderers, but I’m going to go a bit longer on the individual books, like around the 35k to 45k word range. The omnibus editions will be in groups of three, so books I-III for the first omnibus, IV-VI for the second, VII-IX for the third, etc. I’d like to go to at least nine books in this series, though it could certainly end up going longer. I only have a very loose idea of where it’s going, but it feels like nine books at least.
That just about does it. Right now, I’m up to my knees in Star Wolf, so that definitely takes priority. But I definitely want to get back to Sons of the Starfarers, so I’ll try to finish it as soon as I can. If only I was one of those writers who could knock out 10k words every day … maybe someday. In the meantime, I’ll just keep plugging along as best I can.
Later!
