Category: Desert Stars

Climbing the 10k mountain

Many Bothans died to bring you this.

I recently read an amazing blog post by Rachel Aaron, in which she explains how she went from writing about 2k words per day (about what I’m doing) to routinely breaking 10k.

This is something I really want to do with my own writing.  As I noted a couple of weeks ago, I need to pick up the pace if I’m going to keep up with my professional goals.  If I could go from 2k to 10k, and make 10k the standard…holy cow, that’s a 500% jump in productivity.  Who wouldn’t want that?

From Rachel’s blog:

Drastically increasing your words per day is actually pretty easy, all it takes is a shift in perspective and the ability to be honest with yourself (which is the hardest part). Because I’m a giant nerd, I ended up creating a metric, a triangle with three core requirements: Knowledge, Time, and Enthusiasm. Any one of these can noticeably boost your daily output, but all three together can turn you into a word machine. I never start writing these days unless I can hit all three.

The point that I probably need to work on the most is time: I tend to start off the day slow, checking Facebook and blogs and other stuff before getting into the writing, then write for a little while before running off and doing some chore or allowing myself to get distracted again.  Sometimes, I don’t really buckle down until a couple of hours before I should go to bed, and that’s bad.

But really, I think the main obstacle is just thinking that writing is difficult.  If everything comes together in the right way, there really isn’t any reason why 5k or 6k or even 10k should be too difficult–and yet we naturally think that if 2k is hard, anything more should be that much harder.

I’m in a weird state of limbo right now between moving and preparing to go overseas, but I’m going to start a daily writing log so that I can figure out what time of day is most productive.  You can’t wait for life to settle down before you get to work; you have to roll with what you’re given.  Also, I’m going to put a lot more effort into outlining and planning, so that I don’t get hung up by research when I should be writing.  Even discovery writers need a little bit of time to ponder things before putting words to the page.

Also, after considerable thought and effort, I’ve decided to put Star Wanderers on the back burner again.  I finished the novelette last week and submitted it to Writers of the Future; I think it’s quite good, and stands a good chance of finding a home in one of the short markets.  But the full length novel, for various reasons, just isn’t coming to me.  I don’t know if it’s because I lack the life experience to write it, or because I’m too close to it to see what’s broken, but regardless of the reason, I need the break.

I’m not sure whether to do Edenfall or Stars of Blood and Glory next, but I’m leaning towards Stars of Blood and Glory.  This is a novel set in the Gaia Nova universe, with characters from Desert Stars, Bringing Stella Home, and Heart of the Nebula.  I’ve been itching to write it since this summer, but never got around to it because other projects got in the way.  Well, hopefully now that will change.

I know from emails and other correspondence that some of you are really looking forward to Edenfall, but don’t worry, I’ll get around to it soon.  In order to do it justice, I feel I need to reread Genesis Earth and immerse myself in some Carl Sagan, but right now I’m still running on a sci fi adventure trip.  If I can implement some of these metrics and push my daily word count upwards of 10k, it shouldn’t be long before Edenfall gets my attention again.  My goal is to finish it before the end of the year, so there’s a very good chance it’ll be published sometime in late 2012.

As for Star Wanderers, I’ll shop the novelette around after I hear back from Writers of the Future.  I think it has a good chance at winning the quarter, but of course I can’t count on it.  At this point in my career, I should probably be playing both the traditional markets as well as the indie field.

That’s just about it.  Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to write…

On the eve of publication

First, some housekeeping: I recently did an interview over on Slava Heretz’s blog, which you can find here.  I talk a little bit about Desert Stars, as well as how traveling has influenced my writing and how I overcome writer’s block.

In other news, I got smacked upside the head with the flu yesterday and slept in today until 1pm.  I feel marginally better, but I’ll probably do the same tonight.  Productivity: shot in the face.

However, I did manage to run through the copy edits for Desert Stars and format it for publication.  Finished the author’s note today, so as soon as I get the cover art, it’s good to go.

For the cover art, I’ve commissioned Hideyoshi again, the same artist who did the cover for Genesis Earth.  He sent me the initial sketch the other day, and it looks good!  It comes from a scene toward the beginning, when Jalil and Mira share an intimate moment while overlooking the planetary domes on the edge of the desert:

That night, Mira couldn’t sleep.  The wind roared past the window in her room, making an eerie whistling noise as it shook the windowpanes.  That wasn’t all, though.  Perhaps it was the woody, foreign smell of the room, or the perfect straightness of the walls, or the uncomfortable softness of the bed.  Whatever it was, she tossed and turned for what felt like hours, trying to find some firmness that would let her sleep.  Eventually, she gave up and lay on her back, staring at the ceiling.

The stars, she thought to herself.  If only I could see them, maybe I could forget how far I am from home.

She quietly rose from the bed and threw her cloak over her shift.  The sound of the wind made her shiver, and she stepped carefully in the darkness, groping her way through the room until she came to the door.  Once out, the stairwell was only a short distance down the hall.  The night air was cold, the breeze stiff.  The familiar stars and satellites stared down at her from the sky, though with all the light from the streetlamps, they were noticeably muted.

Wrapping her arms around herself for warmth, she made her way to the edge and stared out across the valley at the glass mountain—the world in a bottle.  White and yellow lights shone through the glass, too fuzzy to make out with any clarity.  It was a strange sight, and Mira stared at it for some time.

“You couldn’t sleep either?”

The sound of Jalil’s voice gave her a start.  She turned quickly and saw him sitting on an old, weathered couch facing the valley.  The upholstery was torn, and stuffing was falling out in places.

“Oh,” she said softly. “I—I didn’t see you.”

“That’s all right; I could use some company.  Here, have a seat.”

He scooted over and made some room for her.  When she sat down, the couch gave way underneath her until she was practically sitting on the ground.  The wind picked up, and Mira shivered.

“Are you all right?” Jalil asked. “You look cold—here, take this blanket.”

He leaned forward and pulled off the blanket that he’d brought up from his bed.

“That’s okay,” she said. “You don’t have to—”

“No, here,” he said. “You need it more than I do.”

Mira tried to protest, but Jalil draped the blanket over her shoulders without another word.  She had to admit, the added warmth felt surprisingly good against the chill night air.

Man, I’m so looking forward to getting this book out!  It’s been a long time in coming.   I started the first draft back in 2008, but some elements of it have been bouncing around my head since 2005.  More on that in the author’s note.

In any case, we’re definitely on schedule to get Desert Stars out before the end of the year, probably before Christmas.  So keep an eye out for it!

Am I swamped, or am I lazy?

This post might get a little emo, so I apologize in advance.

I feel like I have so much on my plate right now, and yet when I look back at what I’ve accomplished each day, I wonder if I couldn’t have been more productive.  I’m moving out of my apartment on the 21st, so that’s the deadline for pretty much everything, and here’s what I’ve got to do before then:

  • Run through the copy edits for Desert Stars and rewrite the epilogue.
  • Get the cover art and publish Desert Stars.
  • Write the epilogue for Journey to Jordan and publish it.
  • Finish Star Wanderers and submit to Writers of the Future.
  • Do a guest post for Slava Heretz.
  • Finish the application for the TLG program.
  • Get rid of all my remaining books.
  • Figure out electronic W2 and other forms for taxes (before leaving in January).
  • Write up the “About My Books” page on blog.
  • Do a couple of recap posts on the travel blog.
  • Pack and ship my desktop computer.
  • Pack all my remaining stuff.
  • Get post office to forward all mail to home address.
  • Clean apartment for move-out inspection.
  • Find suitable traveler’s insurance.
  • Go clothes shopping.
  • Half a dozen other things that I’m sure I’ve forgotten.

In other words, this is not the time to be playing minecraft.

And yet, taken individually, most of these tasks are not all that difficult.  A lot of them are just mindless chores associated with moving, and the other ones, while requiring hard work, are pretty straightforward.  So am I really swamped, or am I just disorganized and lazy?

This is something I’ve struggled with since graduating last year.  When I was in school, I was constantly busy, but I was also constantly producing.  Even though my writing suffered a bit when I was swamped, I still found time to write three novels (Ashes of the Starry Sea, Genesis Earth, and Bringing Stella Home) and hold down a student job.  For the last year, I haven’t had any school and most of the time I haven’t had a job, and yet my productivity doesn’t seem to have improved.

Part of it has to do with structuring time and organizing myself.  In the past year, I’ve learned that a routine isn’t something you should hang onto doggedly, but something you need to constantly reinvent.  And yet, when I’m staying up until 2am-3am and not getting up until 8am-9am, I can’t help but feel that something’s off.  The whole moving limbo thing certainly doesn’t help, but hey, the work’s still got to be done.

Maybe it’s just deer in the headlights syndrome.  I’ll try making a checklist of everything I want to accomplish in the next two weeks and go for it.  In the meantime, I’m going to get out of this apartment and take a walk, because if I don’t, I’m going to go insane.

Also, as a token of gratitude for putting up with my babbling, here’s something cool I made the other day:

See you around!

Trope Tuesday: The Bechdel Test

The Bechdel Test is a way to measure how prominently women figure in a story.  It mostly comes up in discussions of TV and film, but can also be applied to works of literature.  To pass the test, the story must have

  1. at least two named female characters
  2. who talk to each other
  3. about something other than men.

The surprising thing, as you can see in this discussion of the trope, is that so few stories actually pass this test. Even in literature, works like The Odyssey, Romeo & Juliet, and even War & Peace fail to pass or only barely pass this test.

Closely related to the Bechdel Test is the Smurfette Principle, where only one of the major characters is female–the token chick.  Stories that fail to pass the first part of the test fall into this category.

So why does this happen?  It may be because most writers are male, but that isn’t necessarily true of books and literature.  Novel writing, after all, was originally considered a womanly pursuit, and the English major was created in the so that women could have something to study while they were in college.  Not surprisingly, 19th century works by female writers like the Bronte sisters tend to pass…

…or do they?  It’s been a while since I read Jane Eyre or Pride and Prejudice, but the impression I got was that the women in those books spend only really talk with each other about men.  And when you look to contemporary writers like Dickens and Tolstoy, the trend holds.  After all, how many female characters are there in A Christmas Carol?  Do any of them ever even talk to each other?

This isn’t necessarily a measure of how good or bad a story is, or even of how feminist it is (Aliens, after all, technically passes), but it is a measure of how independent and well rounded the female characters really are.  If the story doesn’t pass, it’s a sign that the women only play a role in relation to the men, or that the male characters are the ones who advance the plot.

I don’t usually like to bring up my own stories in relation to these tropes, but I thought it would be useful to apply this test to my own books and see how they shape up.  As a writer, I think it’s a good idea to do this periodically, to make sure my work isn’t slipping into a rut.  So here we go:

Genesis Earth

Point 1: Yes, there are two named female characters: Terra and Stella.

Points 2 & 3: No, they never talk.  However, when you apply the reverse Bechdel test (two men who talk to each other about something other than women), Genesis Earth only barely passes.  Michael talks with Tom in the first chapter, mostly about Terra, and for the rest of the book he and Terra are alone.

Bringing Stella Home

Point 1: Yes, it passes.  Named female characters include: Stella McCoy, Danica Nova, Anya Sikorsky, Tamu, Lady Borta, Lady Zeline, Sergeant Maria.

Point 2: Yes; in most of Stella’s scenes, she’s talking with Tamu or Borta or one of the other Hameji women.  Also, since Danica is the captain of the Tajji Flame and Anya is the chief pilot, they interact quite a bit.

Point 3: Yes, but just barely.  In most of their scenes together, Stella and Tamu are talking about Qasar or the harem or sex.  There are a couple where they talk about each other and their past, but it all relates back to their captivity under the Hameji.  At one point later in the book, Anya goes AWOL and Danica has to talk her down, which is probably the scene that makes the book pass, but a hardcore feminist might argue that that conversation is indirectly about a man.  Still, I’m counting it.

Desert Stars

Point 1: Yes, there are plenty of women.  In fact, as you can see from this list of non-minor characters, there are almost as many women as there are men:

Female Male
Mira Jalil
Shira Sathi
Zayne Hamza
Tiera Rumiya
Lena Gregor
Surayya Kariym
Amina Ashraf
Rina Ibrahim
Sarah Lars
Michelle Nash
Mark
Will

Point 2: Yes, plenty of these women talk to each other.  Surayya and Amina are practically joined at the hip, Tiera, Shira, and Lena all have private conversations with Mira, and the only time Rina even talks is when she and Mira are alone.

Point 3: While most of the conversations between the female characters revolve around men and marriage, Tiera talks with Mira about honor, and Rina talks with Mira about leaving home.  Without spoiling too much, there are other conversations that have nothing to do with men, though they happen off-stage and only get reported second-hand.  Either way, I’d say this book passes.

None of this is to say that a good story must pass the Bechdel test.  Lawrence of Arabia, for example, doesn’t have a single female actress–not one single actress!–and it’s an amazing film.  As a counterpoint, I’m sure there are plenty of good stories out there (most of them probably anime or manga) that do not pass the reverse Bechdel test.

However, it is a good measure of female presence and how much the story is driven by men.  And as a lens through which to view the wider culture, it offers a surprising and somewhat disturbing perspective on male-domination in fiction.

Thoughts on kickstarter

So as many of you know, I ran a kickstarter campaign as an experiment to see if I could raise enough money to fund my next release, Desert Stars.  Over the course of the month, about a dozen people pledged over $300, but ultimately it wasn’t enough to meet the goal.

First of all, I want to thank everyone who made a pledge or spread the word.  I appreciate all of your support, no matter at what level.  My biggest obstacle at this point is obscurity; without you, I’d never be able to overcome it.  So thanks!

While the campaign was a bit of a disappointment, I learned a lot from the experience.  My strategy going in was to set a modest goal and give a variety of high-value rewards at various pledge levels.  However, I didn’t do much to publicize the project, mostly because self-promotion makes me so uncomfortable.  That was probably the biggest single reason why the support never reached a critical mass.

If I were to do it again, I would work out a plan for the marketing and publicity before launching the campaign.  I would also run the campaign for a longer period of time and talk about it more, just to make sure people are aware of it.  Also, I would try to get an endorsement from someone with an established audience that overlaps with my own.  It’s hard to tell people you’re awesome, but if someone else who is awesome tells them, they’re much more likely to believe it.

Will I ever do a kickstarter campaign in the future?  Probably, but only after I’ve built my fanbase a little more.  Kickstarter isn’t a good way to launch if you don’t already have a devoted following.  Like everything at this point, it’s a catch-22.  In order to be successful, you have to be noticed.  In order to be noticed, you have to be successful.  Obscurity is the biggest obstacle, and there’s no sure way to overcome it besides trying and failing until something finally works.

Fortunately, while the kickstarter campaign was a bit of a setback, it’s not going to prevent me from releasing the book.  I’ve secured an alternate source of funding, and should be able to have it out by January if not before.  As a gesture of gratitude to everyone who made a pledge, I’ll send you a free copy once it’s out.

Thanks so much!

Picking up the pace

I’m writing this post from somewhere in Iowa, riding the California Zephyr from Chicago to Salt Lake City. Since I hate sleeping on the train, I figured now is as good a time as any to write a blog post.

One of the good things about traveling by train is that you have lots of time to just sit and think. Yesterday I took a long, hard look at my writing over the course of the last year, and was surprised at what I found. Long story short, I think it’s time for a major recalibration.

As you know, my main writing goal is to produce a minimum of two novels per year, fully polished and of publishable quality. Desert Stars will be my third this year, if I can get it up before January. But after that, I don’t have a whole lot lined up in the queue. Heart of the Nebula is a finished rough draft, but it’s the only one; everything else is either incomplete or just an idea floating around in my head.

Perhaps the best way to see it is to look at this chart. It lists all of the novels that I started, finished, and published by year. The titles highlighted in blue are novels that I’ve epublished. Ashes of the Starry Sea was a practice novel, so I’ve grayed it out, but everything else is a project I intend to carry to completion.

While 2011 was a great year for me in terms of starting new works, it was a downright horrible year in terms of actually finishing anything new. I’m worried that unless I can force myself to buckle down and produce new material at a much faster rate, this handicap is going to bite me in the butt next year.

Here’s another way to think about it: if I want to write two novels per year, and I can only focus on one novel at a time, I should be able to complete any project in no more than 26 weeks. And yet, when I look at my word count spreadsheet (which only goes back to May 2009), here’s what I see:

  • Genesis Earth: 22 to 26 weeks
  • Bringing Stella Home: 50 to 54 weeks
  • Desert Stars: 52 to 56 weeks
  • Heart of the Nebula: 18 weeks (unfinished)
  • Edenfall: 2 weeks (unfinished)
  • Star Wanderers: 9 weeks (unfinished)

What this tells me is that my current writing method is unsustainable. Either I need to learn how to juggle two projects at once, or I need to learn how to produce quality material in half the time–and in all reality, I should probably learn how to do both.

For those of you who might be worried that I’ll sacrifice quality for speed, let me assure you that I don’t intend for that to be the case. Dean Wesley Smith makes a very compelling argument on this subject, how speed and quality are not mutually exclusive. The more I write, the more practice I’ll get, which will hopefully improve the quality of my writing.

One thing I really ought to do is write something new every day. For most of 2011, I was revising something I’d originally written in 2008 or 2009, maybe throwing out a couple of scenes to start from scratch, but overall simply revising an older work. It’s made me a little rusty, and I can feel it. I can say right now, that needs to change.

My biggest concern is that once I’m overseas, it will be much harder to balance these writing goals with everything else going on. However, this isn’t 2008; I don’t have all the obligations of a student. As for whether the obligations of a teacher are any worse, we’ll have to see.

What I really want to do is write a novel in a week–preferably, in three days. Even if the first draft isn’t very good, just the act of doing it will break down some major barriers, I feel. If I finish Star Wanderers by mid-January, I’ll turn it around and write a novel with the same events from Noemi’s point of view, all in a weekend if possible.

In short, this is what I want to do:

  • Produce a minimum of 2 publishable novels per year.
  • Reduce the time for each draft to 6 weeks average.
  • Write a minimum of 500 new words each day.
  • Learn to juggle two projects when revising.

This isn’t going to be easy; I have the feeling that it’s going to involve a fundamental shift in the way I approach writing. However, if I can pull through it, I think this might just transform my career in the way that I need in order to take things to the next level.

In the meantime, I’d better get some sleep. I’ve got a long day of travel ahead tomorrow, and I’ll need all the energy I can get if I want to get some serious writing done.

Struggling not to settle

I’m in the middle of my first revision pass through Heart of the Nebula, direct sequel to Bringing Stella Home, and…I don’t know exactly how to put this, but the story seems to be simultaneously smoother and more shallow.  Plot-wise, everything works great; character-wise, there just doesn’t seem to be as much depth as my other work.

I remember finishing the first draft in May, and being surprised at how well structured it was.  Each of the three major plot points happened after exactly five chapters, and each of the chapters was almost perfectly balanced–a far cry from my previous work.  I had a few stops and starts in the first part, but everything after the first hundred pages was smooth as gravy.  What’s more, I’m finding in this revision that not a whole lot needs to change; it works pretty well as-is.

And yet…I can help but feel as if something is missing.  The characters just aren’t coming alive the way they did in my previous works.  The story isn’t quite as engaging, the climaxes quite as gut-wrenching as I would like.  It feels like a good story, but not a great story.

Here’s the thing: my previous stories were all broken in this phase.  Desert Stars was so broken I had to write another novel to figure out how to finish it–and even then, the second half of the book went entirely in the wrong direction and had to be thrown out.  Bringing Stella Home had a solid storyline, but Stella’s character was completely broken and had to be rebuilt from the bottom up.  And Genesis Earth had half a dozen false starts, and at least as many chapters that had to be thrown out because they did nothing to advance the plot.

But Heart of the Nebula isn’t exactly broken, it’s just…not at the level I would like.  And I worry that because it isn’t broken, I won’t feel as compelled to make it better.  I worked hard on the others, and learned a lot of lessons which helped me to write this book, but even if I’ve hit my stride and this is the result, it feels too much like settling.  I can do better.

None of this probably makes any sense if you haven’t read the manuscript, but I hope it doesn’t sound too much like whining.  Even if these are problems, these are good problems and I’m happy to have them.  When I share this with my first readers, they will probably have all sorts of insights that will make me smack my forehead and make everything awesome again.

I guess my point is that I don’t want to settle, even though this draft will probably not be as good as I’d like it to be.  I’ll fix all the known problems, then send it out to my first readers and trust them to help me find the unknown problems.

In the meantime, I should probably start something new.  I have a ton of great ideas for the fantasy novel, and bouncing them off of friends has really helped me to figure out what else the story needs.  After I finish reading American Gods, I’ll stock up on some fantasy to get into the right mindset, starting with David Gemmell (incidently, at dinner group tonight, I literally squeed while talking about David Gemmell.  It was simultaneously embarrassing and really awesome).

Enough of this.  Time for sleep.

Kickstarter update, new blurb, and cover art for Journey to Jordan

First things first: with sixteen days to go, Desert Stars is currently about 36% funded.  If you haven’t picked up any of my books yet, this is a good place to start: I feel confident that it’s my best work yet.  $10 will get you a copy with your name in the front under “special thanks”–$25 will get you that plus everything I’ve published so far.  So check it out!

To keep the kickstarter campaign moving, I decided to update the blurb for Desert Stars.  Here’s what I came up with:

He was the sole heir to the Najmi camp, a young man raised by tribesmen after falling to the desert from the stars. She was the sheikh’s most beautiful daughter, promised his hand in marriage–if she can convince him to stay.

Together, they must travel to a land where glass covers the sky and men traverse the stars as easily as tribesmen cross the desert. Here, at the ancient temple dedicated to the memory of Earth, they hope to find the answers that will show them the way home.

But when love and honor clash, how can they face their destiny when it threatens to tear them apart?

So what do you think?  Does it grab you, or do I need to change anything?

Finally, I’m currently in the process of preparing my travel journals from the 2008 BYU Jordan study abroad trip for publication.  This is one that I’m doing 100% by myself–editing, cover art, etc.  If anyone wants to volunteer to make a proofreading pass, I would greatly appreciate it.  Currently, I’m about 1/3 of the way through; I hope to finish putting it together by December 1st.

In the meantime, here’s the cover art:

Pretty nifty, eh?  What do you think?

Managing excitement and an idea for an epic fantasy novel

After getting about 40% through Star Wanderers 1.0, I hit a wall and decided to put the project on the back burner for now.  The beginning part, which I’m hoping to shop around as a novelette, has some issues with it and those are keeping me from making any real progress in the rest of the story.

I wish I could just wave my hand and pretend as if I’ve already fixed those problems, but my creative process just doesn’t work like that.  I guess I’m more of a discovery writer in that way, because I can only build on stuff that I’ve already written.  I have to figure out my characters as I write, otherwise they just fall flat.

It’s discouraging, because I feel like I don’t have enough control or discipline over my creative process.  Other writers seem to be able to pick up a project and finish it, even when that project is commissioned by someone else (editors, franchise owners, etc).  But with me, if I can’t get excited about a project, I can’t finish it.

Fortunately, even if I can’t always control which project I’m excited about, I always seem to be excited about something.  After finishing the last revision for Desert Stars, I felt this unusually strong urge to work on Into the Nebulous Deep (which, after the last post, I’ve tentatively decided to rename Heart of the Nebula).  I totally didn’t see that coming, but I’m glad that it did, because that project is getting due for its first major revision.  It’ll probably be a quick one, just to fix some major known issues before sending it off to first readers.

As for new projects, I’m not quite sure what to pick up next.  I’ve got a feeling I could give Edenfall another shot, though it’s dubious at this point, and I still have a bit of lingering excitement over the untitled Gaia Nova novel that involves Roman, Danica, Rina, and Stella’s son.

At the same time, though, I have a really cool idea for a fantasy novel involving magic swords.  The idea is that the swords are actual characters, with the ability to think, feel, remember, and communicate with those who wield them.  They can only be wielded by those whose minds have been melded to them, however, kind of like the Dragonriders of Pern.

As the swords get passed down from generation to generation, they pass on their skills and memories, so that those who wield them become legendary warriors.  However, all but one of the swords goes insane, turning their wielders to evil.  The one sword that remains has refused to take on a new master, even though war and destruction sweeps the land.  A prophecy states that the one who wields this sword will eventually defeat the evil of the others, but when the good sword finally does take on a new owner, it ends up being a farmgirl / tavern wench (I haven’t really decided).

I don’t have a lot of experience writing fantasy, but this story is starting to really excite me.  If I can combine it with a few other ideas and read some good fantasy novels to get into that mood, I think I can make some good progress on it.

So yeah–I have plenty of projects to work on, so things aren’t that bad.  I just need to find one that I can really get into for the next couple of months; if I keep bouncing around from project to project without finishing any of them, that’ll be bad.

Slogging along

So I’m working part time now, making ends meet as I get ready to finish up the year and go abroad for a while.  This time, I’m only doing about 20-30 hours per week, so it’s much easier to balance writing with everything.  Minecraft is still a distraction, but I think I’m finding a good balance.

Star Wanderers is coming along, but I made the mistake last week of reading some of the critical feedback on the first part while working on the second.  Not that the feedback is bad–it’s quite good, actually, and very helpful–but taking criticism on a work in progress put me into a temporary slump.  I think I’m most of the way out of it now, but progress is more sporadic than I’d want it to be.

However, I just started revising Into the Nebulous Deep today, and I’m very excited about that.  Into the Nebulous Deep is a direct sequel to Bringing Stella Home, featuring James, Lars, and the Colony five years after the events of the first novel.  I haven’t looked at it since May, but lately I’ve been thinking a lot about it, so I think it’s time to dust it off and work on it again.

It definitely needs a new title, though; “Into the Nebulous Deep” is much too convoluted.  Anyone have any ideas?  I’m thinking something like “Heart of the Nebula” or “Into the Deep,” but neither of those have quite the right zing.

Even though I finished the first draft almost six months ago, no one has read this one yet.  It had some pretty big issues that I felt I needed to fix before sending it out to first readers, but I wanted to give it some time to settle before reworking it.

As if that’s not enough, I’m also working on getting Journey to Jordan up and published.  This book is more of a travel journal, so I’m self-editing it, but it’ll probably take a couple weeks before it’s up and ready.  I was going to publish it under a pseudonym, but now I think I’ll just keep it under my own name.  I’m not sure whether I should change the names of people mentioned in the book; I never say anything libelous about anyone, but if that’s the standard MO for works of non-fiction, then maybe I ought to do it.  In any case, my goal is to have it out over Thanksgiving break.

Other than that, not too much to report on.  I’m bringing back my travel blog in anticipation of going abroad, but I haven’t said anything particularly interesting other than “I’m back!”

Oh, and I’m reading Khalil Gibran’s The Prophet and thoroughly enjoying it.  I don’t generally like poetry, but Poe and Gibran–I could read them all day.