Tag: vacations

Quick Update Post

It’s been a while since I posted to this blog. I had planned to keep a regular twice-a-week posting schedule, then went a little more than that for about a month before falling out of the routine.

We just got back home from a family road trip, where we drove out to Omaha and back again, making the Mormon pioneer trek in both directions. It was our first time going on a road trip with the baby, and we had a really fantastic time! Saw Chimney Rock, Independence Rock, Martin’s Cove, Sixth Crossing, Fort Bridger…and then we decided to go straight home, instead of finishing the trek with a tour of Salt Lake City. But that’s only a quick day trip for us, so we’ll probably do that soon.

It was a really awesome road trip, and definitely a good thing to get away and actually vacate for a while. But now that we’re back, I need to pick up some of the balls I’ve dropped and get back into the saddle. Writing is a high priority: I haven’t written hardly anything in the past week. Another big priority is publishing. I was supposed to put out a new short story single last weekend, but decided to put it off until we got back home. So that’s something I’m going to do right away.

I also want to get back into blogging. While on vacation, I DNFed a dozen books, most of them recent Hugo, Nebula, Dragon, and Goodreads Choice nominees. I have a lot of thoughts. Also, the 2022 Dragon Award nominees are out, and I’ve got to be honest, it looks kind of schizophrenic—which is exactly what you would expect to see with rival political tribes battling for control of fandom. But that’s been the case for the Dragons ever since the award’s inception. Again, I have thoughts.

Point is, I’ve got a lot of work to catch up on, but I hope to get back into a good blogging routine before the end of the month. That’s the plan, and it’s not a lack of content that’s the problem: more just a question of routine. Expect to see more here soon.

Short Blitz #7: Starchild

Title: Starchild
Genre: Space Opera
Word Count: 3,000
Writing Time: about two weeks

I haven’t trimmed or polished this story yet, but I’m calling it at 3,000 words. If I were stricter about following Heinlein’s rules, I would only give it a proofreading pass, but with shorts I’ve heard that it’s best to cut out as many unnecessary words as possible, so I’ll give it a solid pass before sending it out.

Unlike all of my other short stories so far, this one takes place in the same universe as my novels and novellas. Specifically, it takes place in the Star Wanderers universe, at an unspecified system deep in the Outworld frontier. It’s about a girl in the strictly regimented society of an isolated space colony, who decides to be the first from their outpost to win the heart of a star wanderer. More generally, it’s about the cycle of life on a frontier space station and the inevitable loss of innocence from contact with the outside.

The idea came to me while I was on vacation, so I didn’t do much with it for the first week. I dabbled with it while I was out at the Cape, writing a little here and there, but it wasn’t until I was on the train headed back that I dedicated some serious time and effort to it.

My sister lives in Iowa, at almost the exact midway point between Massachusetts and Utah, so I decided to stop by and pay her a visit along the way. I finished the story this afternoon at her house, and I plan to print it out and submit it to F&SF while I still have access to their printer. What can I say … I’m cheap. :p

I don’t think this will be the last short story that I write in the Star Wanderers universe. If I could write a few good ones that get picked up by a major magazine like Asimov’s or Clarkesworld, that would be a great way to bring in more readers. I figure a story in the same universe as my other books will be much better at that than a generic short story, and since self-publishing is my bread and butter, the more I can get my short stories to serve that, the better.

In any case, now that thing one is done, I can focus all of my attention on Sons of the Starfarers. If all goes well, Book III: Strangers in Flight will be published in the next couple of weeks, and Book IV: Friends in Command
will be finished (at least the rough draft) by mid-October. This was a nice project to work on during vacation, but now that it’s finished, it’s time to get back to work!

Almost back from vacation

So I’m in Massachusetts now, getting ready to head back to Utah by way of my sister’s in Iowa. I spent the last week on Cape Cod for family vacation, which was a lot of fun! Cape Cod is one of my favorite places, and it was good to sit back and take a break from things.

Of course, that doesn’t mean I haven’t been writing. While on the beach, I reread Nancy Kress’s Beginnings, Middles, and Ends (an excellent writing book), and in the evenings I tinkered a little with a short story in the Star Wanderers universe. I also sent out several short story submissions, and even received a couple of rejections. I’ve got seven stories out on submission right now, and I hope to push that number even higher before the end of the summer.

But short stories aren’t the main focus. The main focus right now is Sons of the Starfarers, specifically, getting Strangers in Flight published. The final draft is currently with my editor, and the cover art is ready to go. Check it out!

SSF-III (cover)I am definitely looking forward to getting this book out. But if you haven’t read the other books in the Sons of the Starfarers series yet, I would advise you to wait until the first omnibus comes out. I should have that up for pre-order by the middle of September, and I’ll price it slightly lower than all three books put together.

I’m not sure when the fourth book will be out. At this point, all I have is a rough outline. However, I expect that it will be out before Christmas. I don’t think it will take more than a couple of months to write, and I’m really excited to write the fifth book, so once I get started I expect it will go quickly. The title for book four is Friends in Command, and it will be primarily from Mara’s point of view.

That just about does it for now. I’d better get back to packing so that I can get some sleep before the night is over. Take care!

Back in Provo!

Wow, do pageviews drop off sharply if you don’t blog for a while.

So after spending the last couple of weeks visiting family across the country–literally across the country, from Massachusetts to Iowa–I’m back here in good old Provo, Utah, surrounded by the mountains once again (I can just hear my grandma … “what’s so great about a pile of rocks?”).

Here were some of the highlights:

  • Seeing my parents (yay!) and spending some quality time with them.
  • Babysitting my niece and nephews and spending time with that side of the family.
  • Beach bumming on the Cape Cod National Seashore.
  • Eating fried clams and lobster in Wellfleet at Moby Dick’s.
  • Playing Shanghai with my parents every night for a week and a half.
  • Beating my brother-in-law at Settlers of Catan for the first time (he’s good!).
  • Watching the entire Ken Burn’s Civil War documentary series.
  • Touring Nauset Light and the Three Sisters.
  • Touring the Cape Cod Potato Chip factory.
  • Hanging out with Mom in Downtown Hyannis.
  • Acquiring an awesome new Indiana Jones style hat.
  • Going to church with a bunch of high priests sporting crocs.
  • Picking Monsanto corn and getting the whole corn experience.
  • Browsing a bookshelf of Ursula K. Le Guin novels I’ve never read.
  • Getting a bunch of awesome new story ideas (see previous post).
  • Taking the California Zephyr across the country–twice!

So yeah, it was a pretty awesome summer vacation.  It’s good to be back in Utah, though.  As much as I have a love/hate relationship with Provo, Utah really is my favorite place on Earth.

I’ve only been back a couple of hours, but it seems that it’s been an eventful two weeks since I’ve been gone.  One of my former roommates ran off without paying his share of the utilities, after jacking up the AC all summer (lovely).  After filing a police report, however, we may be able to get some of that back.

My tomatoes have been growing like CRAZY.  Only one has been harvested, but there are dozens hanging off of the vines.  Anybody want to make salsa?

As far as church goes, the ward boundaries have been completely rearranged.  Seriously, the map looks like a shredder went to it.  On our block, it’s us and the house two doors down from us (we think), then one of the apartments from Liberty Square, then another random house a block north of us.  Crazy.

I don’t know yet if I’ll be sticking around in my current place for the fall or not.  It’s a good situation, and the roommates are great, but the neighborhood is full of freshmen and sophomore college students.  I need to find some more people my age to hang out with.  Next month marks the beginning of the final year of my twenties, and I plan to make it count.

I got a lot of work done on Star Wanderers: Reproach (Part VII) while traveling on the train, but I still need some of my first readers to give it another read-through before I’m confident enough to publish it.  Hopefully, that shouldn’t take too long–I’m shooting for publication before the end of September.  Also, the print edition of Stars of Blood and Glory will hopefully be finalized before the end of the month as well.

That’s just about it for now.  I’ll leave you with some folk music from the Caucasus Mountains, this time on the accordion:

Rousing stuff.  I wish I could play the accordion like that.

Take care!

Laying the groundwork for a couple new series

So I just got back from vacation at Cape Cod, which turned out completely different from what I’d expected.  When I left, I said that I’d probably just write like I usually do, except in a different place.  Instead, I took a break from my WIPs long enough to catch a new vision for my career and come up with a really good idea for a new spin-off series in the same universe as Star Wanderers.

The story idea is really awesome.  I don’t want to talk about it too much, since I haven’t even written it yet, but the main characters will be Isaac and Aaron from Benefactor, and the basic premise will start out fairly similar to Outworlder.  From there, though, I expect it to take shape in some very different ways, turning into much more of an epic space opera.

I plan to stick with the novella series format, since I’ve had a lot of success with that so far.  I know that some readers complain about shorter works, but when doing a series of this type, it’s important to put out new titles regularly, and I can do that much easier with novellas than with novels.  Besides, there are a lot of other reasons why I prefer novellas, as I pointed out in this post.

That said, I expect these ones to run a little longer, such as the 30k-40k word (90-140 page) range.  But I won’t really know until I’ve written them.

Before that, I’ve got two more Star Wanderers stories to put out: Reproach (Part VII) and Deliverance (Part VIII).  Both of those are already written; I just have to run them by my first readers and make some revisions before putting them out.  If all goes well, Reproach should be out in September and Deliverance should be out in October.

So that’s the plan.  Career-wise, what I really need to do is replicate the success of Star Wanderers by starting some new storylines that follow the same series format.  It’s a little unnerving, since I don’t know what will stick, but I don’t want to be dependent on just one series–you’ve got to have multiple entry points.  Besides, this new series is a spinoff, so hopefully readers from the first one will carry over.

It’s at this point that I’m hitting myself, because what I really need is to have three books that I can release before Christmas.  In general, I’ve found that it’s better to wait until you have three books out before you make the first in a series permanently free.  I wish I’d spent a lot more time this summer writing new things, rather than revising old stuff or finishing up old series.  But oh well–better to start now than wait until next year.  And who knows?  Maybe I can still pull it off.

For this new series, I plan to invest a little more in cover art.  The NASA images have been good for Star Wanderers, but to really hit the publishing trifecta (title, cover, blurb), I need to commission some original art.  I have the money now, and probably the best thing I can do at this point is reinvest it.  Expect those covers to be awesome.

Oh, and the other elements of the trifecta?  I don’t have a blurb yet, but the working title is Sons of the Starfarers.  Pretty cool, eh?

So there’s that.  I’m currently revising Reproach, but I think I can finish that on the train and send it out to my beta readers before the end of August.  As for The Sword Bearer, I’m going to put that project on hold again, mostly so I can focus on this.  I’ve also been running into some problems with that project, mostly having to do with the worldbuilding.

For that reason, I’m thinking of doing a series of prequel novellas in order to flesh out that world and the backstory.  If it goes well, that should turn into its own thing, kind of like how Star Wanderers fleshes out the background for my Gaia Nova books.  I’m thinking of something along the lines of David Gemmell: heroic fantasy with a real focus on courage, valor, and unlikely heroism.  I’ve already got the first scene of the first book in my head, and it’s pretty dang awesome.

So many stories, so little time … I’d better get back to writing!

Trope Tuesday: The Beach Episode

I’m so glad my Mom doesn’t read this blog.

I’m at Cape Cod this week, at a condo that doesn’t have internet, so it’s going to be a quick and dirty Trope Tuesday post this week (no, not like that) because I’d rather be on the beach than at the Dennisport Public Library.  Speaking of beaches …

One of the commonest beach tropes, at least for most anime and TV shows, is to take the cast of characters and put them on the beach for an episode.  This rarely has anything to do with the actual plot of the show, and is usually just an excuse to parade the characters in swimsuits and/or give the audience a little fanservice.

Actually, that’s not entirely fair.  There’s a bunch of ocean related recreational activities that the characters may participate in, such as beach volleyball (or other games), surfing, making sand castles, burying each other in sand, and getting a suntan (or an embarrassingly painful sunburn).  There may even be a single-episode romantic subplot that results in a beach kiss.

Basically, the beach episode is a chance for the audience to take a breather from the main story arc and hang out with their favorite characters at the beach.  Because really, who doesn’t like to go to the beach every now and then?  And if you can tag along with a bunch of fictional characters who have come to feel like friends, so much the better.

I’ve got to admit, most of the books and series that I’m a fan of don’t really have a beach episode.  The only one that comes to mind is the Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya, and that one’s a bit unusual because the beach episode(s) turn into a murder mystery that actually ties in pretty well with the main plot.  Also, the episode is based off of one of the original Japanese novels, so it’s a lot closer to canon than what you’ll see in most anime adaptations from manga (or so I’ve heard).

The beach episode doesn’t pop up in science fiction or fantasy a whole lot, probably because of the secondary world aspect.  I’m sure there are beaches on Middle Earth, but if I see a bunch of hobbits playing beach volleyball in bikinis, I’m sorry but I’m going to have to throw up.  Most fantastical worlds don’t have room for modern-style vacations, because so much of the setting is so far removed from the world we live in.  The last thing you want to do is throw your reader out of the story, so for most sci-fi and fantasy, a trip to the beach is probably a bad idea.

Of course, there are exceptions, depending on the story and the appropriateness for such an excursion in the fictional universe.  If you guys have any favorite examples, please let me know.

Needless to say, since most of my stories take place on alien worlds in the far-distant future, you won’t usually find this trope in my own stories.  However, there is a beach chapter in Desert Stars, where Mira spends some time out in nature, walking along the ocean and taking in the gulls and the waves.  She doesn’t wear a swimsuit, though.  In Stars of Blood and Glory, there’s a planet that’s nothing but ocean, with giant floating cities populated by people who are half Japanese, half Polynesian.  Not any beaches, though–at least, not natural ones.

Quick update from Massachusetts

Hey guys, this is just going to be a quick update since it’s midnight here on the east coast and I’m  pretty tired from the three-day train ride.  Sleeping on the train is like skipping stones, where all you’re really doing is seeing how far you can go before you crash (and I’m due for a crash).  So anyways, here goes.

First, I didn’t get a whole lot of writing done on the train, partially because of the sleep issue but mostly because I started reading STRAY by Andrea K. Höst and holy crap, I could not put it down.  Seriously.  It got to the point where the only thing I wanted to do was read this book, which was fortunate because riding the train, there’s not much else to do anyway.  So I finished it in a little over 24 hours, which means you can expect to see a review here soon, either before or after I get back from vacation (probably before, because I plan to read the next couple books in the series at the beach and on the ride back).

Second, I’ve decided to spend the next week or so working exclusively on Star Wanderers: Reproach (Part VII), while the feedback is still fresh and my enthusiasm is still strong.  Also, after burning through the first chapter in the last couple days, I think I can get this done pretty fast.  After that, I’ll send it out to a couple of other first readers, probably make another pass, then figure things out from there.  If all goes well, it should be out by mid-September-ish.

Third, I’m thinking about releasing print editions of the Star Wanderers series.  At first, I thought I’d limit the print editions to the omnibuses (omnibi?), but now I think it would be cool to do little pocket-sized editions of each novella.  What do you guys think?  If there’s demand, I’ll try to put them out a little sooner, hopefully before Christmas.  And since they’re small, I can probably price them lower, like around $6 to $7 or so (and of course, Amazon will discount them).

Third point one, before I do that I need to release a print version of Stars of Blood and Glory.  Which shouldn’t be too difficult, since I’ve already typeset about half of it.  Mostly I’ve just been lazy and/or busy with other stuff, but now that I check CreateSpace it seems that people are actually buying my print books, hmm.  Better get on top of that.

Fourth … actually, there is no fourth.  I guess I should say I’m on vacation, which means doing what I usually do except from Cape Cod, spending my non-writing time doing fun things with family.  But since I’m home, I plan to go through my high-school / middle-school papers and hunt down my first novel attempt, if for no other reason than to destroy it.  I may keep a page or two as a curiosity/souvenir, but that abomination really needs to die.

And that’s about it.  The stone has begun to sink, and I really need to hit the sack.

Thanksgiving report from Texas

So for Thanksgiving this year, I drove down with my sister and brother in law to have Thanksgiving in Houston with my other sister’s family.  It’s Friday night, and I’m about to hit the sack to get prepped for the long 24+ hour drive back to Utah, but let me say, this vacation has been great!

It’s so good to spend time with family, especially when you live across the country and can’t see each other very often.  My niece has grown so much in the past year, and she is so freaking cute it’s unbelievable.  Earlier tonight, we were watching slide shows on my sister’s projector and playing around with my niece: “Where’s Aunt Dot?  Where’s Oopah?  Where’s Uncle Joe?” Heh, Uncle Joe.  I will do my best to live up to the awesomeness of that title.

Thanksgiving dinner was AMAZING.  Holy freaking crap, my sisters can cook.  They put together a traditional dinner from scratch, and everything was perfect.  I’m so glad they’re sending a bunch of leftovers with us on the drive tomorrow, because I would much rather subsist on that than random junk food from gas stations.

Besides family, though, one of the coolest parts of the vacation was visiting the Houston Space Center and seeing mission control and one of the original Saturn V rockets.  That’s right–see that room in the picture?  I was there.

Which immediately begged the question: Why am I not in space right now?  Seriously, I would do just about anything to go up in space.  Thinking about the Pilgrims made me think about colonizing other planets, and how the difficulties may be similar and yet different.  It also made me think about my latest novel, Into the Nebulous Deep, which (I’m hoping) is a colonization story set in space, and how I can use some of the stuff from the Pilgrims in my own work.

Speaking of which, the writing has been going very slow recently.  A lot of it has to do with interruptions from the vacation (which frankly are more important), but it also has to do with my growing frustrations with the current project.  I’m about 15k in the rough draft of ITND, and…it just doesn’t seem as good as my other work.  Of course, it’s just a mental thing–none of my rough drafts has ever been any good–but man, it’s tough to get through.

To complicate things, I’m going to have to find a job for the Christmas season, at least to tide me over.  I’m really hoping to get that wilderness job, but the training starts January 13th, and I don’t have the funds to spend all my time writing, like I have this past month.

I’ll know for sure the first week of December whether I’ve been invited to the training–and if I am, it’s going to throw a real kink in my writing routine.  Each job shift lasts a full week, during which time I’ll be completely unplugged, living in the wilderness.  I might get some time to work on poetry or short stories, but no novels.

The upside is that I get six days off completely free to do whatever I want, but I’m worried that it’ll be difficult, at least at first, to regain sufficient momentum in that short time.  I’m sure I can get used to it eventually, but for the first few months, it will probably be tough.

For that reason, I want to get as far in ITND as I can before January 13th, perhaps even finish it (HAHAHAHA!!!  As if that’s going to happen).  So the fact that I haven’t progressed from this one scene for like a week is really killing me.  Throw in a temporary job for the Christmas season, and I’ll probably go crazy.

That’s what my writing angst says, anyways.  In other words, everything is fine and life is great.  Now I’m going to get some sleep before driving across the freaking country all day tomorrow and Sunday.  Night!

Travel writing + Gemmell + Sanderson signing = awesome

Today was an awesome day, which is weird considering everything that happened.  Woke up at 4:45 am to catch an early morning flight back to Utah, took public transport back to Provo, and ran around on errands until attending the midnight Way of Kings signing at the BYU Bookstore.

Yet it was awesome.  Why?

First, I got a lot of writing done on the plane.  Normally I can’t write much while traveling, yet today it was really flowing.  Maybe it’s because I love revising, maybe it’s because the chapter I was working on was already pretty decent to begin with.  Whatever the reason, writing was fun and productive.

Second, I started an AWESOME book by David Gemmell.  Holy crap, I love David Gemmell!  It is my life’s ambition to acquire a signed first edition hardback copy of his debut novel, Legend.  I just started In the Realm of the Wolf, and it’s even better than the first Waylander book.  It’s got all the standard awesomeness you’d expect from a Gemmell book, plus some very interesting plot turns at the beginning that widened the scope beyond what I was expecting.  Very awesome.

As a side note, I think these Gemmell books are influencing my writing style for the rewrite of Mercenary Savior.  I’m not sure if that’s a good thing, but I tend to think it is.  Gemmell’s style is very terse, very blunt, and cuts right to the action without much description.  I’ll probably have to watch that I don’t skimp out on descriptions too much, but the other elements seem to be helping.  I hope.

Third, I had lunch with my grandparents.  That was great.  I don’t see them all that often, even though they live up in Salt Lake City–maybe once every other month or so.  I need to visit them more.  Anyway, it was good to see them.

Fourth, even though it took about two and half hours to take the public transit to Provo, those two and a half hours were quite productive.  Read more Gemmell and made some satisfying edits to a pivotal scene.  I also discovered that I only need to charge my netbook for one hour to recover 50% of its battery capacity.  Sweetness.

Fifth, while running errands after I got back, I talked with my sister over the phone and solidified our vacation plans.  Looks like we’re going on a road trip!  Yay!  Also, while chatting with my new roommate, whom I barely know, I found out that he’s written a fantasy novel.  How awesome is that?

Sixth, the Way of Kings signing at the BYU Bookstore.  I’m currently too poor to buy it in hardcover (still need to find a steady job), but it was still a ton of fun to hang out and see friends.  Brandon did a Q&A before the signing, and there was this stunningly attractive and generally awesome fangirl…whom I chatted with…briefly…didn’t get her name or contact info…hope I see her again.

Besides heckling Brandon, which is always good fun, I chatted with another local writer going to World Fantasy 2010, and found out he’s got room in his hotel room if I want to split it. That’s great–I need to figure out my travel and accommodation plans for that convention, since it’s coming up quick.

So yeah, it was an all around awesome day. Now I need to take a shower and crash before the lack of sleep catches up to mmzzzzZZzzzZZZzz…

Why am I so #$%! unproductive?

I don’t know why, but it’s a lot harder for me to write the first draft of something than it is to revise it.  Finishing my last novel was much, much harder than any of the projects before it, and my productivity is still suffering because of it.

The root problem, I suppose, is procrastination.  While I was writing my last novel, things got really tough towards the end, and I found myself procrastinating much more than I should have.  That led me to develop a dangerous habit.  Right now, as I move into the fourth revision of Mercenary Savior, I find that I’m still procrastinating even when the work is much easier (and more enjoyable).

Or is that really it?  Maybe I wasn’t procrastinating when I was writing my last novel–maybe I was taking frequent breaks to “fill the well.” Except now, those breaks have turned into full-scale procrastination, and I’m finding it very hard to get back on a regular schedule.

I’ve been doing about 1k to 3k words per day this past week, but I feel like I should be doing around 4k or 5k.  A lot of the time, I put off even starting until around 5pm, and stay up until late hours of the night when I should be sleeping.  It’s not a sustainable schedule, and I know it.

Part of it might have to do with the fact that I’m back at my parents’ house right now, taking a short break before returning to Utah.  I guess I should just stop worrying and enjoy my time here–I’m still doing well, overall, and there’s more to life than writing all the time.  Still, it’s maddening to feel unproductive.  Blarg.

Other than that, things are going great.  I’ve been spending a lot of quality time with my dad, as well as relaxing and taking time off from other pursuits.  Saw Inception and Scott Pilgrim vs. The World, and loved them both.  Read a couple of good books, too.  Life is good.

In unrelated news, my sister is about to have a baby.  Everyone in the family is WAY excited.  We love you, Kate and Danny!