Happy Book Birthday!

Hi, folks! I haven’t been blogging much (obviously), but I’ve been busy with other stuff. One of those stuffs is my new book!

 

Piper Deez and the Case of the Winter Planet is a space noir mystery novella that plays with some old school hardboiled noir and puts it in outer space, ala Blade Runner, with a little taste of Outland. My publisher describes it as hardboiled sleuthing fused with interplanetary politics. That sounds about right. It’s also a fun, little tale that I hope you’ll enjoy.

Piper’s story is available through Candlemark & Gleam. It’s the second release by C&G’s new imprint for shorter works, Reckless. For the low, low price of $3.00, you’ll get a DRM-free digital bundle that’s readable on any device and you’ll be supporting indie publishing. Hard to beat!

Accessing the Future Blog Hop

The Future Fire is crowdfunding another science fiction anthology! The theme this time concerns the issues that come with disability as well as how those intersect with other issues such as race, gender, sexuality, and class. Sounds pretty cool, huh? Well, to help spread the word, Future Fire has a blog hop going for writers and readers to talk about their work in progress or their current read and how power plays out therein. Future Fire general editor Djibril al-Ayad invited me to chime in and I quickly agreed.

Words In Progress

It’s been a couple of frustrating writing months since I last posted an update on such things. Going through a patch where writing is more of a struggle than a joy right now. Which I know happens, but it’s still frustrating. For example, that story about sentient plant life w/an older woman protagonist I was working on in April went nowhere. And I’m in the midst of rewriting “Piper Deez and the Case of the Clanless Woman.”

Words in Progress

I’ve been on vacation from the dayjob this week and it’s been lovely. But I’ve let the blog slide. I owe you a Monday Morning Music, there’s a book review I need to write, and it’s time for another update on my writing. Let’s do that one!

Words in Progress

So, when I posted my end-of-year roundup on my writing in December, I was thinking of making that kind of post a regular thing, updating all y’all on how the writing’s going.

And now it’s March. Yeah, I’m not always so good on following through with stuff.

So, how is that writing stuff going, M?

Words in Progress – 2013

So, 2013 is coming to a close. Another year gone like lightning. At least, that’s how they feel to me, for good or ill.

It’s been a busy writing year. I seem to have really caught the bug for writing and submitting, being rejected and submitting again. And writing again and again. Kinda like it.

As much for my own curiosity as anything, here’s a list of what I wrote and/or had published in 2013.

• “To The Edges” – published in May in Crossed Genres’ Winter Well: Speculative Novellas About Older Women. Starred review in Publisher’s Weekly happened in September.
• “Buccinum Anningiae” – written this summer. Submitted and rejected. Submitted again. No word yet.
• “Mind Over Murder” – also written in the summer. Submitted and ACCEPTED! More news soon.
• “Piper Deez and the Case of the Clanless Woman” – written in 2011. Submitted and ACCEPTED back then. But things got weird with that editor. Long story. Anyway. Submitted three times this year, rejected all three. 😦 Back in development. Planning to resubmit in early 2014.
• “Ketset Kismet” – written this fall. Submitted and rejected (awesome rejection email, though–very encouraging). Looks like I’ll be submitting somewhere else in 2014, maybe in February.
• “Meanwhile, Inc.” – I have a title, an idea, and am about 1000 words in. Another possibility for a February submission.
• The Travelers – the long-suffering novel. Still in process. The whole thing’s outlined now and the final scenes are coming together. Still working on the plan of having this draft finished in the next couple weeks and then spending 2014 rewriting.

Goals for 2014.

• “Breaks Like Glass” – another Piper Deez story, written in 2012. Submitted and rejected three times back then (I’m sensing a trend here.). I want to fix it and submit somewhere next year.
• Write more and submit more!

All those rejections up there seem a little sad, don’t they? But really? Of all the stories I’ve written since 2011, I have an acceptance rate of 43% (7 stories written; 3 accepted). Even if I do the math using number of submissions (12) instead of number of stories (which is probably the more accurate way to do this), I come up with a 25% acceptance rate. That’s ridiculously good.

So, yeah, as far as writing goes, it was a pretty good year in my world. Thanks, everyone, for reading my sporadic posts this year, and maybe even buying the books over there on the right. I wish you all the best in the new. I hope 2014 is as good or better for all of us.

“Writing on the wood is prohibited.” (Photo credit: Nicolas Karim) Random pic WordPress suggested. Kind of neat, huh?