Well, Turing Test is coming up on 25000 words, and though the end is in sight it’s still a few thousand words away. Which leaves me with a long novella that’s still well short of even the most liberal interpretation of the word “novel.”

Which is alright, because I’ve come to realize something in the last few days.  Turing Test is probably not going to be a standalone story.

There are a few reasons. Continue reading “Narrative Crept” →

So for the last six weeks or so I’ve been working on a rewrite for a novelette I wrote at the beginning of the summer, another in a series of shorter works I’ve been breaking off of GoATDaD and the Army of Monkeys, the massive narrative tapestry and hydra-headed monster I’ve been wrestling with off and on ever since I decided to become serious about being a writer.  The original version was about 9000 words long, and was fairy well-received when I workshopped it with my crit group (Horrific Miscue Seattle, as lovely and talented a collection of spec-fictionating badasses as one might ever hope to work with).

“You could probably sell this if you already had a name,” somebody said, which I thought was pretty funny, and a really nice compliment. Continue reading “Narrative Creep” →

Most of the time, writing is like pulling your own teeth out with a pair of tweezers.  The words themselves may come easy (they mostly always have for me), but the story, that thing behind the words that’s what most people actually care about, lurks there, at the bottom of the socket, hiding amongst identically-shaped fragments that constitute the various distractions and wrong turns every writer knows all too intimately and which the reader rarely sees but can only intuit the existence of.

But sometimes, blessed be, your creative subconscious will just upload a whole story into your brain, fully-formed and ready to be written; all you have to do is get to it fast enough to get it on paper (or screen) before it fades into the mist.  Before a couple of nights ago, that had only happened to me once.  Now it’s happened twice.

It was on the way home from World Fantasy Con Continue reading “Heavy Lies the Burden” →

Is on.  Not that I have a membership; I am not that cool (or is it that I am too cool?  I can never decide which; probably the former).  But I will be there, in the hotel, with friend and Clarion classmate Greg Bossert, attending the Bar Con and buying drinks for interesting people.  I figure I’ll know enough people there to get started, and a friend of mine who’s an editor and has been in the biz end of things for years has promised to make Useful Introductions.  I’m looking forward to it, not only for the hobbing of nobs and working of nets, but also because I’ll get to see some friends I don’t get to see much (hi Jessica!), revisit Mysterious Galaxy, and maybe even catch a few rays by the pool.

I’m not a big con-goer (or seeker of crowds in any situation), but I’m excited to go to this one, as I’m told it tends to be denser with writers and other industry folks, and a little lighter on fans.  Not that I don’t have love for the fans–they are my people, after all–but the crush of daily life has been much upon me these last weeks, and I have neglected both my writing practice and regularly socializing with other writers, which deficits’ catching-up-with I hope to jump-start at WFC. Continue reading “World Fantasy Con” →