Schweet Novembah

Well, we're into December now, and the next time I look at the calendar, it'll be nearly over (that is the way of things.  The way of the Force.)  But let me look back for a moment, at November, the month writers tend to set aside for novel-writing.

I know one guy who wrote more in the month of November than I have this whole year.  But I can't focus on that, can I?  As Ben Folds said, "There's always someone cooler than you."

So, I set three goals for myself this past November: 1. Publish my novella "Newfound Fame," 2.  Write a story for a the Paradise Lost "Broken Mirror" contest, 3.  Finish my current project, which is a sequel to a story from a few years back, "The Calling."  I hate to do it, but let's look at how I fared.

1.  Well, I finished the audio for NF back in, I dunno, September or October.  I decided to do a section in full-cast, and got lines back from everybody but one.  Even so, I didn't publish the text version, which doesn't have to wait on audio.  I don't have a cover that's ready to go, so I've used that as an excuse not to publish it.

Which sucks.

The thing is, I could publish it right now with either the unfinished cover Austin sent me, or with my own mock-up I created to show him what I want.  It would be out there, readable (ie, purchasable), and when I get the finished art, I could just swap it out, and nobody'd be the poorer.

But I haven't.

I need to man up and do these things, instead of making excuses and pretending that other people are standing in my way.  I DO NOT want to have to replace the 2016 copyright with a 2017 one.

However, I did publish another novella with a similar title, one from 2004, and it is available for purchase.*  My first goal for December is to publish the audio version of that one.

2.  I came up with an idea for this one, and nearly went with it, since it wasn't bad, and would have been easier to write.

And then I stopped, did a podcast about it, and decided to scrap that idea and start over.

I thought up another idea, drove myself over to the library, and would not let myself come home until I'd written it through to the end.

So that one I actually accomplished.  Though I really ought to check their deadline again to make sure I haven't missed it.  If I have, well, you'll be able to listen to the episode sometime in the new year, I'd wager.

3.  So, the sequel to "The Calling" is something I haven't talked much about, because I wasn't sure if it would be a short story, a novella, or a series of short stories.  I've even been told to stick it all together a few years from now and publish it as a novel.

I came up with the beginning back in the spring, thought up and ending in the summer (I think it was during my drive to Comic-Con in July), and have spent the rest of this time trying to come up with (and write) the parts in between.  I really ought to do an episode (or three) about it, since there have been interesting challenges with this project I've not had with anything else.

But I haven't finished it.  I thought I was in the home stretch last week, with only one more scene to write before I got to that ending that came to me in July.  I've been inching toward it, but in a conversation with Big the other night, I realized that there's one important scene that I left out, and I need to go back and find a place for it (information needs to be conveyed, and I forgot to have anybody reveal it).  So, I could either push through to "The End," and then go back (and maybe have to adjust everything in a rewrite), or create the revelation scene, then skip back to the final two scenes.

So, that's a failure there, but I'm close.

Anyhow, that's me looking back on sweet November, or as Fake Sean Connery would say, Schweet Novembah.  I accomplished one of my goals, substituted another, and outright missed the third.  I'm working on it, though.

And December sees a couple of new goals.  One is to finish a story for my own Broken Mirror Contest over at the Dunesteef (a Christmas one).  I have it more than halfway done, and it'll be shorter than I expect (which is quite a change).  I also plan to finish my novella, and get a bunch of recording done for two projects that arrived at my door in the same week.

I also need to finish reading a book I said I'd have done by Thursday, and worry about Christmas.  Maybe we'll have to call the next post "Sour December."

Rish Outfield

*I also put up a short story I discovered, but that one's for free.