…is done.

For certain, generous definitions of “done.” The story is missing a two to three page epilogue, which I’m putting off until I have a better idea of what else, if anything, I’ll do in this story world.

For some reason, I don’t write in classic trilogies. Episodic novels are more my style, which explains the duologies of Deception Well/Vast, The Dread Hammer/Hepen The Watcher, and now The Red: First Light/Trials.

At any rate, this is a solid draft. I’m printing it out now, will read it over again and revise in that form, then send it off to beta readers, hopefully by the end of the month — with an epilogue attached.

Happy New Year!

Back in 2011, when I was just getting serious about indie publishing, I started posting an annual list of writing goals that I would try to accomplish in the ensuing year. “Goals” in this sense are things that I can accomplish through my own efforts and perseverance, as opposed to “dreams” which require the cooperation of others (for example, having a novel sell madly well) .

So here are my writing goals for 2014:

1. Revise and polish the existing first draft of my next novel, The Red: Trials. Publication is tentatively scheduled for May.

2. Write and finish two more Zeke Choy stories, bringing to an end the cycle that began with “Nahiku West” and continued in “Out In The Dark.” If I can pull it off, the last story will be long, maybe a novella.

3. Write the initial draft of another novel. I’ve been debating what that novel should be, and though I haven’t decided yet, it will almost certainly be a sequel to something. Maybe this one?…>>

4. Write at least three pieces of short fiction that are not part of the Zeke Choy cycle.

5. Write at least three nonfiction posts that I feel comfortable marketing to high-circulation websites. (Nonfiction is very hard for me.)

That’ll do it. This is already feeling far too ambitious.

At the beginning of the year I published my writing goals for 2013. Now it’s time to assess how I did:

1. In March, publish my first adult science fiction novel in TEN YEARS.

Done! This of course was The Red: First Light. Have you read it? Did you like it? Lots of people, men and women both, who don’t ordinarily read military fiction have enjoyed it. If you haven’t read it, I hope you’ll give it a try.

2. Write the sequel to the novel referenced above. Bonus points: publish it before the end of the year.

Hmm…I was about to say that I failed this one, but you know what? I DID finish the first draft at the end of November and I’m presently doing the first revision. So I’m going to pass myself on this one. Definitely no bonus points, though.

3. Write and finish one additional Zeke Choy short story. Bonus points: finish two more stories.

The first Zeke Choy story was “Nahiku West” which was the second-place finisher for the Theodore Sturgeon Memorial Award. The second Zeke Choy story, “Out In The Dark,” was published in Analog’s June 2013 issue. Did I write the next story? Er…no. I have notes though! And some pretty serious ambitions for the finalé of the series, but I haven’t started yet, in part because I was invited to write for some anthologies and that used up my short story time. Next year though…

4. Write and finish three other short stories.

Wait, let me count… Win! In fact, I wrote four stories. They will appear during 2014 in the anthologies War Stories, Reach For Infinity, and an untitled anthology edited by John Joseph Adams, with the fourth story due in April in the monthly magazine, Lightspeed.

5. Write and finish a completed draft of a third Puzzle Lands book…

Nope. As it turns out, I never seriously considered starting on this — though I’m already flirting with the idea for 2014. To be bluntly honest, these books sell very few copies — and I don’t know why. When people actually read them, they seem to really like them — but my science fiction is much more in demand, which is frustrating because I want to do both!

So in summary…
Only one novel and four short stories were written this year, but given how hard that novel proved to be, I’m satisfied.

How did you do with your writing goals in 2013? Let me know. I’d love to hear from you!

I have this quirk of personality. I don’t like writing the same sorts of things for any extended period of time. This is why I’ve tended to go from far-future stories, to very near-future, to high fantasy, to middle-grade SF, to gritty fantasy, to magic realism… Easily bored, I guess. And who needs an author platform anyway?

At any rate, when John Joseph Adams, editor of Lightspeed and Nightmare magazines, as well as many anthologies, contacted me about writing a military fantasy story, my response was an enthusiastic “Yes!” Here was a chance to escape for a bit from science fiction, in which I’d been immersed for quite some time.

The result was a story presently titled “The Way Home” (this could still change) — and it’s a story I’m very happy with.

But there is a problem: the anthology is still untitled. JJA is still trying to come up with the perfect title for it and he’s encouraging all of y’all to help out by holding a name-this-anthology contest. If you’d like to participate, you can read more about it and enter your title ideas here — and you can also see the list of contributing authors.

Way back in January of this year, editor Jonathan Strahan invited me to submit a short story to an anthology he was developing, to be called Reach For Infinity. The anthology will be the third volume of the “Infinity Project,” following on the first two books Engineering Infinity and Edge of Infinity. The subject for the new book is “that period when we’re trying to get off Earth and into space.” Sounds simple, right? Well, it wasn’t simple for me.

I spent a lot of time brainstorming, developing and discarding ideas, either because they didn’t inspire me, or they seemed too involved to handle at short story length. It took me nine months to come up with an idea that intrigued me enough to build a story around it. I put together an outline first, and then set to writing. The result is a story called “Attitude.” After a brief misdirection to a spam folder, it reached Jonathan safely, and was soon accepted.

Look for “Attitude” in Reach For Infinity, due out from Solaris books in June 2014. Read more about the anthology here.

So…I just finished a very rough draft of The Red: Trials, the follow up to The Red: First Light. There is A LOT of fixing up, figuring out, and filling in to do — and maybe there will be fatal flaws, I don’t know — but this was a very difficult book for me, so getting to this point is a triumph.

For those of you who are writers, I thought I’d share my experience of how I finally got those last pages done, in case you might find it helpful someday.

With many writers it’s common to write faster as you approach the end. That’s usually the case for me, but it didn’t happen this time. I was still slogging through it, even though I really didn’t have that far to go.

This has happened to me before. Long ago, when I was writing the first draft of my novel Vast, I was stuck. I was maybe 80% through and I couldn’t write anymore. I had a decision to make about how the end would work, and the uncertainty of what that decision would be worked to hold me back. I’m a very linear writer. I write chapter 1, then chapter 2, and so on, through to the end. I don’t jump around — until I got stuck writing Vast, that is. Eventually, out of desperation or despair, I jumped ahead and wrote the climactic end of the novel–and after that, writing the rest of the draft was relatively easy.

Every novel is different. With Trials I wasn’t facing a decision about the end. I knew how it would end — the generalities anyway, if not the details — but as with Vast, it turns out I needed to write the climactic ending scene before I could write all the scenes leading up to it. After a terrible writing day, I sat down on the evening of November 21, and skipped to the end. 1500 words later I felt far, far better about things. Over the next five days I added another 8500 words to create the missing scenes. I won’t say the writing was painless, but it was much less of a struggle than almost all the rest of the novel.

So this is the Vast method: when you’ve struggled close to the end but the story still isn’t writing itself, try writing the climactic scene first, and then drop back and fill in the rest.

Sometimes it works.

I’m pleased to report that the War Stories Kickstarter successfully funded yesterday, two days before the deadline! This means the anthology, edited by Jaym Gates and Andrew Liptak, will move forward, and see publication in 2014. It will include my story “Light and Shadow.”

So a big thank you to everyone who supported the project and who helped to spread the word!

This post was originally published at Book View Cafe.

It’s dangerous out there, people. There are risks involved in reading the wrong sorts of science fiction, and while advice and counsel is available around the web, the time has come for a concise glossary of the most common debilitating parasitic memes, most frequently referred to as “cooties,” that are known to infect vulnerable readers. Knowledge is power. As a writer who has risked association with ALL listed varieties, I felt compelled to share my observations and experiences.

This book is known to contain the following varieties of cooties: girl, hard SF, military SF, male protagonist. Read with caution!

GIRL COOTIES
Found in: science fiction written by girls
Who’s at risk? boys
What happens if you catch them: possible loss of manhood generally through exposure to romance and excessive clothing descriptions; moderate risk to self-image in cases where female characters are not competing to win attention of male characters; possible nausea when female reproductive issues (non-coital varieties) are involved; in general, subversion by the alien female.

HARD SF COOTIES
Found in: science fiction that attempts to extrapolate from known science
Who’s at risk? girls
What happens if you catch them: possible loss of womanhood with severe risk of personality collapsing into cardboard, resulting in long-term loss of emotional empathy. Occasionally associated with right-wing conversions.

MILITARY SF COOTIES
Found in: science fiction about military service; rarely: found in association with Hard SF cooties.
Who’s at risk? girls and boys
What happens if you catch them: possible loss of empathy for those outside your unit, frequent development of might-makes-right approach to problem solving; reduction of color vision—in worst cases even shades of gray are lost.

FEMALE-PROTAGONIST COOTIES
Found in: science fiction with a female protagonist
Who’s at risk? boys
What happens if you catch them: Little-to-no risk has been found with the “kick ass” variety of female-protagonist cooties. For risks of other varieties, refer to the listing for girl cooties.

MALE-PROTAGONIST COOTIES
Found in: science fiction with a male protagonist
Who’s at risk? girls
What happens if you catch them: effects vary greatly. Some male-protagonist cooties are benign, some induce a severe allergic reaction. The most potent induce a hallucinogenic state wherein the victim comes to feel empathy for the alien other.

Warning: some science fiction is known to be infected with multiple species of cooties and should be considered especially hazardous. Read with caution!

In prior posts I’ve mentioned the upcoming War Stories anthology, edited by Jaym Gates and Andrew Liptak. War Stories is an anthology of military science fiction, to be published by Apex Publications, and will include my story “Light and Shadow”–if it goes forward.

This anthology is a Kickstarter project, with a funding campaign that launched today! Please stop by the Kickstarter page and while you’re there be sure to check out the video. I hope you’ll consider supporting this project. I’d love to see this anthology become reality.

Thanks!

Here is the nearly final cover art for the upcoming War Stories anthology, edited by Jaym Gates and Andrew Liptak. Cover art is by Hugo Award winning artist Galen Dara.

Click the image to see a larger version.

And click here to read the story behind the cover art.

War Stories will be funded through a Kickstarter campaign due to begin very soon. The anthology will include my story “Light and Shadow.”