I didn’t win a Hugo.
Those of you who follow this blog will know that I had a work on the Hugo ballot for the first and only time in the thirty-one years since my first published story.

“The Martian Obelisk” was on the short story ballot, and enough people went out of their way during the convention to tell me how much they’d liked it (and that they’d voted for it!) that I dared to think just maybe…

Alas for me, it was not to be. The honor went to Rebecca Roanhorse for her story “Welcome to Your Authentic Indian Experience™” which you can read at Apex Magazine. Huge congratulations to Rebecca, who also won the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer. What a night! And what a great way to start off a career!

Thank you, thank you, to everyone who read, supported, voted for, or just had good thoughts about “The Martian Obelisk.” You are appreciated!

The Convention
I rarely go to conventions. I attended Worldcon 76 because of the Hugo nomination and because it was an easy distance from home – a nonstop flight direct from Maui to San Jose. (That turned out not quite as planned. Ask me about it sometime.)

I’m not very good at conventions. I’m one of those who has difficulty with facial recognition and it can take me a while to work out the identity of people I’ve met before but haven’t seen in a while – which gets really embarrassing. And I don’t do all that well in crowds.

Nevertheless, there were a lot of positive aspects to Worldcon 76. (more…)

Not all things are possible, even in the far future…

“Longing For Earth” is my newest short story. It’s out today, part of Infinity’s End, the final volume of the critically-acclaimed science fiction anthology series edited by Jonathan Strahan. It’s an honor to be included in the last edition of this long-running series!

Find the Infinity’s End print edition here.

You can find the Infinity’s End ebook edition at your favorite vendor:
Amazon
Kobo
Barnes & Noble
iBooks

I hope you’ll check it out!

Some good news…

While I was traveling last weekend, I learned that my short story “The Martian Obelisk” won the Locus Award for best short story. I’m honored! Very honored.

The Locus awards are determined by readers voting for their favorite fiction of the year. So I want to thank all of you who felt “The Martian Obelisk” was worthy of your vote. I truly appreciate it!

The story is also a finalist for the Hugo award, so if you’re eligible to vote for that, I hope you’ll consider it.

If you haven’t read “The Martian Obelisk” yet, you can find it online at Tor.com.

And follow this link for a list of nominees and winners in all categories.

Yes, I have made some progress since my last progress report. I’ll admit though, it’s been slow going. Here’s a tweet from last week that captures my feelings nicely:

I'm starting to think that thrashing around with the plot for two months in the middle of a first draft is JUST THE WAY IT'S DONE THESE DAYS.
It's become all too familiar.
Sigh.

— Linda Nagata (@LindaNagata) June 2, 2018

As of today, I’m around 62,000 words into the initial draft of book 2 in a duology of novels. I’m hoping that this means I’m around 2/3 done with it. Over the past few weeks, a lot of time has gone into visualizing the next section, trying to figure out how to present it while giving all the characters their proper time on the page as well as meaningful roles within the plot.

An interesting breakthrough came a few nights ago, I woke up at 1am and lay awake for a while thinking about things. I ended up jotting down a few new approaches that have proved to be quite helpful. Implementing these ideas meant dropping back in the manuscript and adding new scenes and sections. I’m still working on that, but I hope to be moving into new territory again in another day or two. And then maybe a sprint to the end? I hope so!

Some writers love first drafts and hate revising. Other writers, like me, are much happier once we have a solid draft down. I’m looking forward to the revision stage.

It’s been two-and-a-half months since I posted a progress report. Oops.

So where am I?

Well, as reported last time, my big project for this year is a duology of novels. Book 1 is “done” in the sense that it’s a good, solid, complete draft. It is now with my freelance editor, Judith Tarr, who has served as editor on my last four novels and has done a terrific job.

I’m half done with a rough draft of the second book in the set. I’ve got a good general idea of the events that will make up the second half of the novel, but figuring out the details of how things will go down has been a real challenge. For the past two or three weeks I’ve been combing through my notes, organizing and assembling a detailed chapter-oriented outline. I want to make sure that all the important characters in this volume have a significant role to play as events unfold.

Plot is always such a challenge!

That said, I feel like I need to start writing actual chapters again. I’ll probably begin that tomorrow.

My plan is to publish both books this year, probably a month or two apart. To that end, I’ve begun the process of acquiring cover art, which is always exciting and scary. So much of a book’s success depends on the cover!

Anyway, these two books together will be a complete story. There is a potential for more in the series if these first two sell well. But if they don’t, I won’t be leaving anyone hanging.

Onward!

Aloha!

Are you new to my work? Love short stories? If so, this post is for you.

The recent announcement that my short story “The Martian Obelisk” is a finalist for the Hugo Award, has brought a surge of visitors to my blog and website. If you’re among that number and would like to read more of my short fiction…

Here are some stories you can find online:

• “The Way Home” (Operation Arcana / Lightspeed Magazine)

• “Codename: Delphi” (Lightspeed Magazine / The Year’s Best Military SF & Space Opera)

• “Halfway Home” (Nightmare Magazine / The Best Horror of the Year Volume Six)

• “Nahiku West” (Analog Science Fiction / Republished at Clarkesworld
→ “Nahiku West” was the 2013 Theodore Sturgeon Memorial Award runner-up and selected for The Best Science Fiction and Fantasy of the Year Volume Seven edited by Jonathan Strahan, The Year’s Best Science Fiction & Fantasy, 2013 Edition edited by Rich Horton, and The Year’s Top Ten Tales of Science Fiction 5 (audiobook) edited by Allan Kaster.

Much of my recent short fiction is also available in a convenient collection, Light and Shadow, in both print and ebook editions.

– Here’s a link to Amazon

– Here’s a universal link that will get you to alternate vendors.

Enjoy!

I’ve got some wonderful news to share: My short story “The Martian Obelisk” has been named as a finalist for the Hugo Award!

This is pretty exciting for me. After all, I’m a bit of a late bloomer. It’s been thirty-one years since my first fiction publication, and this is my first-ever appearance on the Hugo ballot. So it’s extra special!

If you haven’t read “The Martian Obelisk” yet, please check it out! You can find it online right here at Tor.com.

I want to say THANK YOU to everyone who’s read the story, to everyone who nominated it, and especially to editor Ellen Datlow, who liked the story enough to publish it at Tor.com.

Other short story finalists are:
• “Carnival Nine,” by Caroline M. Yoachim (Beneath Ceaseless Skies, May 2017)
• “Clearly Lettered in a Mostly Steady Hand,” by Fran Wilde (Uncanny, September 2017)
• “Fandom for Robots,” by Vina Jie-Min Prasad (Uncanny, September/October 2017)
• “Sun, Moon, Dust” by Ursula Vernon, (Uncanny, May/June 2017)
• “Welcome to your Authentic Indian Experience™,” by Rebecca Roanhorse (Apex, August 2017)

Check out the full list of Hugo Award finalists here at Tor.com. You’re sure to discover some amazing reading.

This is just a brief post to share the news that a short story I wrote last fall — in fact, I started it when I was at the Master Class Workshop — has sold to Asimov’s Science Fiction magazine! I’m thrilled that “Theories of Flight” has found such a great home.

Those of you familiar with my past work might be interested to hear that “Theories of Flight” takes place in the story world of my novel Memory, and involves a character from that novel — and that is the only hint I’m going to give!

No publication date yet, but I’ll let you know.

Last fall I bought a Mac Air laptop to replace my ancient Toshiba laptop, aka “the writing laptop.” Out of habit, I would have installed Microsoft Word, but I didn’t want to pay a monthly subscription and I didn’t want to install the very old version of Word-For-Mac that I have. So I decided to try Nisus Writer Pro.

NWP is Mac-only software, but it can save files in standard *.doc format — and it came highly recommended by other writers. So I downloaded a trial copy…and never looked back!

Well, okay. Maybe I glanced wistfully over my shoulder a few times. Leaving a program I knew and understood quite well, for one that required me to repeatedly figure out how to do basic things — or to establish a way to do basic things — was frustrating. But that’s a fixed cost of change.

Since October I’ve been using NWP exclusively for fiction writing. In that time I’ve finished drafting a novel, completed a full revision of that novel, written two short stories, 90% of a novelette, and I’m presently brainstorming a new novel.

And I’m very happy I made the switch to NWP!

In the paragraphs that follow, I take a look at some of the things I like about it, but first let’s agree that a new program is an invitation to explore. I used Word for so many years that I came to accept the way I did things and I was only occasionally inspired to seek out features I hadn’t used before. I don’t doubt there is a lot I could have done with Word that I never got around to doing or figured out how to do. But since I’m new to NWP I’m much more likely to investigate possibilities.

So here are a few new-to-me features I like: (more…)

Book sales have continued to be terrible this month. February has never been kind in this regard, but I feel I should have reached a point in my career where I can enjoy at least a little momentum in monthly sales. Alas, not there yet.

On the positive side, I’m “nearly done” with the first in a pair of novels that are my big project for this year. I’ve put book #1 aside for now and am presently focused on brainstorming book #2. It’s been fun and complicated. My usual method of starting a new novel is to try to outline as much as I can, so that’s what I’ve been doing. But I think in another day or two I’m going to try to write some actual chapters. That always has a way of revealing new ideas — and also new problems.

Another positive: I just finished some very minor edits on a short story that will be appearing in an anthology which I think is scheduled for publication later this year. It’s nice to have stuff on the way!

Even better: I just got the news that I have sold another short story!

This is a story I wrote on spec, not on invitation — and I think it will always be a thrill to have a spec story accepted by a top market. Competition in the short fiction market is intense and it never gets easier given all the brilliant new writers joining the SFF world. So it feels good to know I can still place a story.

I’ll have details for you later, but right now I’ll just say that some of my long-time readers might find this one especially interesting.