Another week of solid work done! I completely rewrote a chapter. The new version turned out to be far more complicated than the original, so it took some time. I also partly re-wrote and completely revised another chapter.

I’m looking forward to getting back to work tomorrow morning. After struggling with this novel for over a year, I feel like the work is going well at last.

For now, I’ve stopped worrying about marketing my other books, in an effort to focus all my energy on this one. This has resulted in plummeting book sales, but if that’s what it takes to get the next one finished, I’ll do it.

Oh and that short story I mentioned a couple of weeks ago? The novel wouldn’t let me spend more than a day on it. This novel wants to be done. I’ll work on the short story in a couple of weeks.

Please check your voter registration. If you’ve been dropped from the rolls, the advice I’ve heard is to seek a provisional ballot. Please vote!

My story, “Longing For Earth,” is part of this anthology of far-future stories, edited by Jonathan Strahan.

A new review of Infinity’s End just posted today over at Nerds Of A Feather. Joe Sherry praised the anthology while calling out “Longing for Earth” as “a true standout and the highlight of an already strong anthology.” Wow! Read Joe’s full review here.

And by coincidence(?), the ebook edition of Infinity’s End is on sale today for just 99¢. I encourage you to support short fiction and buy it. And if you like it, give it a review at your favorite ebook vendor.

I don’t know how long the sale will last, so go for it now. Here are some links:

Amazon
Kobo
Barnes & Noble
iBooks

I got through some tough work last week, but by Friday the political situation left me in a dark place. To counter that, I spent Saturday and Sunday away from social media and from news sites. Wow, do I feel better! I also had a productive weekend writing. One more chapter has been re-written and I have a solid plan for how to tackle the next chapter.

Not since my first novel do I remember revising a novel as much as I’m revising this one! And yet the plot is the same.

This draft feels like a “second first draft” if that makes any sense. I’ll definitely have to put it through another draft, but that should be far faster, once I get this version done.

Please check your voter registration, and please vote.

The short version: Progress has been slooowww.

The long version:

My big project this year was to finish writing and then to publish two new novels, conceived as a two book series with potential for more depending on the market. I don’t want to say much about the content at this point, beyond the general description of far-future high-tech science fiction.

I conceived this project as something I could accomplish fairly quickly. To that end, I wanted both novels to be relatively short, because short is faster to write, faster to edit, faster to layout in ebook and print editions.

Well, none of that worked out!

In early July I got feedback on book 1 from my freelance editor — and ouch! Her critique was harsh, but entirely fair. I’ve been revising since then. The overall plot is essentially the same. Mostly I’ve been working on the characters, changing their roles and developing subplots to add interest to the story. I think it’s greatly improved. It’s also a lot longer! And I’m not done with this draft yet. Given that it’s already October, and I need to stop work on the novel to write a short story that’s due all too soon, I’m not going to be able to get book 1 out this year as I’d originally planned. But hopefully it’ll be ready to go early in the new year.

Book 2 is presently an extremely rough first draft around 75% done.

I’ll admit there have been times I wanted to abandon this project. It’s just been so difficult to write — and I’m not even sure why. But I’ve invested too much in it to back out now — and I’ve already got terrific cover art ready to go! — so it will be finished.

Send me positive thoughts!

And do sign up for my newsletter if you haven’t already (the form is over there–> in the right-hand column). That way I can let you know when the the first book is finally out in the world — and I’ll probably do a cover-art reveal for newsletter subscribers, so there’s that.

Planetside by Michael Mammay

Most of my audiobook listening time happens when I’m doing chores — yardwork, cooking, cleaning — dull stuff that I can do on autopilot while I’m focused on the story. So the ultimate compliment I can pay to an audiobook is that it inspired me to do all the chores I could think of! Michael Mammay’s debut novel, Planetside, did that for me.

On its surface, Planetside is science fiction — it’s a military novel set in and around an alien planet in a story world where interstellar travel is common — but change just a few elements and it might be set in Afghanistan. It’s structured as a mystery. A colonel, close to retirement, is sent to a remote planet to investigate the disappearance of a young officer. There are elements of at least a couple of classic novels that I won’t name since I don’t want to provide any potential spoilers — let me just say that I found the storytelling engrossing. I finished the audiobook in about two days — and completed a lot of yard work! 🙂

Highly recommended.

Late yesterday Hurricane Lane fell apart. It seems that once the storm emerged from the lee of the Big Island’s two 14,000-foot peaks, strong trade winds lopped off its top and it lost its circular organization — for which we are abundantly grateful!

We’ve still got gray skies in Kula, but no rain or wind so far today. We never did get hit with any heavy downpours. It was the windward side of the island that suffered most from rain, and the west side that endured winds which drove the flames of more than one brushfire.

It’s possible more rain could fall, but it seems the worst is past, and I’ve started cleaning up the deadfall in the yard and have put my potted plants back out. Mosquitoes have emerged in swarms! Right now, a little wind would be welcome.

I really hope this is Hawaii’s only troublesome hurricane this year, but the season runs through November, so the potential for more “excitement” remains — and with global warming, the hurricane threat will become ever more frequent. John Barnes’s novel Mother of Storms is often on my mind.

Ron and I live on Maui, so we’ve been preparing for Hurricane Lane since the beginning of the week when we returned from San Jose.

Earlier in the week, Lane was a category five hurricane. This morning it’s a category two — definitely an improvement but still dangerous — and it’s moving with excruciating slowness. We originally expected the worst effects Thursday, then Friday, now Saturday. The predicted track shows it taking a westward turn before making landfall. We are hoping it turns sooner than expected! Unfortunately, it could also continue farther north than the track shows and if so, that could be a big problem for us.

So far, we’re fine. Here in Kula we’ve had intermittent rain and periods of very strong winds. Trees have been dropping dead branches, and this year’s paltry avocado crop is mostly on the ground. Other parts of the island have seen much worse, and a large brush fire was burning on the Lahaina side last night. A hearty thank you to Maui’s fire and police for all their hard work, and thanks also to Maui Electric and Spectrum cable for keeping the grid going.

Here’s hoping things get better, not worse!

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. Read the rest of this entry »

This is a very short post to let you know where I will be at the upcoming Worldcon in San Jose.

Click here to see my scheduled events.
(Link opens in a new tab and goes to the Worldcon website.)

If you’re planning to attend, I hope you can make it to one of my events — and do say hello!

As a reminder, I’ll have some books for sale at the SFWA table in the dealers room. See this post for details.

I sent my latest newsletter out today. If you want to view it online, click here. (You can subscribe using that simple form in the right-hand column.)

The newsletter included reminders about two deadlines:

Amazon’s sale is about to end!
Amazon put The Last Good Man on sale at only $2.99 for the month of July (USA and Canada only). If you’re in those regions and haven’t gotten a copy yet, now’s the time. If you know someone else who might enjoy the novel, please pass the word along. Last day for the discounted price is July 31.

Hugo Award voting is about to close!
If you’re eligible to vote for the Hugo Awards, be aware that the last day to fill out your ballot is also July 31. My story “The Martian Obelisk” is a finalist in the short story category. I hope you consider it when you fill out your ballot. If you haven’t had a chance to read it yet, you can find it online at Tor.com by following this link.