As I mentioned last week, McFarland had some questions about my plans for my proposed time-travel book. Monday I emailed back my answers. Today, they emailed me back to say they liked the answers so go to it (contract is in the mail—I’ve done three books with them already so I’m not worried about starting work before it gets here).
The biggest change is that I’d intended to focus on American films and TV to keep the size reasonable. They asked if I’d have a problem expanding it to the rest of the world, and I said no. So I can now go up to 130,000 words if that’s what it takes, and include British stuff, anime, and films from the rest of the world. A lot more work, but I think it’ll be a much cooler book.
The premise is that I’ll be taking a look at time-travel themes such as love across time, do-over films and repeatedly adapted classics such as Connecticut Yankee. That’ll make it more interesting, I think, than straight film-by-film synopses. I’ll also have cast/credit lists, like any good film book.
I spent well over an hour this afternoon finding out which movies and TV shows I can find on Netflix. I’m not completely done, and I discovered several I hadn’t known about such as It Happened Here (alt.history in which the Nazis conquer Britain), Flint the Time Detective and GI Samurai. Good thing I’ve got so much space to work with. And man, will Netflixing movies save on costs!
Other than that, the week was productive, but a little frustrating. One thing about doing my Demand Media work, getting paid promptly is proof I’ve accomplished something. Without it, everything felt indeterminate and unfinished, mostly because it was unfinished.
I worked on several short stories, for instance, but they’re still early drafts so they feel very poor. I know they’ll improve but they’re a long way off yet.
I got another 14,000 words done on Brain From Outer Space, which was very pleasing. But that too is still a long way from polished and there are things I don’t like about this draft. On the other hand, it’s holding together better than any draft since I moved up here (that’s not meant to imply cause and effect, only a convenient time marker).
I did research for some possible magazine queries and got two off. One came back (already had one on the same topic) and the other I realized after sending it had a huge, glaring typo. Fortunately there are other magazines in the same market, but that’s so damn embarrassing!
I also applied for a couple more freelance gigs. As these rarely turn into profitable ventures, I usually feel like it’s more something I should do than an actual accomplishment (even the ones who’ve put me on their list of possible writers haven’t sent any work my way yet).
On the plus side, I found a market for Questionable Minds, which has been lying fallow for a while, so that will go out soon (it’s one of those that wants hard copy, so I have to get it printed and mailed).
I also began experimenting with my camera—yes, I still have an actual camera—to see if I can improve my photography. I’ve been reading this website and it’s already taught me a lot. My camera can do many things I didn’t know about, though I’ve yet to try most of them.
So: Plenty of work, but the big feeling of satisfaction didn’t come until the end. I may have more to say about it after I draw up my time-plan for the book on Monday.
Category Archives: Brain From Outer Space
Saint Valentine Rules
I’d planned to post my usual week-in-review blogging yesterday, but first I had to make banana bread for TYG. She opted for that over flowers, which is fortunate, as a lot of floral deliveries got derailed this week by the snow. After that we sat and watched DVDs before heading to bed. So no post.
The snow was intense, by the way. I don’t know that I’ve ever seen it come down as fast as it did on Wednesday. Fortunately it’s now done and we made a Whole Foods run this morning so there’s no risk of having to eat ourselves to survive.
Snow aside, I’m pleased with the week.
•I didn’t quite make my Demand Media quota but I did better than I have in a while.
•I have a magazine query almost ready to go. I’m coming to the conclusion that just as I had to relearn short stories after spending years focusing on other things, article queries are another skill it takes time to reacquire. For a long time I couldn’t seem to think of any ideas that actually had a market attached, but I’m getting better at it (which is not to say the odds of success are ever terribly good, but I always hope).
•I got a little bit further in Brain From Outer Space, then my brain just slowed down. Instead, I began the rewrite of Southern Discomforts and dang, that went well. Not polished, but I found it very easy to expand scenes, flesh out little visual details and drop a little foreshadowing in. I’d like to think this is a good sign and the rest of the story will flow as well, but given all the racial issues I’m going to have to work with, I may find myself stumbling into a morass sooner or later. Still, I’m very pleased.
•My new Raleigh Public Record story on the city loan pool came out.
•One novel and a short story came back. They will go out again soon, natch.
•I made my time quotas. 42 hours productive work, 12 hours fiction.
Like I said, satisfactory.
Filed under Brain From Outer Space, Nonfiction, Personal, Southern Discomfort, Writing
It’s de-lightful, de-lovely, de-stressing (#SFWApro)
This was a good week.
Despite having a doctor’s appointment (routine stuff) that took up a chunk of Tuesday and a couple of nights lousy sleep, I made my 42 hours quota for the week. I was about 30 minutes short on my fiction time, though I’m not sure where I misplaced it. I will make it up, though.
I devoted those 11.5 hours to work on Brain From Outer Space, and added another 15,000 words to the plot. As I’ve mentioned before, that’s less impressive than it sounds, as about 8,000 to 9,000 was carried over almost unchanged from the previous draft. Still, satisfactory.
I’m pleased with the work, except while my new prologue sets up the characters, I’m not sure it establishes the setting and the goals of science investigators as well as my original version did. I still haven’t found a scene to fix that, but I’m working on it. Everything else seems to go well—hopefully I’ll still think so in a couple of months. And my new structure for grouping scenes together and reducing the number of POV switches really helps things.
•I got two stories back from different markets. One went out again (I haven’t found the right market for the other, yet) and two more stories that came back in January went off.
•I was less productive in my Demand Media articles than I hoped. I’m starting to wonder if I shouldn’t slightly reduce my output—even though it’s my paying work, devoting an hour or two to magazine queries might benefit me more in the long run. I simply can’t seem to find the time otherwise. I tried doing that this afternoon and it went fairly well.
•I completed another story for the Raleigh Public Record. Not out yet, though.
•And I managed to stop work at 5 p.m. every day and destress 15 to 30 minutes (15 if I’m cooking). That really does help me relax overall, even on the rare occasions I have to go back to work later in the evening.
•On a minor note, I had a bunch of little odds-and-ends tasks that I’d been fallen behind on and managed to complete them all Monday. That feels very good. They’re the kind of thing that can slip through the cracks even as they stay on the iCalendar, so I’m pleased to finally catch up on them.
And that’s it for this week. Huzzah.
Foiled by the Fahrenheit! (#SFWApro)
The first couple of days I muddled through despite my lack of sleep due to our jacking up the thermostat.
By Wednesday/Thursday, however, the continued lack of sleep made me really, really sluggish. Thursday turned into a scratch day: I had stuff to do with TYG in the morning, a dentist’s appointment before noon—and by the time I got home, I just spent the afternoon asleep.
Happily I got a decent night’s sleep Thursday so I’m back up to my usual functionality.
Fiction-wise, I got several thousand words more done on Brain From Outer Space. This is definitely a much better draft than any of the recent ones, so my new approach must be working. Whether it’ll be working 70,000 words down the line … hard to say at this point, but let’s hope.
And I’m happy to report I got my first freelance assignment for the year. A friend of mine needed some material for a real-estate book, so she asked me to contribute. I’d have been happier if I’d been awake enough to finish it faster (the less time, the better the hourly rate) but I’m still pleased.
I submitted one story to F&SF, which is currently (for a brief period) accepting email submissions. I’d submitted it elsewhere but when I checked to see why I hadn’t heard anything, it turns out the magazine folded. I also contacted another magazine about a much overdue response to my submission; they’re still in business, but I haven’t heard boo. I’ll try again next week.
So not much to relate. Happily, as I have been tracking my time at different projects (using the lumina app),I know how much fiction time I need to make up. I intend to do so.
Filed under Brain From Outer Space, Nonfiction, Time management and goals, Writing
Valuable life lessons (#SFWApro)
Life lesson number one: When you lose a piece of work, whether it’s a computer crash or leaving a manuscript behind in a move, reconstructing is painful. Particularly when it was a finished work. Because it never feels as good as the original.
Case in point, Let No Man Put Asunder, an older novel I’m rewriting. I know my ability is better than 20 years ago when I last worked on it, my characterization is stronger—but it was finished, damn it! And trying to rebuild it from memory (the manuscript is gone except the first few chapters) is ohhhh so painful.
Life Lesson Two: I love writing fiction. I shouldn’t obsess too much over my self-imposed deadlines or even outside deadlines. I like doing this stuff! It just struck me this morning that I haven’t been enjoying it this week, so I made a conscious decision to relax and enjoy the work on Asunder. I felt much better at the end of the day.
Of course, one of the reasons I wasn’t enjoying it is that most of the week was spent replotting Brain From Outer Space. And I don’t outline well. I’m much better plotting as I write; I can replot fine with a short story but a full-length novel is absolutely painful.
That said, it looks reasonably good, though I’m going over it a couple more times before the end of the year. As I mentioned previously, I’ve revised it so that I don’t hopscotch around so much between POV characters. However there’s still Alan, Steve, Jo and Dani, with a couple of smaller roles and I wonder if that’s too much. However I don’t want it to be all Steve’s story (I’ve worked hard to give Dani a personal arc, and she deserves it) and I don’t think I can cut everyone else out. But I’ll think about it Monday.
I also got 1,000 more words in on the first draft of my post-WW I novel, which I’m now calling Danse Macabre.
I also polished my submission package for my steampunk novel, Questionable Minds. I’ll send it off to an agent next month—I’ve been told agents get besieged by NaNoNaNo drafts in December, and I’d prefer to avoid the herd.
And I have a new article out in Raleigh Public Record.
And that’s pretty much it. Surprisingly, although my mind wandered off during the frustrating parts of the replotting, I got done everything I intended to get done, so yay me.
