writing updates, 5/23/2010

As you may recall, my writing goals for 2010 went something like this:

• publish 3 nonfiction travel articles by July
• publish 3 short fiction stories by July
• publish my novel by the end of the year

Not counting the paltry piece I did for an information broker ("Tips on Learning to Play the Piano") I've published two nonfiction articles so far (in Real Travel Adventures and In The Know Traveler, respectively). The third (and several more) should be taken care of (and then some) by my trip to England. I've secured a deal with The Expeditioner to publish two-day dispatches covering my two-week sojourn there, beginning mid-June.

My novel goals have been amended, mutating from "publish by the end of the year" to "move the story toward publication." Sound nebulous to you? You're right. I've decided to forget the deadlines. Following them was a lot of stress and a dearth of productivity. I'm not due to get my manuscript back from my beta readers anytime soon, so there's nothing substantial to do for the nonce. But more excitingly, I'm making arrangements to send my MS off to my great uncle (on my mother's side) and my second cousin (on my father's), both of whom are published authors. My great uncle has written something like 40 books on business, and my cousin wrote a dark fantasy romance novel. I've sent both of them letters, asking if they'd care to read what I have and give me any pointers (including information about publishers and agents). I already know that my great uncle is interested; my grandfather (his brother) passed the information along to him, and he asked if he could have a look. And at the moment, the poor man's laid up in his house with a ruptured spleen, so (as Grandpa said) this is the perfect opportunity for me to employ him as a reader!

I'm tremendously excited about this. Professional input is what I really need at this point. Getting help from the pros is going to be a godsend. My relations might even put me in touch with an agent! Huzzah!
That just leaves me with the problem of short fiction. What with blogging, and working a job, and actively seeking another, and languishing with my novel in the ninth circle of revision hell, I haven't had much of a chance at writing anything new. But I've put my shoulder to the wheel, and I now have four stories on the go.

They're all science fiction. The first is ruddy brilliant, or would be, if I could just figure out to get from Act II to the end of Act III. It's about a human colony on another planet that's ruled by the same sort of debilitating caste system they have (or used to have) in India. The second story is rotten, only a few paragraphs in and I'm already hating it. It's about the Big Crunch, and takes place billions of years in the future. It was inspired by certain stories I read in a science fiction anthology, The World Turned Upside Down. Isaac Asimov had a pretty good one in there ("The Last Question") which concerned the distant future, and human evolution, and what would happen to the universe, and so on. Mine is similar. But I think I'm just coming off as a hack.

The third story is even ruddier brillianter than the first. Got a sort of cryptozoological angle to it. Plus it has an old-timey feel that's fun to write (it's set in Rhodesia in 1957). The fourth story, which I just began writing the other night, is about the Bermuda Triangle. Specifically, it concerns Flight 19: a squadron of Grumman TBM Avengers that went on a long-distance training mission in 1945 and vanished without a trace. More mysterious yet, one of the search planes that was sent to look for them disappeared as well. There's all sorts of theories about what happened to these airplanes and their crews, ranging from the mundane to the fantastic. Maybe they ran out of a fuel. Maybe a freak microburst swatted their planes out of the air. Maybe strange fluctuations in Earth's magnetic field played merry hob with their compasses and sent them far off course. Maybe they were abducted by UFOs. Maybe power crystals from the city of Atlantis opened up a pathway to another dimension and sucked them in. Who knows where they wander now...?

Unlike most of my other writing projects, I'm optimistic and cheerful about these stories. I have a feeling that they're going to be no problem, you know? Just some little 10,000-word stories, that's it. Editing them's going to be a snap, I've got the plots all figured out in advance (something I didn't really have when I began writing The Novel). Plus they're just plain fun: I feel as though I can just write whatever comes into my head, take the story whatever direction I want, write the story itself about whatever I want. Look at the above: you've got planetary colonization, universe-destroying, horrific monsters, and the intoxicating and timeless mystery of the Bermuda Triangle (under a veneer of WWII airplanes). What's not to love? Moreover, with these short stories, there's not as much research required as a full-blown novel, not as much writing required as a full-blown novel, not as much revision required as a full-blown novel, not as much depth required as a full-blown novel, not as much—

Noticing a pattern here? Publishing is what's bothering me. I've never tried to market anything fictitious before. My subscription to Writer's Market has slackened, and I'm hesitant to begin another, because now it costs money, dammit, and I'm trying to save for England. I need to suck it up and just pick up a copy at the local bookstore, I guess. But either way, I need to find some short fiction (science fiction) markets. If I do that (and I really work my butt off between the time I get back from England and July 1st, 2010) then I ought to reach my goals.

I'll keep you posted. If anyone has any suggestions about magazines that publish short fiction, I'd be grateful. Heck, I'll sell 'em to Playboy. That's how Stephen King got his start, y'know.