In January we moved to Colorado, specifically, Evergreen–a small town up in the Rocky Mountains. Our home is at around 8000 feet, and needless to say, it took a while to get acclimated. P90X at this altitude was pretty crazy, but I’ve since conquered that. The move to Colorado was day job related, but I have to say, my writing environment has never been better.

Speaking of writing, I’ve written more short stories in the past nine months than in the 2.5 years I spent in the D.C. area. Some of that is the lovely environment I’m in now, and some is the work situation–I was miserable at my last assignment, and now I’m happy at the day job.

Speaking of the day job, well, I’ve already traveled more for work in the past nine months than in the 2.5 years I spent in the D.C. area. I’ve been to some really cool places such as Alaska and Seattle, and of course I had to go back to D.C. (which I’d normally enjoy, but was under some major time constraints and couldn’t visit all the people on my list).

I’ve also traveled a little for my second job: writing. In June, I spent ten days on the Oregon Coast attending a Short Story Workshop taught by Kristine Kathryn Rusch with special appearances by Dean Wesley Smith. I highly recommend attending that workshop. Kris pushed me so hard that week, but I’ve never had more fun writing. The other writers I met at the workshop were incredible and I’m honored to have met them.

In August, I attended the World Science Fiction Convention held in Reno, NV. I met many wonderful people there as well as running into people I became acquainted with at World Fantasy last year, and I’m now able to name them friends. The relationship building at the conventions is the big draw for me, but many of the panels were informative. I roomed with Griffin Barber during the convention and had a blast–he’s a great wingman and always entertaining (he’s also a darn good writer, check out his blog it’s great and he updates it quite often). I also had the great privilege of having multiple meals with Griffin and Mark L. Van Name (author of multiple novels and all-around great guy), as well as catch a movie (the Fright Night remake which was pretty decent really).

Also at World Con I had a short story critiqued by Jay Lake and Eytan Kollin. The critique went well and Jay said he could see that particular story published in Realms of Fantasy if I tightened it up a bit–very awesome. And speaking of Jay Lake, I attended the Hugo Awards (with Mark Van Name) which Jay emceed with Ken Scholes – the ceremony was very entertaining.

Griffin and I also met with author Chuck Gannon at what they call a kaffeeklatsch. We discussed what Chuck was currently working on as well as Eric Flint’s 1632 universe. Chuck was able to provide some guidance regarding stories Griffin and I are working on independently for the Grantville Gazette.

And one last note regarding World Con:  I may have stumbled upon a writing opportunity there that I’ll be discussing at World Fantasy this year in San Diego–very exciting.

I’ll probably attend MileHiCon this year now that I work in Denver and live close enough to Denver to make it worthwhile.

Well, that’s quite a bit for one post–hopefully I make posting to the blog more a regular thing!

I had a short story (novelette really) receive Honorable Mention at the Writers of the Future Contest for the 3rd 2nd quarter, and I just got back from David Farland’s Professional Writers Workshop in Dallas, Texas. I met many wonderful people and had a great time–and learned a great deal!

I’ll write more on my experiences during the workshop this week. But now it’s back to the manuscript and major overhauling/revisions.

Advantages:  Learning economy of words–short of poetry, I can’t think of a better way to learn to be succinct and get the most across in the shortest amount of words. Also, the aforementioned complete story in the space of maybe 5k words. The short story doesn’t allow boredom. One can simply finish a story and move on to a nice new shiny idea and then another, and another. The blood, sweat, and tears just isn’t there in a short story as it is in a novel.  Just the sheer number of words the novel requires makes the short story very satisfying to get ideas out.

Disadvantages:  Developing multiple characters and stretching out. There are times I just want to keep going on a certain topic, and then I realize I need to keep it going or the short story will turn into a novelette, and morph into a novella, or novel. I love to write from multiple POVs, meaning: I like to have multiple POV characters and write chapters based on their POV. Similar to George R R Martin’s Song of Fire and Ice series, but of course I could only hope to write half as well as GRRM.

On the surface, it may seem there are more advantages to the Short Story, but the chance to fully develop characters and be able to live with them for thousands and thousands of words in a novel is very appealing to me. I find it very hard to get in the mind of a character in a short story, and maybe I’m just missing the point in that form. I’ve read that in Science Fiction short stories it’s more the gimmick that the story evolves from, and in the end the character learns something meaningful. I know that is a simplification, but I’m just too lazy to quote from the actual text.

Well, I’m going to keep plugging away on the short stories. I do feel they are a great way to break into writing–at least into Science Fiction and Fantasy. On a related note, I got notification back from the Writers of the Future Contest that I did not win, and in fact, I didn’t even place in the competition. The good news is that I submitted the first short story I had ever written and the coordinating judge for the contest, K.D. Wentworth (a past winner and published writer of fantasy and sci-fi) submitted stories five (5) times before she won. So, I don’t feel bad, I’m still learning and with each story I can only get better.

So for now, I’m busy writing short stories, and revising the ones I’ve finished. I still need to finish revisions on my novel Progeny, which I’m becoming more excited about revisiting.

I’ve become fascinated (after writing some sci-fi short stories) with writing a Science Fiction novel. I’ve been tossing some ideas around in my head, but decided I needed to re-educate myself on modern physics. It’s been almost 20 years since I’ve taken a college level physics class and I’m quite sure there have been major advances since then….

For some light reading I chose Parallel Worlds by Michio Kaku. Very easy read so far, it’s definitely written for the layman, and at times I find myself wanting a little more number crunching and pure science. Overall I’d recommend the book if you are at all interested in cosmology but are afraid to pick up a book on it for fear it will be over your head.

Alistair

Well, it’s been a while since I’ve posted to the blog, but I’ve been updating my word counts daily on the main webpage. I’ve been working on another science fiction short story to enter into the Writers of the Future Contest. I submitted a story back in September for the same contest, and should be hearing within the next month whether or not my story has been chosen. I’m a little nervous, but I know that either way I’ll continue to learn the craft of writing, and improve with each story I write. For those who are not aware, this contest has been discovering new writers for over 25 years now, and is judged by well-known and respected names in the Science Fiction and Fantasy communities. To be a finalist in the competition opens quite a few doors, not to mention publication in an annual anthology.

Once I’m finished with the current short story, I’ll be working on the revisions for the Progeny novel. I completely rewrote the beginning a couple months back and I think it has provided some grit and immediacy to the entire story. I’ve learned that revising is difficult. It isn’t hard for me to chop off words, or make subtle changes.  The hard part for me is the macro editing: looking at the entire story and seeing how all the pieces fit, and if they’re all doing what they are supposed to be doing, as well as knowing when to add or subtract big pieces from the story.  I thought I’d be able to have the first revision to Progeny done by the New Year, but….

Life happens, and it has happened in good ways for me:

I got married to my long time girlfriend on November 1st, 2009 in Washington, D.C., which was an amazing event in my life. We then took a transatlantic voyage on the Queen Mary 2 from New York to England, and spent a few days in London. An incredible honeymoon, and an absolutely awesome way to begin our marriage.

The month leading up to the wedding was full of stress however, as our day job didn’t see fit to cooperate with our carefully laid plans for her to move down to Northern Virginia.  In the end it all worked out, but getting to that point was pure hell. So, with my personal life at an all time high, I’m poised now to enter a very creative phase, and I’ve even felt an itch to compose some music again, but we’ll see.  I don’t want other creative endeavors to take away from my writing, so the music just may need to take a back seat until a few things are completed.

So, now that my life has somewhat settled down again, I believe I can find the time to blog on a more regular basis!

Alistair

Why did I not go back to my 115k word novel? Well…for one I had a contest deadline I wanted to meet for the short story.  Plus, I figured revising the short story would be excellent practice for when I started on the novel. I learned a lot during the revisions on the short story, and I also learned that I had to let it go.  No matter how many times I read it after a revision I always found things I could fix or tinker with. Finally, I had to stop. I read it through after I don’t know, nine revisions and said that’s it.  I checked it for obvious errors and just sent it away to the contest.

I think the process of editing the short story was important for how I was going to tackle the 115k word novel. Seeing the short story grow with each revision excited me and I actually started to believe I could write an engaging story and craft interesting sentences.  Those sentences came to life and the characters became real.

So, now I’m revising my novel and it is still daunting. I’ve restructured the opening and believe it is much stronger this time. I know though that once I make it through the whole novel it is going to take a few more passes before I think it is anywhere close to being ready for me to query agents about it.

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While revising the novel I thought I’d write the second book of the series, but I’ve decided to write something entirely different. After I write this book I’ll go back to the series, but for now I think it’s a good idea to try writing something much different than the first book.  It’d be so easy for me to continue to write the series since I know the characters and setting so well, but I don’t want a comfort zone at the moment. In the end I think this will make me a better writer. Once I get the world built and some characters to inhabit the world I’ll post more on it.

Anyway, off to revising the Progeny manuscript.

Alistair

The short story I intend to enter into the Writers of the Future contest.  It’s actually the first short story I’ve ever written.  I wasn’t sure if I’d like to write short stories, but I have to say, it was quite enjoyable.  So, I’m polishing that story in order to submit it by the end of August. I intend to keep writing short stories while in revision mode on the fantasy novel.  I may just end up with a short story that begs to be turned into a novel.

Vacation was great. That trip to Nova Scotia was the first time I’d been to a foreign country since 1988 I think.  Quite a long drought huh?  Canada was a lot of fun, and during the course of the trip I got engaged to the most wonderful, intelligent, caring, and beautiful woman.  I was very lucky she said yes.  :)

It was hell coming back from Canada though…I had to be back in Virginia for the movers the morning after we got back, but the flight was delayed.  It was beginning to feel a lot like the movie Planes, Trains and Automobiles for a while.  In the end I made it home, but only had a few hours to sleep before the movers showed up.  But it all worked out.  I am now in an even better townhouse, in a better neighborhood.  My fiance’ (what a wonderful thing to be able to write) will be joining me Virginia in early October.  So for now I continue to be looked after by my two furry little friends Juniper and Woobie.

Anyhow, it’s great to be back, and there will be more updates soon!

Alistair

So, after spending a little over five months on this project(piecing together the story, researching, writing, etc), I’m happy to write that I finished the first draft this evening!

I’m looking forward to digging back into the novel and seeing what worked and what fell flat, or was just plain awful.  I suspect there may be some sections that worked really well, and those will be a pleasant surprise.

I had originally planned on this book being 200k words, but based on current trends I decided to cut it down to about 115k words.  I know I’ll be able to cut quite a bit in the revision, but I may need to add as well.  I bet I’ll end up with around 110k, but we’ll see.

I don’t want to start the second book in the series until I’ve had time to do a macro edit on the first one.  So, with that in mind:  I belong to a writing group called:  book-in-a-week, it takes place once a month(usually the first Monday of each month) and lasts for, you guessed it:  one week.  The goal of the group isn’t for critique, nothing that is written gets turned in, it’s simply a way to get motivated and just type away.  You post your daily totals and also get to see how many pages other writers are cranking out each day.  It’s a great group.

Anyway, since I don’t feel comfortable starting the second book in the series, I intend on using the upcoming week to write a science fiction short story that I intend to enter into the Writers of the Future Contest.  So, between now and Monday morning when book-in-a-week starts, I’ll be piecing together my ideas for the scifi short story.

Tomorrow night my girlfriend and I will be celebrating the completion of my first draft with a bottle of champagne!  I can’t wait!  This draft is significant since I haven’t finished a novel since about the 8th grade back in 1984, so it’s a big deal!

Anyway, happy writing and happy living!

Alistair