Accessing The Future: The Story Audit

Well, writing my edition of the “Accessing The Future Fiction” blog hop got me thinking. I’m not doing a lot to get dis/ability issues into my fiction (along with considering race, nationality, gender, sexuality, age, etc.) The inclusivity is something that I ought to work on, even if I do it with my usual, privileged, white + British + cis-gendered + heterosexual + able bodied + not … Continue reading

Sunday 9th February, 2014

Well, that first R&D “Untitled” novella I mentioned back in January. is done. It finished off at 22600 words. As this is a first draft it could end up a few thousand words shorter or longer by the time it’s well and truly finished. However, the first draft being done means it’s time for a break for a few days and then consider what project comes next.

If you’re bothering to look at my list of things to do on that link, by the way, I’ve started trying to rehome An Invisible Tide, so that’s no longer on the “to do” list at all. I’ve had a couple of additions to the list, that are just ideas sketched down at this stage, too. This is not including doing re-reads and perhaps salvaging older work. If I think about it too hard, I’m likely to start doing some of it, so I’ll shut up now.

The weekend went OK, although the rugby results weren’t exactly what I was hoping for (Ireland beat Wales 26-3, England beat Scotland 20-0, France beat Italy 30-10). Well, at least BOD’s on track for a glorious end to his International career.

And a reminder about the Esfinges Twitter Hours (on site link and details on the Esfinges blog [External Link]). The inaugural #HEMAHour went well but we could do with more people discussing women in martial arts in general for #WarriorWomenHour! If you’re interested and want to ask what things are like before trying it out, this is a good place to start.

Sunday 26th January, 2014

Following today’s post about a new fictional world – or, at least, the new box to put my toys in – I thought I’d share my current list of projects to make up for the times when it looks like I’m doing nothing.

  1. A Pack Of Lies (Novel, Fur-Skins, Elkie 2), 1st draft – beta reading,
  2. Good Form (Practice script based on short story), 1st draft – stewing,
  3. An Invisible Tide (Short, sf), 2nd draft – beta reading,
  4. Untitled (Novella, R&D), 1st draft in progress,
  5. Untitled (Novella, R&D), notes,
  6. Brothers Under The Skin (Novel, Fur-Skins, Elkie 3), notes,
  7. Into The Greenwood / Queen of Fools? (Novel, fantasy), notes,

I’m about three quarters of the way through the first draft of the first R&D “Untitled” on my list. But I really do very little writing. I just peck away at it when I can, which is why things take a while to emerge in final copy.

My “to be rewritten” mountain is a similar length, if I keep it down to the work I’m intending to read through and then make a decision on this year – maybe even redo, time allowing:

You may recognise some of those from when I first got into writing with intent – back in 2007, no less. I suspect some of them count towards the first however many hundred thousand words that are supposed to be total crap. Some chunks of those are total crap but I want to see if there’s anything worth salvaging.

R&D: Development Issues

As ever, I had a bright idea. This one got a bit messy. More precisely, I had the bright idea of reusing technology that turned up in earlier stories and something I was drafting at the time. So…

The Framework

The science fiction stories I’m lumping together as background stories are as follows: