Sheila and Sara

About ten years ago, I wrote a little science fiction story called "Is That What You Want", which is about a transaction in a place that rents out sexbots. It's more of a vignette than a story, but it is complete at a modest 1,400 wordcount. I dug it up from the depths of my hard drive by using the most obvious search term and found that much of my future technology had gone out of date. Soon after, I learned at a panel at Chattacon called "Sex and the Single Robot" that modern technology was getting closer to catching up to my notions of sexbots. I figured I needed to get this story out before it was rendered obsolete. I updated it and ran it past a couple of writers' groups--Vicious Circle and Decatur Science Fiction, Fantasy and Horror Scribes, both of which are on Meetup and I highly recommend--and the feedback was quite possibly the most positive I've gotten for anything I've ever written. So I gave it one more grind and polish and sent it...

I haven't written much here , but I have been writing. I successfully completed National Novel Writing Month this past November, for certain values of "completed." I crossed the 50,000 mark a few days early, and closed out at 54,527 on the 30th. However, the novel itself is not narratively complete, so it ended on " To be continued... " instead. (My outline--which I played with for most of the year--was ridiculously detailed.) I plan to work on finishing it over the next few months (there's not enough material left to merit a sequel out of it, plus I have stuff in mind for the next book in the series) and edit into something rereadable. The revisions on  The Two Kinds of Magic  are progressing nicely, thanks to a writers' group that specializes in genre fiction. (As I've discovered, getting feedback on an urban fantasy from literary types is Not Very Helpful.) I'm already outlining revisions in my head for parts that they haven't even gott...

“Forgive me, father, for I have sinned.  My last confession was three months ago.  I have committed a mortal sin, but I did it to preserve the life of my apprentice, my friend, the safety of this world and my own life.” From behind the screen there was a sigh.  Sebastian recognized it.  It was Father Harrison, who usually took confession around this time.  It was safe to tell him everything; he had been red cord bound for years after witnessing someone flying. Father Harrison finally spoke.  His voice was weary.  “Tell me, Sebastian, who have you killed this time?”

Please excuse Sheila from working on Vexations  yesterday and in the near future, as she has run out of things to do to it and will likely not have any new things to do until she receives feedback from her various writers' groups. Thank you.

Please excuse Sheila from working on Vexations  today as she was mesmerized by the supermoon.

I just pointed some people to this blog, which I take as a hint that I should update the thing so the last entry isn't over a year ago. My various streams of income have been very demanding and I have been writing actual fictional stuff in the free time in between. And NaNoWriMo pretty much ate my November. But one of my New Year's resolutions was to do twelve posts in my various blogs (in totality--not per blog) and I just finished another resolution of submitting The Two Kinds of Magic  to at least five agents, so I'm feeling like things are possible. I'm working on two things right now. One is a short(ish) story called Vexations  which I was starting in the previous entry here. (It was 7,000 words then; it clocks in at 14,000 words now.) The other is a detailed outline of this coming November's NaNoWriMo effort. (It's a sequel to last year's--I guess I just didn't want the story to end.) I've sniffed out some potential places to submit Vexati...

As you may have noticed, I have successfully updated this blog after a little over a year of silence.  One entry I’d already written, to be fair, but I also restarted with new material. The thing that held me back was the lack of time.  I am currently working two jobs, sometimes three depending on the season, and I still have my Ten Thousand Flowers Project to attend to, as well as learning guitar and writing fiction.  Finding an hour or two, as most writing advice recommends, is not something I can do on a daily basis.  Even twenty minutes is too much to ask most days. So I experimented with five.  Five at minimum, sometimes more.  My technique is to sit down to work and glance at the clock.  I calculate five minutes from there and start to work.  Periodically I check the clock and stop when I’ve hit the five minute mark.  Sometimes I get so absorbed in what I’m writing I breeze past five minutes.  The point is to do something...