Camp NaNoWriMo April 2014

It's that time of year again, when I go into a solid month of trying to write 50,000 words. I have a really fun book idea this time around, so I expect to do well.

I won't give away too much too early, but it's a science fiction novel in the vein of The Ship of the Unforgotten. This one is called Instansit and centers on the difficulties experienced by the crew and inhabitants of a generation ship that faces a voyage that lasts not just centuries, but many millennia.

Wish me luck, get ready to read more from me than you've gotten in a while, and please consider helping me out through my Patreon campaign!

Ad Eyes in Foil & Phaser's 'Divide and Conquer'

I'm pleased to report that a much-polished and improved version of my science fiction short story Ad Eyes is available now for free in Foil & Phaser's Divide and Conquer eBook anthology of science fiction and fantasy!

Ad Eyes is a disturbing story the war for advertising attention taken to scary new heights, as Terry finds himself fighting to take his eyes off of just about every ad he comes across in his daily life.

The anthology contains a number of other fantastic works of sci-fi and fantasy as well. It's the product of Foil & Phaser's NaNoWriMo collaborative workshop effort, and all of the collected stories are well worth your time and attention.

Divide and Conquer is available at Goodreads and at Smashwords.

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Congratulations to NaNoWriMo 2013 Winners

To all who wrote, congratulations! I did take part, but did not finish this year. I focused my efforts on a side-project spearheaded by Foil & Phaser, the fan-run writing counterpart to the Sword & Laser podcast.

We did a "Divide and Conquer" challenge where participants wrote a short story of approximately 1,500 words, and we're now in the process of reading over each others' work and basically workshopping it. The results will hopefully be available for you soon as an ebook. (I should mention that when I say "soon," I mean early next year

50,000 x3 in 13 months.

It has been 13 months since I started writing full time. When I put it that way, it just utterly blows my mind.

In that time, I've completed National Novel Writing Month twice, and also completed one instance of Camp NaNoWriMo. That's 150,000 words in 13 months, not counting all the other writing I did every single day of those 13 months.

I'd like to thank everyone who's been reading this stuff I throw together and put out there, and especially everyone who comments and gives feedback on it. Your numbers may not be large, but I can't begin to tell you how large your impact is. I wouldn't be the writer I am now, nor would I be the writer I will be tomorrow, without all your feedback and support.

I'm just about recovered from this latest NaNoWriMo, so it's time to think seriously about what I'm going to work on next. I have two books well under way; The Price of Entanglement still needs to be finished, and though NaNoWriMo's done, The Diffident Hero isn't even close to done. I have several works in progress from months ago that I need to return to at some point, and the feedback I've gotten from the short fiction I produced over the autumn has been nothing short of mind-blowing, so I want to do a lot more of that too.

Did I tell you all about that? One of my heroes from when I was a teenager, Scott Murphy, ex of Sierra Online's Space Quest series and half of the Two Guys from Andromeda, bought and read My Abstract Life and really liked it. He very kindly gave me permission to quote him on it.

@gordmcleod The My Abstract Life story you wrote reminded me of Ray Bradbury and the Twilight Zone. Good stuff.

— Scott Murphy (@SlashVohaul) November 27, 2012

The path ahead of me isn't looking very easy, and I'm sure it's not the last time it'll look hard. But every time I hear back from someone who's read what I wrote and enjoyed it, or cares enough to point out a problem in it that I can fix, or takes the time to say "Hey, thanks," it just shows me more and more clearly that easy or not, this is my path, this is what I have got to do. And it makes it all worth while.

Thanks, everyone.

Better Again

Tonight's the first night in some time that I've felt reasonably well. I've spent the night writing, but only a little of that writing has been publishable material, with the rest being notes. Therefore I'll be putting more up tomorrow. Check back soon!