Neglecting the blog? Never! This is a big ol’ pile of miscellanea; things I want to get out there but I’d rather not do a mess of super short blog posts. My kiddo is bouncing happily so let’s see how much I can get done while jumping up and down keep entertained.
Amity v1.5
It’s coming along. Finding what chunks of time I can to type the b’jebus out of it. I think about 40% of it is in digital form and not just sitting in my notebooks. I’ve got a dozen-ish beta readers who are chomping at the bit to read it so I am trying to ramp it up. That’s part of why the blog posts aren’t flowing fast and furious. Downside of all this is that I’ve had a horrible thought that keeps nagging me… wondering about changing from third person for all three protags to third for only two of them and first person for the primary protag. I need my beta reader feedback before I do anything drastic. It would require a rewrite of a third of the book. It’s a possibility. Gotta get that feedback though.
New Writing
It’s happening, which is part of why Amity v1.5 is slower than I’d like. I was getting antsy that I wasn’t writing anything new. I have a couple shorts I’m working on. One is a prequel/backstory to the next novel I plan on writing, the Connecticut godpunk. I’m also in the middle of another one that’s a bit more specialized. I was looking for a good idea for a couple of characters that have showed up in a previous story and I found a market taking some themed submissions and those characters just fit. I’ve also got pen on paper with a meta story that’s been rolling around in my head for a long time. I’ve actually changed from third to first person and lopped off the front half of that one already.
Tangent on the Connecticut godpunk… Going to have to add a pronunciation guide in the front. The Thames River in New London Connecticut is pronounced very differently than the Thames River in London England. It will drive me crazy thinking of all the people saying it wrong.
To Read Pile
It’s gorram huge. I’m currently in the middle of book two of Kylie Chan‘s Journey to Wudang Trilogy… which is really the second trilogy in a set of three. I guess trilogies sell better than nonologies. As there is no pause from one to the next, I’m going to do the blog post about it when I’m all done. I’ve got a few shorts stacked up on my Nook. Been following John Scalzi’s The Human Division which is his and Tor’s experiment with bringing back serials. I have also been picking at the Mitigated Futures compilation from Tobias Buckell.
My dead trees To Read Pile has gotten big enough where I had to send a few books off to a new home to make room for the ones I have. It’s got the first of Kevin Hearne’s Iron Druid Chronicles, the next of Naomi Novak’s Temeraire series, the classic Ringworld books, a CJ Cherryh from ’82 picked up on a recommendation from twitter, more from Jim C Hines, and Peter V Brett, The Hammer and the Blade put out by Angry Robot Books and a new steampunk series starting with The Doomsday Vault. Oh and I just remembered I borrowed a whole Jim Butcher series from my dad and have a couple stand alone David Weber books kicking around. This is just what I had handy and doesn’t count any rereads in there like my annual Zelazny reread. It takes me longer to get through the To Read Pile now that I don’t work nights and have the kiddo, so the pile as listed will probably keep me occupied through April. This in no way factors in the To Buy List.
Anticipated Books
This list is largely sequels for stuff I’ve read and enjoyed the crap out of. The new Myke Cole comes out this week. Peter Brett has his newest coming out soon, once I catch up with it. Madeline Ashby’s sequel to vN comes out this summer. Joshua Palmatier / Ben Tate is slated to finish the Well of Sorrows series sometime this year. Angry Robot Books has some particularly cool looking stuff coming up (as always). I’m waiting for Libriomancer to drop in paperback soon too.
Impending Blog Posts
Yeah I have a bunch of those. The Journey to Wudang post will be a biggie. So many characters, I need a flowchart with that. I’ve got some other non-book posts on the burner including one I want to see if I can get some outside opinions on. Means reaching out in a less craptastic way than I did last time. I was new at this then, it happens. I’m going to hit Boskone again next month so there will be a nice big pile of pontifications on that.
By the way, the answer to how much I could get done while my kiddo was bouncing away in his jumpy thing… Two paragraphs. You didn’t think I’d have him up jumping at ten til midnight did you?
Mike Douton's Stuff and/or Junk 