The Spreadsheet of Ideas

Writing and editing Gap Years has kept me busy for ages. I've also recently done some work editing my novelette for the Ancient New anthology, written a flash fiction story and completed work on a collaboration with Ken Schneyer. I'm currently working on a collaboration with several other authors, but at the moment I have nothing to write until I hear back from them.

So, with time available, I sat down to do some writing and shockingly discovered that for the first time in several years I have nothing ready to write at the moment. My great spreadsheet of ideas lists 4 short stories and 2 novels, but even the short stories are not well-enough developed to start writing yet.

So I'm doing some plotting, working on synopses of the novels, biding my time...

Gap Years Edited

Several months after finishing the first draft, the final edit of Gap Years is complete. It's also now 10,000 words shorter.

Conveniently, during a break only pages from the end, I formulated the broad plot for a sequel. Not sure when I'll start work on that...

2011 Writing Review

At the begining of the year, I had several plans for what I was hoping to accomplish in terms of writing this year. We're approaching the finale now, so how have I done?

The main accomplishment has been finishing my second novel Gap Years. After some initial editing it was read by my beta readers, then I kind of ignored it for a while, but now I'm almost done with the final edit. Definitely by the end of December...

I wrote 2 of the short stories that had been waiting for ages, plus another 2 flash fiction stories that I thought up along the way. I wrote my first complete TV screenplay and plenty of suppporting material for a potential TV series. I've also collaborated on a short story with Kenneth Schneyer and recently started on another experimental collaboration with several authors. Details on both of these will be forthcoming.

What shall I do next...

Book Review: Phases of Gravity by Dan Simmons

This was the last review I wrote, several months ago now, and the book is published this month.

Unusually for me, I’m reviewing a non-SF book. This is purely by accident of course. The title, the fact that it’s about an astronaut and is being published by Subterranean Press fooled me into thinking that Dan Simmons’ Phases Of Gravity was going to be science fiction.

Read the rest of my review at SF Crowsnest.