Words by Frances Rowat
Personal details; life, time management, work, cats, and sleep.
It felt a little early to be doing this, but looking at production schedules, I suppose it’s actually time. I had one thing published in 2019, and it’s actually a novelette.
“Ink, and Breath, and Spring”, available in issue 40 of Lady Churchill’s Rosebud Wristlet. November 2019. 7950 words. A tale of ashes and ink, and a dead body found on the grounds of a very strange library.
It’s really a pretty pleasant month, all things told. (I mean, most months are pleasant when you’re thinking about them while a cat is sitting on your lap and purring, but October generally suits me even without that.)
Work continues to go well. I’m working on the OcTBR Challenge and have finished ten books so far this month, which is honestly making me feel a little better about the ungoverned tsundoku pile I am dealing with. I’m also culling books, which is giving me space to put a lot of them more neatly on shelves. Yesterday’s election could have gone much worse. All the pets are okay. I got a very small rosebush and have so far managed to keep the pets from eating it (although it’s early days yet).
I actually finished a new story this month, too, rather than just revising something. Of course, given how I usually work, this means it’s going on the pile of things to revise. I’m hoping it’ll go faster than previous ones, though.
In other news, I had a small road trip which included dinner 120 stories in the air at a revolving restaurant with a spectacular view, and seeing a lot of very old horror movie posters and props, including what everyone is very sure is the last surviving poster from the original run of Frankenstein at the ROM’s It’s Alive! exhibit. I also got to go by Wonder Pens, which is a really lovely fountain-pen-and-related shop, and think I am now sated for ink for a while.
Heading out to Surrey for SIWC soon, and hoping that will be as fun and informative as it was last year. I should go pack.
So a thing that’s been on my mind a bit lately; I wrote a very small game, and it’s not very good.
I’m figuring out how to be okay with this. It’s not as hard as I expected it to be (the coming to terms, I mean, not the writing).
I don’t know how to fix it, exactly – I have fetched up hard against the taste gap, and knowing it’s not as good as I want doesn’t mean I can tell how to make it as good as I want. And I’m not sure I have the time to learn how to fix it. I mean, I could read up and study and analyze and fix it (or make a new one that was better), but I only have so much time to spend on making things , and ultimately, there are things I want to do more than I want to figure out how to make the game better.
(This feels like a very old-person post, in some ways. The finite amount of time.)
And it was a fun game to make, too. So I guess I’ll give it another pass to polish it, and call it good. It’s useful to know that I can still just do something to play around, and enjoy that.
I have recovered from April! Unfortunately, we’re over halfway through May, so.
The combination of “fiscal year end” and “end of term” was interesting. I really enjoyed the chance to teach, and from the (safely anonymized) student comments I didn’t do too badly? I’d like to do it again (although as a part-time professor, I won’t get the chance until winter).
I’m currently looking for stories to recommend for a slightly updated version of the course. I’m largely trying to keep it to prose, and looking to the Hugos and Nebulas as a filter, but it’s still going to be a bit of work.
I went to TCAF this weekend past! It was honestly fantastic, and I had a great time. Came back with a few more books than I was expecting, but it was a great weekend, and the trip each way gave me a lot of time to read. I’m hoping to get some reviews up.
On a personal note, I just handed in my comments on the page proofs of a story that should be coming out later this year, and I’m generally feeling pleased with that.
Well, we’ve had stretches of full thaw interrupted by days of below-zero temperatures and snow, but I’m pretty sure spring is going to actually show up shortly, and stick around.
Work (both jobs) seems to be going pretty well overall. I got an encouraging rejection recently, and I’m pausing to be glad for editors in the world who actually manage to deliver those kindly, because it was actually a really nice email to get. (Yes, the story’s been resubmitted.)
It occurred to me today that I’m looking at travelling to up to three cons this year–two conventions and a conference–and I’m thinking that should be about the most I plan for. I’m not sure I’ll make it to all three; I am sure, however, that planning for more than three is going to end up draining me before I get there, so none of that.
And in other news, Camp NaNoWriMo is being surprisingly motivating this year. I’m trying something new. (I’m also repeating every “fail faster” fragment of advice I’ve ever heard to myself. It seems to be helping.)
It’s actually above freezing here, for a change. Some of the sidewalks are still covered with three or four inches of ice, so the thaw isn’t helping much there, but the roads are getting steadily clearer. (And it does help with the sidewalks which aren’t covered with that much ice, so really, all to the good.)
The end of February (and the end of Google Events, dammit) came on a lot faster than I was expecting, so this weekend has been a lot of catch-up. I updated my record of rejections and got four stories out on submission. Skype seems to be working as a Google Hangouts alternative, at least, so that’s a plus.
I found out today that TCAF is coming up and at least two creators whose work I am really smitten by (Junji Ito and Emily Carroll) are going to be there, so I may try making it out in May. Looking at the logistics this next week coming up.
At some point, I’m really going to need to try going back to editing an electronic document. I like writing my edits on hardcopy and typing them up, but when you do that with a seventy-two page document, it results in hand cramps.
(I think I’m pretty happy with the end result, though.)
Anyway. The novella (I wrote a novella!) has been revised and is with my crit group for feedback. The new job has started, and having the extra five hours in the week is already making a difference. Mostly it’s making a difference in how much sleep I’m getting, and I am treasuring that.
I’m about a third of the way through the semester on the class I’m teaching, and I’m really enjoying it so far. It’s fascinating to see other people’s takes on SF, and I’ve added several things to my list of works to check out. Since I’m slowly getting used to having free time again, too, I may actually get to do that sooner rather than later.
My vacation has officially begun! (And I already have a list of things I’d like to do that would take me approximately three months, so managing expectations is going to be a big thing.)
Mostly, though, I’m hoping it will be a pretty quiet two weeks that gives me time to settle in to some heavy editing, get some stories lined up for submission next year, and a chance to sit down and play some video games. (Kentucky Route Zero has really grabbed my attention; I think there’s something to be said for all the questions it doesn’t let you ask, and thus forces you to take as somewhat natural to the setting.)
It’s that time of year, and I’m really pleased to say that I had two short stories come out in 2018, both free to read online:
“Late Night at the Low Road Diner”, available in Liminal Stories. August 2018. 3550 words. A waitress dealing with a boy and a pale thing that come into the diner one night.
Reviewed in Apex Magazine’s Words for Thought by A.C. Wise, and also in Vanessa Fogg’s August and September Short Fiction Recs.
“Interview with Cortesa Singh”, released online and on Twitter to promote the After the War Kickstarter. 12 November 2018. 500 words. An asteroid miner’s story of surviving the War and coming to rest on Dirt.
Barrelling on at high speed towards winter, now. Hallowe’en was nice, if quiet; we resorted to putting a jack o’lantern out on the front porch and a small sign asking people to follow the honour system, and then refilling the candy bowl regularly.
I’m working on NaNoWriMo, but rather than aiming for thousands of words, I’m aiming for hours of editing. It’s going pretty well so far; I’ve revised one story, and done the first half of my revisions on another.
(The first story I revised, I’ve also come up with an idea for another change to it that I think will make it stronger, so it’s not exactly done yet. I’m just figuring out how to make the change I want without completely altering the tone.)
If you ever find a good crit group, by the way, treasure them for they are absolute gold. Sometimes you genuinely do not see what is wrong with a story and then three people very gently tell you that you appear to have started a 21-page story on page 9.
Also, the Kickstarter for After the War kicks off on Monday, and I’ll be sharing my story “Interview with Cortesa Singh” then! Hoping you enjoy it.