August 2022 Update!

Reminder that this is mirrored from my Patreon page and you can check that out for more posts!

This month’s lesson will be Plot (and also character).  What is plot anyway, and why does it matter so much? Part of this is about how we really need to get across some sign of the plot on the first page (in a short story) or the first chapter (in a novel). As an example, in the following week’s seminar I’ll show you the before and after of the beginning of the story I’m working on right now.

I have a couple of new stories out!

“Grow”: This is the origin story of one of my Wild Cards characters. I posted my initial outline of this story a couple months ago, and now you can see what the final product looks like.

Also out this month on Clarkesworld: “Polly and (Not) Charles Conquer the Solar System.” I’m really excited about this one because a) I’m still really excited about novellas, which seems to be a lot of what I’m writing these days and b) It’s the sequel to my novel Martians Abroad and I can finally show people what happened to Polly and Charles.

This story has a really good example of how “real world” experience often gets incorporated into my work. It usually isn’t a big plot point or a character based on a real person. It’s often a small detail that stuck with me, that I can use to make a story feel more real. “Polly and (Not) Charles” has a single line about people freaking out in environment suits:  “I made him look at me. You could usually tell when someone in a suit was about to freak out because their eyes would get really round, showing too much white. But he wasn’t freaking out.” About ten years ago I went scuba diving in the Yucatan in Mexico, in one of the cenotes – limestone caverns that have filled with ground water. It’s not cave diving, but it’s close. It’s probably the most challenging diving I’ve done – there’s not a lot of room, and staying calm and in control are critical. Several times during  the dive, our guide stopped each of the divers and looked at our faces. Afterwards, I asked him why. He said, “So I can see if you’re about to freak out.” He explained that people sometimes get suddenly claustrophobic and panic, and he so he looks at their eyes to make sure they’re still calm. Almost the exact line I used in the story. Scuba diving and space travel:  both using technology to keep us alive in hostile environments. I can use that similarity. 

What I’m watching:  Catching up on the latest seasons of shows I’ve been watching, like What We Do in the Shadows and For All Mankind. Nadia wearing two little top hats at the nightclub is something I’ll be thinking about for a long, long time.

I baked cinnamon rolls for the first time. They turned out a little crunchy around the edges, and it turns out I kinda like ’em that way!

And last month I had a realization: if I really want to get cleaning done I need to do it in the morning before I do anything else because by late afternoon I just want to sit on the sofa and veg. We’ll see how long I can keep this up!