Update: August 2022

Summer vacation is drawing to a close, which means I’ll have the house to myself for the first time in roughly two and a half years! Hopefully that means I’ll have no trouble making real progress in the months ahead, but let’s focus on this month for now.

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August has been entirely consumed by work on my outline for A League of Honor, which currently stands at just over 8500 words. Combined with my worldbuilding, my pre-writing work on this project totals somewhere between 20,000 and 23,000 words. But it is finally done!

Figuring out the character arcs for my leads–and especially how those arcs tie into the Third Act Breakup/Dark Night of the Soul–was by far the toughest part, but things have come together nicely.

Commander William Reeves doubts anybody will ever be attracted to who he is as a person rather than his genetically engineered appearance, while investigative reporter Gianna Venizelos holds a real grudge against the star nation and navy he serves. Not to mention she’s understandably wary of unnaturally good-looking men after her last boyfriend cast her aside without a thought to advance his career. So when her news agency embeds Gia aboard the destroyer Will commands, sparks definitely fly.

A League of Honor won’t lean quite as heavily into enemies-to-lovers as some other military sci-fi romances like Games of Command or Warleader, but I think it fits the trope more than a lot of other stories marketing themselves this way. Hopefully this unique premise and plot help the book find an agent and publisher without much trouble.

Although pre-writing is done, I don’t plan on starting the novel yet. Partly because I feel a need to ease myself back into writing prose after three months of nothing but taking notes or editing, but mostly because I just picked up a lucrative contract to edit at least one novel–and maybe more–for a self-published author.

I don’t know how long this will take, so I’ve set aside the rest of the month for my client. Meanwhile, I plan to work on a flash fiction piece for Troopers, a new military sci-fi magazine opening for submissions this week. This is going to be a prequel of sorts, following the adoptive mother of my male lead in A League of Honor. Flash fiction seems like a good way to ease myself back into writing and into this new setting.

In other writing related news, a surprising acceptance landed in my inbox this week: my fantasy erotica short story “Rekindling” will be included in It Takes Two, a couples erotica anthology from Cleis Press! The editor is a really big name in erotica publishing, so the fact she accepted my second-ever attempt at the genre is incredibly flattering. Erotica isn’t something I ever expected to publish, but exploring postpartum body image issues and how a couple keeps their love life alive after becoming parents was a really interesting experience. Expect an announcement post sometime this week!

Aside from finishing off Organic Ink: Volume 5, most of my August reads have been comp titles in the space opera romance genre. First up was Jessie Mihalik’s Polaris Rising, which offered more depth to its politics and worldbuilding than a lot of other books in this subgenre. Right now, I’m about halfway through Michelle Diener’s Dark Horse. This one also offers a fair bit of worldbuilding and intrigue, though I’m not so fond of the way it follows the “advanced aliens, modern humanity” trend so common in sci-fi romance.

I’ve also been digging into my contributor’s copy of Murder and Mayhem: A Dragon Soul Press Anthology. Only two stories in and I’m over a third of the way through the book!

Things have been busier than usual in August, what with the return to school and all, so of course now is the time strain my back, right?

If you’ve ever been told not to think of pink elephants and then you think of them, that’s pretty much what happened to me. The garage door opener has been acting up, so it has to be lifted manually. I told myself “Don’t life with your back” and ended up doing exactly that. Fortunately, things seem to be healing well enough a visit to the doctor isn’t necessary, but time will tell.

On a brighter note, I recently returned to playing Conan Exiles. The game does an excellent job of making you feel small and vulnerable, from nights so dark you can barely see more than a few feet away to lost cities that feel so ancient and eldritch they’d be right at home in a story by Robert E. Howard. I find myself tempted to start working on one of my fantasy narrative poems again.

I’ll see you guys again in September for another update and the release of Fantastic Detectives!