Update: March 2023

March managed to be simultaneously unproductive and hectic, so I ended up procrastinating this update out of the month. But, hey, at least spring has sprung!

“In Praise of the Knight-Sister”

First up, my best news in March: “The Skull in the Tree” is finally published in Fantastic Detectives! It’s been a long road, from writing this novelette in December 2021 to waiting on pins and needles until the acceptance last summer to edits and delays, but I finally get to share this story with the world. Personally, I feel like this piece is one of my best. It’s certainly my favorite story starring Arlise. I really enjoyed revisiting her and her world after so long.

Otherwise, March was a rough month. My story for Summer of Speculation stalled out early on, so about the only good thing to say there is that at least I didn’t come close to finishing, cram, and miss the deadline anyway. After giving up on that project, I toyed with an idea for the next issue of Whetstone. Unfortunately, stringing together words on anything became a struggle this month, and my pace is an excruciatingly slow crawl.

There is one bright spot, though. Since I follow Cleis Press over on Instagram, I saw they posted a new call for submissions seeking erotic flash fiction. The wordcount is tight, but an interesting premise for superhero erotica blindsided me. This is the first idea to really capture my imagination since “What Good Fathers Do”, so I immediately dedicated all my attention to working on the story. I’d almost completely broken through my writer’s block until a massive interruption last week.

A past Upwork client tried requesting a refund on work completed six months ago. Work he’d given rave reviews just a couple weeks earlier, telling me I’d gone above and beyond in my duties as an editor and asking me to edit another project for him. When asked for information about what kind of issue prompted such a stark change in attitude, he refused to speak with me or customer support further. Since this seemed like evidence the request wasn’t made in good faith, I rejected any refund and customer support closed the case on Upwork. Everything appeared to be resolved…except now he’s trying to contact me outside Upwork. I’m currently in contact with the company, hoping to head this off before it devolves into cyberstalking.

Losing out on future business opportunities is never fun, but I’m not going to tolerate that kind of unprofessional behavior.

My current plans for April involve finishing the superhero erotica story–which takes place in the same universe as my stories about Whippoorwill, though this one doesn’t involve her–and working on outlines for my novelizations of “The Gale at Quiet Cove” and “Law, Love, and the Whippoorwill”. Once those are finished, I’m going to evaluate each of my novel and novella projects to decide which one I want to spend the rest of the year working on.

My March reads were all fantasy romance: His Secret Illuminations and The Midwinter Mail-Order Bride. The former is one of my new favorites, in part because it’s the only M/F romance I’ve ever read told exclusively from the male point of view. The sheer novelty is intriguing, the story is interesting, and once you get through the slow-burn phase of the romance, it’s a scorcher.

The latter is a fairly short novella, and the romance isn’t earth-shattering, but I adored the worldbuilding. Such a deep magic system for fantasy romance! Also, it was cool to see such heavy influence from Robert E. Howard’s stories about Conan in a romance. I’ve always thought a Conan/Sword & Sorcery-inspired romance would be interesting.

The HyadesTycho CraterThe Pleiades

Outside of writing, I’ve continued stargazing on clear nights. Now that I have a tripod to hold my binoculars steady, I’m taking a few shots through them as well. They’re perfect for capturing wide star clusters like the Alpha Persei Cluster or the Hyades, which you can see on the left. I’ve still been taking photos with my telescope, too. The Moon is one of my new favorite targets simply because of the detail the phone camera can capture if you reduce the ISO. Here you can see Tycho, one of the most famous craters on the Moon.

I’m hoping I’ll be able to buy a larger telescope sometime this year. My eye is currently on a reflector from Orion with double the aperture of my Meade DS-2080.

We’ll see what’s in store for April. Hopefully I hear more news on “A Helping Hand”, or maybe some of my submissions from last year and the past few months. If nothing else, I’ll be posting another update in a couple weeks!