Update July & August 2023

Where has summer gone? It seems like it came, I blinked, and we’re already almost at the end. The last few weeks in particular were hectic, so there’s a lot to cover in this combined monthly update.

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First, I’ve been hard at work on prewriting for my military sci-fi romance The Captain and the Crown. Typing up character sheets took all of July and the first week or so of August, and I’m somewhere between a quarter and a third of the way through my outline. Some of the early scenes are based on ones from the novelette version of this story I started last year, but they’ve all been adapted by now. While my original goal was to start drafting in September, I feel like it’ll take most of next month to craft all the new scenes necessary to take this book from a novelette/novella to a full-length novel.

I’ve also done a little setting development thanks to another free trial of Canva Pro. A few flag concepts for the relevant star nations, rough seals for military branches, and even a map of the star system where most of The Captain and the Crown unfolds. Graphic design isn’t usually my forte, but they all turned out quite nicely.

Seal of the Eleutherian League NavySeal of the Eleutherian League ArmySeal of the Eleutherian League Marine Corps

Outside of my current projects, the last few months have seen some exciting stuff. Summer of Sci-fi & Fantasy: Volume 2 released with a reprint of my fantasy short story “Lightning Between Your Fingers”, and The Lorelei Signal reprinted “Decisions”. I loved seeing the latter the way it was meant to be read, and they picked some lovely art to accompany my little story. Fantastic Detectives has already yielded royalties, and we should be looking at the launch of the hardcover soon. I’ll make another blog post whenever World Enough gets back to me with details on that edition of the anthology.

If you follow this blog, you may already know I finally inked a contract with Adekon Publishing for “A Helping Hand”. This third story featuring my vigilante superheroine Whippoorwill will be published in Brief Encounters #12, which I’m told is currently looking at a release date in the first week of September. I’ll let you know once I have an actual day!

Otherwise, things are quiet on the publishing front. “Good Boy” still appears to be under consideration at Nobilis Erotica. I’m trying not to read too much into anything, but the fact it’s been sixty-six days and they usually send rejections in less than ten–most of them in less than a week–seems like a sign this story at least made it to the second round.

I have way less data to work with on the handful of other stories on sub. “Warden of the Wex Wood” is the best of them, though the right fit has proven elusive so far. Folk of Rock and Water is also under consideration at one or two markets, but I’m not pursuing it as aggressively as before. Since I’m pivoting toward speculative romance, I’d like my debut novel or novella to be in one of those subgenres instead of a fantasy western. Nevertheless, I won’t turn up my nose if somebody wants to buy.

The rest of my current submissions are reprints, some for pay and some for exposure. “Lightning Between Your Fingers” and “An Oath to the Sun” are both making the rounds right now. We’ll see if anyone bites.

Since I’ll be writing military sci-fi, it seemed fitting to go back and fill in the books I haven’t read in David Weber’s Honor Harrington. I polished off Cauldron of Ghosts on Friday, and I’m already about a third of the way through Storm from the Shadows. Afterwards, I’ll be polish off the series with To End in Fire and read a few select stories from What Price Victory? I’m especially interested in “The Silesian Command” by Jan Kotouc, since Silesia is one region of the setting that hasn’t received much attention since its partition and annexation by Manticore and the Andermani.

The Double ClusterThe Sturgeon MoonThe Butterfly Cluster

July and August both ended up being wonderful for astronomy. In fact, they were so spectacular that I’m a little short on good targets for this scope under Bortle 7 skies. Fortunately, we’re getting into Fall, so new sights should be rising shortly. I’m especially excited to go after Uranus, which is the only planet I haven’t managed to photograph yet.

Outside of astronomy, July and August weren’t so spectacular. At the very end of July, our air conditioner broke down right before the arrival of a heat dome. We’ve managed to make do with some window units and fans, but the only long-term solution is to replace the air conditioner in its entirety. Talk about a massive–and expensive–undertaking!

Fortunately, we only have a few more weeks of summer left. We may have hot days all the way into October, but if we can stay cool through the heat dome set to arrive this weekend, everything afterwards should be bearable.

Hopefully everyone else is staying cool and enjoys the rest of their summer. I’ll see y’all in September!