August 2024 Monthly Writing Update

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One of my current favorite authors, Brandon Sanderson, has a YouTube video where he updates viewers on his current writing projects on a weekly basis (on most cases — sometimes, when he’s at an event or conference, he may not upload), but generally speaking, you can depend on him to update the followers of his channel on weekly basis.

Inspired by his dedication, I tried that earlier this year on this blog, but realized fairly quickly (after the very first weekly post), that I couldn’t keep up that pace. I’m not a full-time writer (I’m a full-time Assistant Professor) and I’m not a New York Times Bestselling author like Brandon (looking at my ISFDB page, one can see that I tend to publish in major markets — the ones picked up by ISFDB — about every 2-3 years). I’ve been relatively consistent over the past decade or so, but being a Ph.D candidate, then Visiting Scholar, and now Professor means that I do a LOT (and usually a lot of that requires writing in some form or other), but it doesn’t translate into tons of creative writing publications.

New Format

I said all that, to say that I’m going to try a new format going forward: the monthly writing update. However, I’m going to try to modify it from what a tradition update might look like. For instance, another channel that I subscribe to on YouTube, looks at the month that just passed for its monthly update, while on a 3rd channel that I subscribe to (yes, I know I have a lot of YouTube channel subscriptions — I’m working on cutting back — but blame it on the “Covid Lockdowns”) looks forward in time to discuss what’s upcoming (near term)/what he hopes to do on the channel (later in the month). Now, there are only 3 channels that I subscribe to that do updates and only 2 of those do it monthly, but I thought it would be cool to combine the two formats into one monthly post — what did I work on the previous month (factual — what actually got done) and then discuss what I hope to accomplish for the upcoming month (aspiration — what do I think I can get done/hope I can get done).

I’m hoping that if I can actually document my successes and my failures as a creative writer, I won’t get discouraged, but rather, figure out where/how I can better spend my time and maybe even get to a point where I 1) publish on a more regular cadence — yearly would be a good starting point and 2) challenge myself and move into longer and more challenging works — I’ve done quite a few short stories now, but have yet to finish any significantly longer forms.

July Wrap-Up

Ah, July. A contradiction of months for me. First, I teach summer classes — well, in this case, one class. While online, I did have a significant set of challenges, including lots of student emails, family obligations around the July holidays (including a family member who became sick and we visited them while they got better) along with two of the three major assignments for the class. So, a LOT of time was used administering and keeping up with the course.

I was bitten by the writing bug this month and worked to organize my writing better. I decided that during the Fall semester — August through December — I would work primarily on works of Science Fiction. I gathered together all of my in-progress sci-fi works and put it in an organizer. I decided that during the Spring semester — January through May — I would work on work of Fantasy (mostly because the annual Baen Adventure Fantasy Award’s deadline is April 30th). I put all of my in-progress fantasy works together and put them in the same organizer with a divider. So, as the months roll by, I will pull out 1 of these in-progress works and JUST WRITE THEM OUT to the best of my ability. While I highly doubt that I can create 5 well-crafted, well-fleshed out stories during the 5 month semester period (this would be ideal, but when has my life ever been ideal?), I would like to aim for at least 1-2 stories per period and this would effectively double my output of stories — which seems to be 1 per year.

I also took to heart what my Department Head (of English) said in my last performance review where he encouraged me to expand on my abilities (he was speaking about attending new conferences as I’ve attended the same conference for the past 6 or so years), but he spoke about branching out and trying new things. In that same spirit, I decided to turn one of my published short stories (The Independent) into a graphic novel. I’ve outlined it and created a rough draft page-by-page breakdown of the story. I’ve only written 1 page of comic book script for it so far, but I think that once school starts, I will attempt to finish out all 3 issues of the story (with an extended epilogue, so it will be more along the lines of 3.3-3.5 issues long).

August Aspirations

In August, I work on developing the classes, assignments, readings, etc. for all my classes — this is the development of the entire class, so this is what will probably take the bulk of my time from now until the 1st day of classes (Aug 21). However, once classes start, they generally run on “automatic” until the first major assignment comes due (usually at the 3 or 4 week mark in the class), so I’m hopeful that I can work on the graphic novel AND 1 of the sci-fi projects during this time. My goal is to have at least one section written out completely of the short story (or rough draft out all sections) AND 8 pages or so of the graphic novel by the end of August. I’m not sure if I’m going to be able to do both based on setting up the classes, but I would most certainly love to try. I’m not sure which of the in-progress projects that I’m going to want to work on first, but I think I’m going to try for the one(s) that really inspire me first. I have several projects to choose from including: Project Captain, Project Ranger, and Project Wall. While these might mean nothing to you, to me, these are science fiction stories and worlds that have been living in brain for a while now and that I just need to get out on to the page.

Finally, the latest thing that I wrote (before needing to turn my attention to grading my students’ final Argumentation Essays for the summer) was a Beginning, Middle, and End outline of another sci-fi graphic novel adaptation that I want to do for another of my published stories: WarLight. I don’t think I can get two graphic novel adaptations done in one semester, but it might awesome to at least get it mapped out for 2025 (especially if I’m looking for yearly publications — that might be doable during the semester).

Publishers/Publications

Nothing much to speak of at the moment. I only have 2 finished short-stories: The Runner and Dire. The Runner is currently in at the moment — I’ve sent it to 17 publishers so far. It has been a 2x Finalist in two different writing competitions, but no one has accepted it for publication yet. I feel like it will be published, but that I haven’t found the right market for it. At the moment, there are no markets open for it that I’ve not already submitted it to for consideration, so it’s awaiting a market that’s not yet seen it to open up.

Dire was just finished in April and was technically out to one of the writing competitions that I submitted The Runner to. However, even though I’ve not yet received the rejection letter for Dire, I checked the list of finalists for the competition (the listing was announced earlier this month) and Dire wasn’t among the listing, so I just haven’t received a rejection response yet. A market will open up on Aug. 15th and I will submit it there — unfortunately, that market will be closing after this issue, so this will mark my 3rd (and last) submission to this market. Fingers crossed that 3rd time is the charm, but if it isn’t, there are still QUITE A FEW markets that this story has not been considered for and still has quite a few places where it might have a chance. My only concern is that it is a “werewolf” story and thanks to things like Teen Wolf, Twilight, and Underworld, werewolf stories are considered “hard sells” at many markets.

Also, the publisher of the my short story, The Independent, reached out to me to see if I had in novellas (16,000 words to 50,000 words) available as he is interested in expanding his publishing line. Unfortunately, I don’t have anything that long — although Sister-Knight was approximately 8,000 – 10,000 words all told and I do, technically, have a sequel in mind that takes place years later that I could add on to and expand it into a longer work (along with Dire–where I actually planned a sequel/alternate version) as I was working it. However, he needs it by Sept. 30th and based on me needing to set up classes, I’m not sure I can get either done by then. I’ll give it a shot, but I think this might be step too far given my current obligations as a teacher and scholar. It is Underdog Press and here is the author’s call if there’s anyone who wants to give it a try.

Well, that’s it for today. Fingers crossed that sometime in September, likely Labor Day (as I have it off and don’t have to teach on that day), but perhaps sooner than that, I’ll be able to do the September version of this post and will have made some progress on these goals. Let’s see if I can!

SidneyCurrently Working On (August 2024)CreativeThe Runner (2023 Revision) (Fantasy Story: 4100 words: 17 Submissions)
Status:  In (Looking for publisher)Finalist in the Baen Fantasy Adventure Award Contest Finalist in the LeVar Burton Reads Origins & Encounters Writing ContestDire (2024) (Fantasy Short Story: 5100 words: 1 Submission)
Status: Out (Out to Publisher–Contest)Scholarly Unnamed Book Chapter
Status: Out (Out to Publisher: Peer Reviewed Publication)Unnamed Book Chapter
Status:  In-Progress