NaNoWriMo 2016: cyberpunk sequel madness (and assorted esoteria)

I know you're all very surprised, I'm doing NaNoWriMo this month. And can I say how goddamn delighted I am by the SPAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAACE theme that the flair has? I already bought a participant t-shirt, and I'm debating on when to order the winner shirt (I haven't won yet, but....)


I'm not writing a space novel this year (though I did last year!). No, this year I'm writing the sequel to the novel that I wrote in July for CampNaNoWriMo. I really liked those characters, actually, though I will confess that bits and pieces of their personalities and tics may or may not come from characters I've played, and may end up in some way familiar to people who were in those games with me. Other things, most things, are fresh. But, in July, the novel was a cyberpunk diamond heist carried out by three young independent women. This month, the novel is two of the three, and something to do with militias and hijacking army supplies and what they spent their money on from all those diamonds. Because the characters don't know yet, I don't have to know yet, isn't that great? I think that's great.

Book Review: The Big Rewind, by Libby Cudmore

I'm one of those people who hopes to always have a tape deck. I have mixtapes I made through the years, things on cassette I have access to in no other medium, that kind of thing. And when I heard the premise of Libby Cudmore's The Big Rewind, and saw the cover, I knew I had to read it.

(Disclaimer: I also know Libby; she's one of my few in person Writer Friends)

(Cover image linked from the Harper Collins site)

Who are you people and why are you in my house?

Okay, we've slid past October's halfway point. Where am I? Where are you?

My October Subs so far

So far so good for the October Submission Game (title pending)!

On October 1 I submitted a story to Strange Horizons. They're following me on Twitter now, and I can only assume it's because I have, in my Twitter history, shared stories from their site, retweeted some things, and mentioned how I always love their stories which is why I sub to them. But it's hard not to read into, y'know? I tried to tell myself I wasn't that kind of writer. But we all are, if even a little. Ugh.

On October 2 I submitted a story to the Apex magazine Stealing the Spotlight microfiction contest (you have 'til the 15 to submit, in fact). 250 words or less, on five beasties they don't feel get enough spotlight. Super cool! I wrote a hellhound story. I feel like they fit into my Urban Fantasy "mythos" pretty well, and I can revisit the notions.

On October 3 (today!) I submitted a story to One Story magazine. I've gotten personalized rejections from them in the past, so maybe this one's the one! (heh, get it? The one? One story? I'll just let myself out....)


I also still have two pending submissions from prior to the game's start. I daresay if I get an acceptance (!) on one of them, I'll give myself a day of grace. Time to get some more pieces ready to submit, as right now it looks like I've got thirteen or fourteen or fifteen I'm "sure" of (sure is an iffy state of mind), and obviously that's just about half. I could write four more stories for the Apex thing (you can enter up to five, one for each beastie) and that could be fun.

I kind of think I probably don't need that....

Two years ago (!) I posed about the word "that"; how most sentences retain their meaning without it, how it's overused in writing (I definitely overuse it in my first drafts!), that kind of thing.

In editing The Last Song, I've noticed a couple of other words or phrases I've overused, the removal of which seem to strengthen the sentences, and the writing overall. "Probably" is one; it's one thing to use probably in conversation. It happens. It's cool. But in descriptions? It can be very frustrating to read "probably" over and over. You just want to know, "well is it or isn't it? Why won't you tell me?"

The same with "kind of", which has two meanings. There's "What kind of dog is that?" which okay, fine. You can say "type of" or "What breed" or whatever instead, but not too terrible. Then there's "It was kind of a pain". Is it or isn't it? "It was a pain." Say that instead (and there's that word again).

It's occurred to me to wonder if, organically, I've begun the attempt at removing most/all "weasel words" from my novel but no, apparently weasel words are something else and not like this:

Writing Tip: Eliminate 'Weasel Words,' like 'stoat' and 'ermine' from your writing. That's the tip, right? RIGHT?!?
— Troy Blackford (@TBlackford3) August 22, 2014

But whatever words one might want to get rid of, suffice to say the "find" function you can do in a document is a Godsend.  Called somebody by two different names? Find and replace. Can't remember what kind of guitar it was? Find guitar. Did the thing with cats happen before or after this conversation? Find cats.

"Put this in your earholes!"

Cribbed from my voice actor friend, Jacob Burgess, "Put this in your ears" is exactly the sentiment I want to put across to you.

See, Jacob is doing a project where he reads a new story every week. This week, he did a fun (and funny) Scifi short story of mine entitled "Housekeeping".

You can find Jacob here on Twitter, here on Facebook, and he even actually has his own website, Make Words Happen. Give it a listen, and check out other great things he's done. Like his page, share stuff far and wide, etc. etc.

I hope you enjoy!

Post by Jacob Burgess.

(You can also just listen to it here on Sound Cloud, but Sound Cloud doesn't appear to link to anything else, profile wise or anything, and that's frustrating to me. If I find somebody I like, where are the breadcrumbs to lead me to them? Maybe I'm just missing it.)