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Starting a New Novella
The "Sky-Tinted Waters" launch party was a grand success, with great food, great conversation, a room full of authors and friends, plus entertaining readings by four of the authors in the anthology.
It was also a professional success for me. By the end of the party I sold a short story collection, to be published in 2013, was asked to write a steampunk short story for a magazine, was asked to write another novella in the same setting as "Horror at Cold Springs" and "The Curious Case of the Jeweled Alicorn" for possible publication in 2013, and was given the green light to package another MinnSpec anthology for 2014.
That seems pretty productive. I'm kind of sad that I need to set aside the new novel for a few weeks, but thrilled to have these projects in hand.
I began writing the novella today, having finished with all the outlining and research I needed to complete before I started. I expect this novella to run about the same length as the others, so somewhere between 20K and 30K. Here is a rough, rough snippet.
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From the Memoir of Chidiebude of the Ndị Igbọ, sometimes known under the Christian name Charles Stanton, OBE, but more commonly known to the populace under the code name Mr. Chillblood.
Part One: Mr. Arkady Bloom
No recounting of my adventures in London can, of course, be considered complete –or even begun – without explaining how I came to be in service to Mr. Arkady Bloom, he who would first be my benefactor, then my employer, and at last my truest and most trusted friend.
It was the year of 1873 – a number of years before Mr. Bloom became Special Agent Bloom of Her Majesty's Secret Intelligence Services, Supernatural Branch – when I first encountered the half-fey poet and adventurer. I was then one of the wretched ragged street urchins that plague the streets of smoggy old London like so many fleas upon the body of a hunting hound, having been separated from the home of my previous guardian.
Dr. William Stanton, a kindly widower, brought me to his home at 49 Welbeck Street in London during my sixth summer of life, fleeing Africa when he was unable to affect a cure for the mysterious ailment that decimated the village of my childhood, leaving me the only survivor. After the tenth autumn of my life, the doctor succumbed to the Consumption contracted while treating unfortunates in the lowest slums of the city.
His heirs did not look kindly on his dark-skinned, scar-faced ward and, obtaining absolution from their vicar that casting out a heathen savage from their midst was indeed no sin, hired a gang of stout men to haul me away to a fate they cared not to know, thereby leaving their own hands unsullied. I left two of the men bleeding on the street cradling broken bones from the sting of the doctor's old blackthorn stick before the others beat me senseless with wooden clubs and dropped me penniless in the Old Nichol Rookery.
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Like I said, it's pretty rough, but it's a start!
Originally posted at michaelmerriam.net. You can comment here or there.
It was also a professional success for me. By the end of the party I sold a short story collection, to be published in 2013, was asked to write a steampunk short story for a magazine, was asked to write another novella in the same setting as "Horror at Cold Springs" and "The Curious Case of the Jeweled Alicorn" for possible publication in 2013, and was given the green light to package another MinnSpec anthology for 2014.
That seems pretty productive. I'm kind of sad that I need to set aside the new novel for a few weeks, but thrilled to have these projects in hand.
I began writing the novella today, having finished with all the outlining and research I needed to complete before I started. I expect this novella to run about the same length as the others, so somewhere between 20K and 30K. Here is a rough, rough snippet.
From the Memoir of Chidiebude of the Ndị Igbọ, sometimes known under the Christian name Charles Stanton, OBE, but more commonly known to the populace under the code name Mr. Chillblood.
Part One: Mr. Arkady Bloom
No recounting of my adventures in London can, of course, be considered complete –or even begun – without explaining how I came to be in service to Mr. Arkady Bloom, he who would first be my benefactor, then my employer, and at last my truest and most trusted friend.
It was the year of 1873 – a number of years before Mr. Bloom became Special Agent Bloom of Her Majesty's Secret Intelligence Services, Supernatural Branch – when I first encountered the half-fey poet and adventurer. I was then one of the wretched ragged street urchins that plague the streets of smoggy old London like so many fleas upon the body of a hunting hound, having been separated from the home of my previous guardian.
Dr. William Stanton, a kindly widower, brought me to his home at 49 Welbeck Street in London during my sixth summer of life, fleeing Africa when he was unable to affect a cure for the mysterious ailment that decimated the village of my childhood, leaving me the only survivor. After the tenth autumn of my life, the doctor succumbed to the Consumption contracted while treating unfortunates in the lowest slums of the city.
His heirs did not look kindly on his dark-skinned, scar-faced ward and, obtaining absolution from their vicar that casting out a heathen savage from their midst was indeed no sin, hired a gang of stout men to haul me away to a fate they cared not to know, thereby leaving their own hands unsullied. I left two of the men bleeding on the street cradling broken bones from the sting of the doctor's old blackthorn stick before the others beat me senseless with wooden clubs and dropped me penniless in the Old Nichol Rookery.
Like I said, it's pretty rough, but it's a start!
Originally posted at michaelmerriam.net. You can comment here or there.
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One of my chief complaints with Steampunk as literature, fashion, and fandom cos-play/role-play is that we do shy away from examining racism, classism, sexism, and the rest of the dark and seedy side of empire and colonialism. The story I'm writing, while at its heart is a mystery, will also examine some of those various –isms I just described. They need to be acknowledged and have light shone on them. It would be easier to pretend they don't exist in this fictional world I'm writing in, but I think that would be worse than trying (even if I fail) to look at the reality of the period and incorporate it in a manner I hope is reasonable and sensitive.
That said, I know I'm walking on dangerous ground and by walking on that dangerous ground I have to be prepared to face the fact that I might, even with the best of intentions, screw up. And if that happens, then I have to accept the criticism I will come in for, try to understand where I went wrong, learn from that, and do better in the future.
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if you'd like a read (when you're done) from a person involved in transracial adoption (and therefore hears a lot of the "we must rescue the chiiiiiildreeeeeen" crap that a lot of adoptive parents spew), lemme know. critique is not my strongest point, but i am pretty good about noticing if something seems icky to me, even if not at talking about why.
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This is the exactly sort of reality check I'll need people and readers to help me with, so thank you for the offer! Even if you can't tell me exactly why, just letting me know you felt something wrong would be enough to force me to examine what is going on and call for a fresh set of reading eyes if I can't spot the problem.
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