mmerriam | Entries tagged with projects

The results of my recent poll are in and I thought you would all be curious about the results. It was really close, but in truth, I'm not all that surprised with the results.

9 votes - Rural Fantasy (Novelette or novella): Haunted abandoned school. Small town secrets going back two or three generations. Class reunion. Ghosts. Lost loves.

8 votes - YA space opera (probably a novella): Reluctant young heroine. Grizzled veteran spacer. Robbery. Murder. Grand sweeping galactic plotline. A mystery and coming-of-age story.

7 votes - Steampunk Heist Caper (Novella): Large cast of characters. Lots of conflicting interests. A mystical or mechanical McGuffin. A train robbery on the European continent. Double crosses and shifting loyalties. The next Arkady Bloom novella and probably the return of Tresa Wilhelm.

6 votes - The long-delayed Spear of Destiny Novel: Evil antiquarians. Spear of Destiny. Blind Longinus, the time lost Saint. Mystical magical Minneapolis and St. Paul. Roman witches.

1 vote - Last Car to Annwn Station Sequel

1 vote – Sequel to my novelette "Memory" which appears in Whispers in Space.

Of these above, I'm probably the most excited about the rural ghost story piece. I actually have about three pages of notes and the ghost of an outline. I think this a project that has some heat and will be something I work on before the year is out.

That said, the reason the above will have to wait is that I've found a project I'm even more excited about: I really want to write a story featuring former U.S. Marshal Jefferson Stottlemyre (who is currently a sergeant in the San Francisco police in the time line) and Deputy Marshal William Blenchey (plus Blenchy's fiancee, Lady Priscilla Talbot) from The Horror at Cold Springs. I really want to write a Weird West / Lovecraftian / Buddy Cops piece set in late nineteenth century Oklahoma Territory sometime after the land run. I was chatting about this in the car with Beloved Spouse and realized just how excited I was to write this. I even have a few lines of dialogue.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Blenchey: "It had to be a snake."
Priscilla: "A snake god."
Blenchey: "Alright then, a terrible big snake."
Stottlemyre: "Good to see you still have a sense of humor, Bill."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Stottlemyre: "At least you get to bring your woman along on this disaster."
Blenchey: "My woman turns into a giant black wolf."
Stottlemyre: "Well, there is that."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Originally posted at michaelmerriam.net. You can comment here or there.

This is something new for me. I've never written a sequel before (and am still a bit concerned that I'm writing the sequel to a novel I haven't sold yet).

It seems the vampire novel I was poking at earlier is really the second book in the Monster-Hunting Barista series of novels (remember: I said it was the most commercial novel I had written). On the one hand, this is not unexpected. I knew when I finished Dead Brew I would probably be writing more novels featuring Sharisha Zajicova. I didn't expect to be jumping into the next one right away, but you write the thing you've got.

Which means I'm learning a new skill: recapping the incidents in the previous novel. I need to do this so that when they sell, readers won't be totally out to sea if they accidentally pick up the second book first. But it has to be subtle, concise, and small enough not to annoy anyone who read the first book. All that those readers would need is small refresher.

This writing gig really is a never-ending quest to learn the next valuable skill-set to add to your toolbox.

The Good News: I finished the short story I started the other night. I'm estimating it at about 5300 words, hand written. I suspect I will cut it down to about 3500 to 4000 words total because--like most of my work--the story doesn't really get started until about a thousand words in. All the early stuff is excess world-building and other ramblings that are more for my benefit than anything else. Also, this is the first short piece I've finished this year.

The Bad News: It's written long hand in my notebook. Usually I transcribe what I wrote in my notebook to the laptop by the next day. I do this while the story is fresh in my mind because I have trouble reading my own writing. I wasn't able to do that this time and now I'm looking at the early part of the story and thinking: What is all this chicken scratch?

After much conversation,

careswen and I have decided we are going to collect some of the short stories I've had published in various magazines into a self-published anthology. I talked to several traditional publishers about this, but the truth is, collections don't sell very well, even for fairly established writers. So we are going to do this ourselves. Of the over thirty pieces I've sold and published in the last three years, about two dozen of them have had the rights revert back to me.

The idea here is to put out something professional that I can give to family, and maybe take to cons to sell to people at readings. My fiction is scattered all over the place and most of my family members do not have access to magazines published in Australia, or a real good working knowledge of how to use the internet.

My question for you, O Flist, is this:

What size book, trade paperback (6 X 9) or standard pocket paperback (4.25 X 6.875), do you prefer and why? You're input will be greatly appreciated and will enter you in a random drawing to win a free copy of the collection when we publish it.

Help me, flist. You're my only hope...

After much conversation,

I slept about 6 hours last night, which for me is pretty typical. I'm feeling much better today. I mean, I won't be tap-dancing anytime ever, but I'm not loopy to the point of ...

Yeah, I'm not entirely sure where I was going with that one.

Since

careswen was also suffering monkey brain (ook-ook), we put an audio version of Roger Zelazny's Unicorn Variations in the tape deck last night to help lull us both to sleep. Lull me to sleep with your smooth, soothing voice, Rene Auberjonois, lull me to sleep.

Now that I'm back to a mostly functional state of being I plan to get back to the program. Today's agenda includes heading into town, sending out submissions, applying for positions, and perhaps reading a little. I might break out one of the pirate stories (I have a space opera story and a fantasy-world story) and start working on it again.

Next week I will give the Phantom Streetcar Novel one last read-through before sending it out to readers. I might give Old Blood's Fate the Jaws for Windows reading treatment as well. Then off to learn how to write a screenplay, all while working on the third novel, Into this Land.

I'm about to ramp up the work load again.

Finally, I just wanted to say that, while I do a terrible job of leaving comments on my friend's live journals, I do read your journals, everyday. Everyone one of you, everyday. Just so you know.

897 new words on Into this Land and 11 chapters poured over on the Phantom Streetcar Novel.

One of my poems, "The Sixth Son," will need to find a new home since publisher Pitch-Black LLC closed and their various projects have been terminated.

I'm going to do some writing related activities and then head for bed.

Current Projects:

Into this Land (Begun 16 January, 2007)