Progress report:
Last time looked at: 2/11/17
Last actual wordage added: 2/11/17
Pages added, 2/11/17: 1, I guess.
Current page count: 480
Estimated final page count: 480-525?
Deadline: None, but Wildside says they’ll send me a contract any day
now.
Comments: Okay, I’m five chapters into the second draft. It’s going
fairly well. Still a long way to go, though. (I think there are 44
chapters at present.)
Progress report:
Last time looked at: 2/10/17
Last actual wordage added: 2/10/17
Pages added, 2/10/17: Not sure
Current page count: 372
Estimated final page count: 372
Word-count: 98,838
Deadline: None, but Wildside sent me a contract.
Comments: I eventually decided to scan/OCR “The Temple of Life,” and I had all twenty-three of the other stories on file. They were even where they were supposed to be, and in the right format!
Then I had to write a brief introduction, which I did.
They aren’t paying me enough to do any serious editing on anything, but I did give all the stories at least a quick once-over, which was fun. Very few of them suck, which is nice.
Anyway, it’s out of my hands; we just need to sign the contracts. I’m fine with the current version, but I’m waiting for my agent to voice an opinion.
Progress report:
Last time looked at: 2/8/17
Last actual wordage added: 2/8/17
Pages added, 2/8/17: Not sure
Current page count: 0
Estimated final page count: 350-400?
Word-count is now undefined.
Deadline: None, but Wildside sent me a contract.
Comments: I assume anyone who browses SF or fantasy on Amazon is aware of Wildside’s “Megapack” series of bargain ebooks.
Well, they asked to do one collecting a bunch of my short fiction.
I came up with a list of two dozen stories, and tonight I decided the time had come to assemble them.
I hit a snag almost immediately. The second story I went to add, “The Temple of Life,” didn’t turn up in my initial search, and I eventually realized why.
I wrote it in 1980. I got my first computer in 1984. I wrote “The Temple of Life” on a typewriter, and I have no idea whether I still have a manuscript or carbon.
But I do have the published story, so I dug it out and after debating whether to rely on scanning/OCR or not, decided I just need to type the whole thing in.
So I’ve started doing that. Haven’t got very far yet, just a page or two.
Given its age I expected it to suck; so far it doesn’t, which is a pleasant surprise. And it’s recognizably my style, even back then.
This story is definitely obscure, though — its only previous publication was in a gaming mag called The Space Gamer, 36 years ago. It’s actually a sequel to a story I started writing in high school and never finished.
I’ve also pulled out my multiply-published cat story, “Trixie,” for another go-round. The rest of the contents will have to wait until I finish typing in “The Temple of Life.”
Progress report:
Last time looked at: 2/8/17
Last actual wordage added: 2/8/17
Pages added, 2/8/17: Probably none.
Current page count: 479
Estimated final page count: 480-525?
Deadline: None, but Wildside says they’ll send me a contract any day
now.
Comments: I’m working on the second draft of this next Ethshar novel. After the delay to relocate webpages I felt it necessary to start the revising over from the beginning, and I’m glad I did, as I caught a few things I wanted to fix. I’ve gotten through the prologue and the first two chapters. So far it looks pretty good.
But then I decided to do something else. See next rock.
Word-count is now 119,733.
Originally posted to my newsgroup on SFF Net:
“I am the Dread Key of Narthanax, created a thousand years ago
by Appovar of Zalidon to unleash the Twelve Hosts of Vengeance upon an
unsuspecting world! Tremble before me, flesh-thing, as I… hey! Put
me down!”
–May 17, 2004
The midwife lifted the baby, cooing, and then stopped. Her smile turned to a puzzled frown.
“What?” the new mother asked, still panting from the delivery. “Is something wrong?”
“Not wrong, exactly,” the midwife said quickly. “He’s a fine healthy boy, by the look of him.” The child, silent until that moment, suddenly let out a wail, his face crumpled in displeasure at his new surroundings. “But he’s got a birthmark!” the midwife called over the baby’s crying, as she handed him to his mother.
The father had appeared in the bedroom door at the baby’s first yell, and now stared as the mother cradled her new son. “What kind of a birthmark?” he demanded. “Is he disfigured?”
“No, no,” the midwife said. “It’s quite small. It’s on his left shoulder.”
“I see it,” the mother said, as she held the infant to her breast. The crying came to a sudden end. “It’s shaped like a sword and crown.”
“Like what?” the father asked, startled.
“Like a sword and crown,” the midwife said. “Exactly like a sword and crown. Right down to the star on the pommel.”
The father hesitated. “That doesn’t sound natural,” he said.
“It’s not,” the midwife said. “You can see that at a glance. That’s a magical birthmark if I ever saw one.”
“Magic? My son has some kind of magic?” the father demanded.
“I’m afraid so,” the midwife said. “It’s not one I know, though — you’ll need to talk to someone at the Department of Signs and Prophecies.”
— November 20, 2009
I think I’ve figured out what I’m going to do with this blog. It will take over as where I post progress reports on my works in progress, which always used to go on my SFF Net newsgroup. (They may appear elsewhere, as well.)
But that will have to wait until I have other stuff squared away. Bear with me.
Ignore that last post. I managed to retrieve all the old posts and comments after all.
Hey, guys.
I messed up the transfer to my new webhost. I still have all the data from the old Serial Box, but not in an easy-to-import form, and the more I thought about it, the less I saw any reason to keep it. All those serials are finished.
So here we have a new, unsullied blog, to do with as I please, and I learned from the experience so that when I switch my last domain over to the new host, I know how to bring all the old posts from that blog with me.
Now, if anyone wants me to make a serious effort to recover the old stuff, I can try, but for now I’m fine with starting fresh.
So here we are.
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