Hello, dreamers. Last week I didn’t post, as I’ve thrown myself into the act of writing itself, and thus had little mental energy remaining. But it was worth it. I have some important news, and few minor revisions, and lots to talk about. So let’s get to it.

“The End”

I like to say that any day where you get to write “The End” is a good day. last week, I had one of those days.

For the first time since before the pandemic, I finished a story. The Envoy is one of the most original story ideas I’ve come up with, and in a genre like science fiction that lives on tropes, that’s always gratifying. The story follows David Ferguson, a UN special attaché assigned to Earth’s first representative from another intelligent species. When the representative arrives, however, in place of an alien, they find what appears to be a human child. The ensuing story revolves around David’s gradual bonding with this strange girl, who he names Olivia.

It is said that one is not truly a writer unless one has a slew of unfinished projects sitting around. This has been true for me over the past few years. Since I committed myself to writing Pioneers in 2018, I’ve largely de-prioritized my short fiction. In 2018, I had a small library of completed short fiction pieces, as well as several well-organized folders of works-in-progress. Four years later, prior to this week I had no in-progress projects newer than 2018, and had exhausted my supply of completed works through both posts to this site and my short fiction collection, Unrealized Realities.

It felt good to finally complete a story again. I feel this was a sorely-needed step toward returning to mid-season form, as it were. I have a big second half of this year planned, including shopping around more short fiction, resuming my monthly short fiction on this site, and resuming work on my upcoming novel series. With any luck, I’ll be writing “The End” at least a few more times this year.

Now, I had originally intended to release The Envoy here. It bears noting that I made that decision prior to revamping my platform, at a time when I had unduly prioritized this site. Much has changed since those first paragraphs. As such, I now plan to shop The Envoy around for publication and contests. Should that plan fail, rest assured, it will end up here in the future. But I really think I have something special here.

Short Fiction Month

Completion of The Envoy was just the first step in what I’m calling Short Fiction Month. This year, for the first time, I plan to devote the entire month of May to short stories. I have no less than nine short fiction projects right now in science fiction alone, to say nothing of various bits and fragments I’ve collected knowing they could one day grow into something more. Now, the time has come to start hammering some of these out.

Rest assured, at least a few of the resulting stories will make it here. So keep watching for more content in the future.

Mailing List

Unfortunately, I’ve had some problems setting up my sign-up forms. If any of my readers have attempted to sign up for my mailing list, I am truly sorry. This week I will be re-launching the mailing list with a revised sign-up form. I’m currently targeting sometime in the next few weeks for sending out my inaugural monthly newsletter, though depending on engagement that may be pushed to June 1. Stay tuned.

Querying Pioneers

As my regular readers are aware, I’ve spent the past few weeks preparing to query Pioneers. This week I intend to wrap up prep work, and send out my first round of queries. That means before week’s end, I must revise my query letter, finish my synopsis, and finalize my list of agents. With any luck, I’ll be ready to begin queries by next Monday.

New Content

There will be more fresh content this week. I’ll be resuming my weekly Science in Fiction post, starting with a piece about gravity. I’ll also be posting more reviews of recent science fiction television series. As for new fiction, while I plan to post a new short story this month, for the time being I’ve shelved my plans for weekly flash fiction. Flash fiction is still a new format for me, and I’ve had a bear of a time compressing stories into the 1k words or less expected in flash fiction. Hopefully, my work this month on short fiction will yield some brief pieces I can post.

The work of an aspiring writer is never done. So keep reading, comment, and dare to dream. – MK