Hello, dreamers. It was another busy week, as I continue to juggle various projects and pursuits. But I feel good about what I’ve accomplished. Still, much of what I’ve accomplished recently has only underscored the fact that there’s still so much more to do.

That said, here’s what’s in store for this week:

Beyond Pioneers

After giving it a great deal of thought, I’ve decided on my next short fiction project. Beyond Pioneers will be a collection of short stories set within the Pioneers era of the Dotiverse timeline. The stories will follow various characters from Pioneers, most of them minor characters in the novel, and serve to enrich the story by providing greater insight into the process of colonizing Megrez 9. Currently, the series is planned to consist of a total of six stories, beginning during the events of Pioneers and ending with Wasteland, which will take place years after the novel’s conclusion. That last story will follow William Ford as he conducts the first surface expeditions on the planet, starting with a vast desert south of the initial settlement site.

The decision to give Pioneers what I might call the “Pathfinder treatment” came down to several factors. First, obviously, I’ve been throwing myself back into Pioneers of late, due to the ongoing query process. Second, I realized I had a mountain of lore, including various minor characters, accumulated through the research and notetaking that went into the novel. A novel, especially a debut novel, can only be so long. Over the course of writing Pioneers, I had to make a lot of difficult decisions, ultimately discarding a lot of side action in order to streamline the plot. These stories will give me the chance to explore some of those narrative dead ends to enrich the story. Lastly, there was the final story: the surface expeditions. It was something I wrote notes about for The Pioneer Era, but while I found it intriguing, the novel takes place years after the fact. I like the idea of going back to a point where William Ford was still young and boundlessly enthusiastic, and exploring one of the events that bridges that point with the person he is in the subsequent novel.

Currently, I plan to finish Europa this week, which will close the proverbial book on Beyond Pathfinder. Soon after, I will begin work on Beyond Pioneers. Hopefully, by the time the stories are complete and ready to publish, they will be able to serve as a companion of sorts to Pioneers.

Querying Pioneers

Work on querying Pioneers continues apace. And I’m surprised at how rewarding the experience has been thus far. Though I’ve yet to hear back from any of the initial agents I’ve queried, I’ve resumed work on the novel.

For some time now, I’d restrained myself from making changes to Pioneers, at least substantial ones. One of the nastiest pitfalls a writer faces is what I call the “Perfection Trap”: continually modifying a completed work, always trying to find ways to make it better. If one allows oneself to do so, one risks falling into an endless cycle that results in a work never being published. Nothing will ever be perfect. So, sooner or later, a writer must accept that his work is as good as it is going to be. Perhaps it could be better. But trying to make it perfect will never work.

So I stepped back from Pioneers. For the past year, I’ve conducted two full read-throughs, but though I allowed myself to make minor edits (spelling, grammar), I refrained from making any major changes. I preferred to read the novel from the perspective of a recreational reader, to see how it felt. While I believe that was good, at the time, as I move forward with the query process I need to be putting my best foot forward. So the time for changes has come again.

It began with a few relatively minor changes to clean up continuity. From there, I’ve pursued a novel approach for me: I’ve begun taking up individual chapters to read through and potentially edit. In particular, I’ve been focusing on passages I haven’t touched in some time. Currently, there are several potential changes I’m looking at. Most notably, I’ve been focusing on one of the early chapters, in which Doctor Brand converses with both Lieutenant Stark and Commander Bedford regarding the fate of the colonists. I’ve begun toying around with modifying the passage to exclude Bedford entirely, seeing how it would look as a simple conversation between two people.

There may be more changes on the way as I continue this focused editing process.

Ongoing Site Update

That just leaves me with the ongoing updates here on this website. I am still working my way through the various short fiction pieces I have here, deciding what will stay, what needs to be edited, and what must go. A lot of hard decisions lie ahead: some of these stories are among the oldest pieces I completed, and are thus dear to me. But my writing has changed a lot over the years. And now, I’m not sure there’s any value in keeping these stories on the site. At least a few will likely be removed in the coming week. So if you’re one of my veteran readers, now is the time to take one final look at my earlier works.

I also plan to resume my weekly flash fiction posts this week, following a two-week hiatus as I began the query process. Fresh Air will drop on Friday at 5 PM, so keep an eye out for that. And as always, dare to dream. – MK