Hello, dreamers, and welcome to Week 4 of National Novel Writing Month.

At long last, this past week brought a flurry of activity with Aquarius 1. I wrote several new chapters, and now I’m poised at the threshold of the first major action sequence. Amid the holiday, I plan to devote as much time as possible over the next two nights to writing. That said, here’s what I’ll be up to this week:

Aquarius 1

FINALLY. After so much re-thinking and frustration, this week I got back into my WIP, and I did so with a vengeance. By the end of last week, I’d written two chapters, both of which I feel very good about. No doubt there will be further changes at some point, but all that matters now is the story is flowing. It’s coming together.

I’m finding it easier to put myself behind the eyes of the POV characters. Perhaps most encouraging, over the past two chapters I was able to seamlessly switch between Karen and Anita, which I’d been worried about. As the story has progressed, the two characters have grown into their roles at this point: Karen is struggling with impostor syndrome and long-buried family trauma, while Anita is in her element and quickly becoming indispensable.

The coming chapters will be my first big test. After detecting damage to their impact shielding, the crew of the Challenger must conduct a spacewalk to repair it. In the first draft, I’d ultimately combined the entire ordeal into a single chapter. Now, I’m pretty sure I’ll be stretching out into at least two, possibly three. During these coming chapters, Anita will establish herself as the ship’s foremost problem-solver, and Karen will finally get a chance to shine.

Over the past few days, I’ve gone from dreading these chapters to eagerly awaiting them. I can’t wait to see how the story plays out. My goal for this week is to have Phase 1 complete by Friday night. With writing time on Wednesday and Thursday up in the air (to say the least), it’s ambitious. But if I can wrap this phase up by Friday night, I’ll allow myself some time off from the project before diving into Phase 2.

When We Left Earth

It’s coming, dreamers! This Friday, book one of When We Left Earth will launch. Endurance will be available on Kindle Unlimited, just in time for some holiday reading.

Beyond that first book, however, questions remain. At the moment, MERIT 19 is still an irredeemable mess. It’s bad enough that, amid work on Aquarius 1 soaking up my writing time and energy, I’ve instead simply glossed over it and begun editing the subsequent stories. During my upcoming phase break in the WIP, I’ve even considered taking another shot at Europa, the planned final book in the series.

The fact of the matter is, as things currently stand I expect Aquarius 1 and querying for Pioneers to take up nearly all of my writing time over the coming months, well into next year. All of that leaves little room to totally rewrite a story, which leaves MERIT 19‘s future in limbo. I’m already thinking I’ll likely pass it over for the next release, instead moving Ganymede up in the series, leaving MERIT 19 for a potential later release.

Ultimately, I’ve found myself wondering if the story is really that important to the overall series. I don’t think the premise is bad, but I go back and forth on whether or not it really contributes anything to the series. With things as they are, I can’t help but worry that my feelings toward the story are colored by the leaps forward I’ve taken in the quality of my writing, and my lack of interest in totally rewriting a story at the moment.

For now, suffice to say there will not be an accompanying pre-release notice when Endurance drops on Friday. I hope my readers enjoy Endurance, and will stick with me as I decide where the series will go from there.

Querying Pioneers

The waiting game continues, as I watch for this month’s comps special on “The Shit No One Tells You About Writing”. In the meantime, I’ve continued reading Cibola Burn, which has continued to be helpful. I’d also planned to read Strange Dogs, a short story in the Expanse series. Unfortunately, our local book store sold their only copy of the Expanse short fiction compilation Memory’s Legion before I could grab it. So I guess I have something to want for Christmas? My partner will be happy. I always tell her I can’t think of anything I want for Christmas, and the worst part is I always mean it.

In the meantime, however, I’ll probably review my pitch this week, and take a stab at writing a query letter. My recent listening to the podcast has been very helpful, and I can finally see how this will come together. If nothing else, it’ll give me something to do to pass the time.

When We Left Earth

As of this Friday, it’ll be one week until the release of the first installment of When We Left Earth. Endurance will be available on Amazon Kindle Unlimited on Friday, November 29 (click here to see more).

As I said last week, after plowing through Endurance I jumped straight into MERIT 19, and quickly realized I had my work cut out for me. My first indication of problems was when I went to change the main character’s name, and found I’d used it two hundred and forty-six times. For most of the first half of the story, the MC is all alone aboard their spacecraft. So that’s probably a bad sign.

From the beginning, MERIT 19 has been a tough one for me to get a hold of. While my most recent work on the story finally left me feeling there was a good reason to include it, it still needs a lot of work. Part of me is considering simply cutting it, and writing two additional stories instead of one in the coming months. But for the time being, I still plan to revisit MERIT 19 sometime next month. For now, all I can say is don’t expect a pre-release announcement before the end of the year.

New Content

This week, in honor of Thanksgiving, I’ll be posting a piece about my family’s immigration story. I hope my readers enjoy “Wretched Refuse”: a reminder that few Americans started out belonging here. And to all my American readers, happy Thanksgiving, and dare to dream. – MK