Hello, dreamers. It was another productive week, and I’ve fully transitioned to the new project. At the moment, this project remains firmly in the research phase. Though I appreciate the need to focus solely on notes and research at this stage, already the urge to start writing is there. And since I’ve already written most of the story that doesn’t require extensive research, that could be bad.

Luckily, short fiction has proven to be exactly the distraction I’d needed it to be. Things are really flowing right now, and it feels good to be writing short pieces again. I have another busy week ahead of me: in addition to continuing research, I’m forging ahead with short fiction, and will be jumping back into the query trenches. That said, here’s what I’ll be up to this week:

Aquarius 1

Despite how well things are going, I managed to resist the urge to start writing Aquarius 1 for yet another week. However, research continues, and it’s been fascinating.

As I mentioned in last week’s “WIP Wednesday”, my research has grown more focused. Rather than looking broadly at mass extinctions and how the function, I’ve begun zooming in on individual taxa, asking the simple question: why did these seemingly successful organisms go extinct?

My work last week led to a short list of extinct marine organisms from our planet. I’ve begun working my way through that list, carefully studying each taxon’s origins, radiation, decline, and ultimate end. Through it all, I’m working out working theories on the specific factors that lead to their disappearance.

Now obviously I’m no biologist. And I’m nowhere near arrogant enough to believe that I can identify the precise means by which a species went extinct when trained paleontologists have yet to reach a consensus. But the good news for me is that I’m not writing a nonfiction book about extinct marine life; I’m writing a novel. One that takes place on an alien moon that may or may not even exist. That means I don’t need to know with absolute certainty, or anything even approaching it. I just need a clear scientific basis to form a working theory.

As was the case with The Ursa Frontier, more than likely much of this theorizing won’t be directly mentioned in the novel. But I have a long-standing axiom regarding hard sci-fi: everything needs to have a reason, but the reader doesn’t need to know everything. Basically, because the characters know this, I need to know this, even if the reader doesn’t.

It can be hard for sci-fi writers; you lay down all this rich, detailed worldbuilding, and you really want to share it with your readers. You want them to see how clever you are, or at least appreciate how much hard work you put into it. But if you do things right, the work will stand on its own. Your characters will come across as knowledgeable in their fields, even if the writer isn’t. And when you think about it, that’s a lot more impressive than pages of solid exposition.

And a lot more entertaining to read.

Short Fiction

It’s been a while since “writing around”, as I put it, has been this productive. Just by opening random outstanding projects and seeing what I can crank out, I’ve now completed two long-standing projects and written at least a page or so of another. I also moved one to my inactive folder, which was a little sad, but it happens from time to time.

These days, all of my short fiction pieces begin as one of my daily sketches. Long ago, I abandoned the practice of thinking “hey, this would be a great idea for a short story. Why don’t I write it now?” Once I have a story idea, it’s in my head somewhere. Sooner or later it comes out. Once I’ve written a sketch that has story potential (typically one where I can clearly see the plot all the way to the end), I drop it into its own file in my “In Progress” folder. From that point on, the short piece is officially an outstanding project.

But only one out of every five or so stories ends up being written right off the bat. Most remain in the In Progress folder, sometimes for years before I go back and complete them. And sometimes, after I’ve been away from a story for a while, it just doesn’t feel like something I want to write anymore.

I’d say that, of the potential stories that have made it to the In Progress stage over the years, I’ve actually completed around a third of them. I know a lot of writers will half-joke about having around twenty unfinished projects at any given time. Through my periodic pruning, I generally have no more than around seven at any moment. After enough time passes, if I haven’t written it yet, I probably won’t.

But I prefer to focus on the successes, and the fact is I’ve completed three stories in two weeks. One of those took several weeks to finish (Distant Music, which I began during what I might call my Ursa Frontier hangover). Two of them were existing projects. But in the case of those two, I’d written less than a third of each. So I’ve done a lot recently. And I’m not done.

After finishing Beyond the Ecliptic late last week, I began feeling creatively exhausted, so I devoted most of the weekend to editing. That netted two fresh manuscripts (Beyond the Ecliptic will be edited in the coming days). Distant Music is already on sub with Clarkesworld. I have little confidence given its length and less overt speculative elements, but I feel really good about the quality of the story.

And I’m not done. After a couple days to inhale, last night I began another short story. I hope I can keep this going at least into late August.

Querying The Ursa Frontier

After a few weeks away from the project, this week I’ll be getting back into the trenches. Late last week I completed the all-important first step when querying at this time of year: seeing which of my target agents are currently open to queries.

As I’ve said previously, many literary agents close to queries during the summer months. It’s only fair; everybody deserves a vacation. But for an aspiring author, it means querying during the summer is a fraught proposition. I seem to have lucked out, at least for the moment: only one of the agents I’d targeted for my second round is currently closed for the summer. I was able to pivot to another with little fuss.

Now comes the next step: revising my documents. It’s generally good practice to revise one’s query letter between rounds of queries; after all, if you sent out a bunch and got no’s in response, clearly something didn’t work. But I made sweeping alterations to my manuscript since the last round. That will likely necessitate a complete rewrite, not only of my query letter but my synopsis as well. I’m also thinking about making changes to my opening pages. After reading the first line of Aquarius 1, which was killer, I’m back to thinking there must be a better hook I can come up with for The Ursa Frontier.

With any luck, I’ll be able to complete my revised query materials by the end of next week, and send out the next round of queries one week from today. But with all the other things I’m working on right now, and the real possibility that additional agents may close in the week ahead, that timetable may be ambitious.

New Content

This week in my “WIP Wednesday” post, I’ll be discussing the first major background piece I’ve devised for Aquarius 1: an impact event, far back in my fictional exomoon’s history. On Friday I’ll be releasing my next Sci-Fi Reviewed post, in which I’ll be reviewing All Systems Red by Martha Wells. And I’ll be closing out the week with a new “Dear Sir or Madam” post on Sunday. That post will detail my return to the query trenches for round two, and will likely be the last “Dear Sir or Madam” post for the time being.

In its place, I will be adding a new weekly feature: possibly a personal note from me each week. There’s plenty more to come, so keep reading, and dare to dream. – MK