Hello, dreamers. On Wednesday it will have been two weeks since I sent out my first round of queries for Seven Days on Samarkand. And as of this morning, no rapid rejections. For the moment, it looks like all my hard work on query prep has paid off. So far, so good.

However, we’ve now reached the midpoint of September, which means novel writing season is upon me. Over the past week I’ve been itching to star work on Aquarius 1, and now I believe I have a place to start. I also have seven active short story submissions, and have more planned. All of that means I’ve got a busy week, and a busy rest of the month ahead of me. That being said, here’s what I’ll be up to this week:

Aquarius 1

Midway through last week, I completed a major milestone: I finished a “struggle story”.

For those new to my blog, every time I spend time on a major project like a novel, or spend time away from active writing for something else (like query prep), as with many writers I have a hard time moving on to the next thing. I deal with this by writing what I call a “struggle story”: a short fiction piece that I basically force myself to write to its conclusion. Said pieces are invariably long, and often dark. They tend to ramble at first, but sooner or later I find my groove, and by the end I’m back to writing at my best.

Originally I’d feared this story wouldn’t be enough to prod me back into novel-writing mode. But as soon as the proverbial ink was dry on Bright Lights over Junction, I found myself thinking about Aquarius 1. I began planning out scenes and dialogue, taking character notes on my daily walks. And just yesterday morning, I had an unexpected breakthrough.

I’ve decided to spend at least part of this week writing short fiction pieces about the various major characters of Aquarius 1. Not just the POV characters but all of them. I’m doing this partly because I realized that, when I first set out to write Seven Days on Samarkand, I had only a nebulous idea of the backstories of many of the characters. While rewriting the novel earlier this year, I found myself bogged down fleshing out their backgrounds in order to capture interiority. So this time I’m starting by going back.

My hope is to use this exercise to further develop the characters. When I introduce them in the novel, I’ll already know who they are, how they speak and respond. And I’ll be able to come up with tidbits of their backstory (family members, friends, hobbies, etc.) that will add depth.

This process is still fluid at the moment. I may end up writing disembodied scenes as the week progresses (something I do frequently when writing the first draft of a novel). I may even begin the story itself before the end of the week. But for now, I’m focused on exploring what I dare say is my most intriguing, diverse, and messy set of characters yet. From the start, I’ve known this was possibly the most original story idea I’ve ever had. But while I love the premise, over the course of my note-taking I really fell in love with the characters. And I really want to get this right.

Querying Seven Days on Samarkand

As I said, it’s been nearly two weeks, and so far nothing. And that’s good. However, as anyone who’s been following my “Dear Sir or Madam” posts knows, I have no intention of sitting on my hands through this process. I’m a #querying writer now.

Already, my increased engagement through my platform has yielded results. After one of my planned queries fell through, last week I stumbled across an agent who’d just opened to queries…and she loves sci-fi. So in one day I put together a query package for her, replete with a personalized query letter, and fired it off. Now I’m at an even ten, which is exactly where I wanted to be.

I’ve continued to immerse myself in the business of writing, which has also paid off. And after trying out a new podcast yesterday (which I already love), I’m convinced of the need for a so-called “agent’s guide”. I’ll be explaining more in this Sunday’s post, but suffice to say an agent’s guide is an increasingly-popular pitch method on Twitter. Essentially it’s a series of slides, displaying key points of a novel (particularly metadata) in a visually-engaging medium. Such guides are typically pinned to a querying writer’s Twitter profile, so that when an agent visits their page it’s the first thing they see.

The podcast I listened to was hosted by a pair of literary agents, both of whom gushed over how agent’s guides made their jobs easier. So this will be my main query-related task for the week. All the while I’m staying engaged, mingling with fellow query hopefuls and offering my support. And keeping an eye out for any other agents repping sci-fi who crop up.

Aquarius 1 and Short Fiction

As I mentioned earlier, last week I completed my latest struggle story, Bright Lights over Junction. What began as my first foray into alien invasion stories gradually spiraled into outright horror, ending in parricide. But it ended up being my first YASF story, and any story that leads me to try something new and expand my repertoire is a win. For the moment, I plan to retreat from short fic to focus on Aquarius 1. However, I plan to resume my long-lapsed practice of always devoting a day each week to short fiction. I believe it will help to keep me fresh and avoid burnout as I ease my way into a new novel project.

As it stands, I have six outstanding short story submissions (I received two rejections while writing this post; both were anticipated). This past week I received a response from my query to Strange Horizons, confirming that they had in fact read Prishelets and it was still under consideration. As of this writing, I have yet to receive either acceptance or rejection from Analog regarding Casual Brutality, nor have I received a response to my query on the subject.

I expect to hear back from the Writers of the Future quarterly contest in the next 1-2 weeks regarding my third quarter submission. My fourth quarter submission is already in; as the sub window closes on the 30th, I don’t expect to hear back from them until sometime in December. I’ve also submitted stories to two literary magazines I haven’t subbed to before. One of them lists an average response time of six days, so I may hear back from them late this week.

Upcoming Content

So hawkeyed readers may have noticed that last week’s Friday Feature ended up not being my next “Science in Fiction” post. Rather, it was a resumption of one of my lapsed monthly features: “On Writing”, in which I provide insights into my writing process, both for the benefit of readers and fellow writers.

I originally introduced my “On Writing” posts, along with the related “The Cutting Room Floor” posts (about editing) for two reasons. First, I realized there’s a serious appetite for writing advise and insight from writers. Second, I realized if I committed myself to writing more than one “Science in Fiction” post a month, I’d quickly run out of ideas.

So both of those retired posts are coming back. Originally I’d planned to post my next “The Cutting Room Floor” post this week, but as the latest season of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds just wrapped, I’ll instead be posting my next “Sci-fi Reviewed” post this Friday. From this point forward, I’ll be resuming my standard schedule. The only exception will be months with more than four Fridays, in which case the month will end with a “Final Friday” post featuring a personal note.

One last thing: a quick note regarding my Substack. For those of you who are following (and if you haven’t yet, what are you waiting for?), for the time being I’ve decided to write only one post a week, as opposed to the planned two. I’m doing this to emphasize quality over quantity; I’ve begun to worry I may again be stretching myself too thin. Once subscriptions pick up, I’ll almost certainly be increasing my output. Until then, I plan to focus on this site. So keep an eye out for my upcoming posts, and my next Substack post coming this Saturday. Until then, dare to dream. – MK