Hello, dreamers. It’s March, which means spring is coming. And my work continues. I still have seven active queries, and am now up to five short fiction submissions. Hopefully I’ll hear back from someone this week. But regardless, I move ever forward.

I’m still working my way through my latest struggle story, which has ballooned into a full novella. But I’m enjoying this story, and can’t wait to see what comes next. I feel the ideas bubbling up again. This is gonna be a big month. I’m also looking again at my query materials and the manuscript for Seven Days on Samarkand. But I’d like to begin with some exciting news:

Writers of the Future, Vol. 42

This weekend, I received an electronic advance copy of the upcoming anthology Writers of the Future, Vol. 42, in which my story “In Living Color” will appear. And if you thought my story was the only hit to be found in this anthology, think again.

I’m slowly working my way through the anthology (I’m already reading three books right now). But so far I’ve read the first story: “Form 14B: Application for Certification of Consciousness Transfer (Post-Mortem)” by Thomas K. Slee. And it’s easy to see why he won first place. A phenomenal cyberpunk tale of fraud and human identity.

I’ve yet to read “As Long as You Both Shall Live” by Mike Strickland (it’s near the end), but so far this anthology is excellent. If you haven’t preordered it yet, don’t wait.

Querying Seven Days on Samarkand

As planned, last week I submitted the latest version of my query package to “The Shit No One Tells You About Writing”. This is the third time I’ve done so (you can only sub once every four months), but I feel it’s at least a chance to get a bellwether for where I currently stand. I also plan to submit a question for this month’s bonus comps episode.

Beyond that, I’ve begun looking at areas where I can improve my manuscript. As I’ve said repeatedly, there’s a right way to revise a query package, and it always starts with the MS. As always, “The Shit No One Tells You About Writing” has been invaluable. For the first time in months, I’ve been taking notes as I listen to each “Books with Hooks” episode.

I’ve already identified many places where I can expand or contract the story. The goal here will be to enrich the manuscript (particularly with a focus on science and interiority) while maintaining, or dare I say reducing the overall word count. With a story like Seven Days on Samarkand, word count is a perilous balancing act. Ideally, you don’t want a potential debut novel to clock in too far north of 100k. However, I’ve written an upmarket, hard sci-fi, multi-POV novel. That means there’s also a risk of having it be too short.

Over the past several days, as I’ve listened to the podcast, I’ve finally begun thinking of ways to improve my opening pages. Since I’ve already sent the pages in their current form to agents, any changes to those portions of the story will have to wait until after this round (unless I get a full request…fingers crossed).

Lastly, as I mentioned in yesterday’s “Dear Sir or Madam”, I’m resuming comps research. I already have a short list of potential comps I’d like to read. Hopefully once I’m finished with my current books I’ll still have time to knock a few possible comps out before the end of the month.

Short Fiction

As I said earlier, my latest “struggle story” has evolved into a novella. I’m a little leery about that, but for the time being at least I plan to forge ahead. I always say a story should be as short or long as it needs to be. And after all, the point of a struggle story is to fight my way back into writing form. Having a story grind and churn and groan along is par for the course. I have no doubt it’ll take on a life of its own in the coming days.

I did fire off two new short fiction submissions over the weekend, bringing my total active submissions to five. With two of my usual targets closed off to me, I plan to keep an eye out for new anthologies and contests in the coming month.

Upcoming Content

I have officially launched my Substack: Martians and Lasers. If you haven’t already, head to Substack and subscribe here. It’s free, and you’ll get lots of cool content you won’t find here.

For the time being, at least, I’ve decided to continue giving readers a schedule of my upcoming content here on this site. All upcoming posts will be available here unless otherwise noted. That said, here’s what you can expect from me in the week to come:

Friday: “Sci-Fi Reviewed: Project Hail Mary“

Available on Substack

Before the film adaptation hits theaters, take a look at my review of the source material. This month in “Sci-Fi Reviewed” I’ll be delving into the utter masterpiece that is Project Hail Mary by the incomparable Andy Weir.

Sunday: “Dear Sir or Madam“

On Sunday, watch for my latest update on my querying journey, and learn what a query writer does when their best just isn’t good enough (yet).

It’s going to be another big week. So keep reading, and dare to dream. – MK