Matthew S. Rotundo's Pixeltown

Spent last week doing dream time (read:  scribbling notes) for the next novel–or what I hope is the next novel, anyway.  I’m not sure it’s a novel-length project at this point.  With my luck, it’ll end up in that utterly unmarketable 40-70K limbo, where From Earth I Have Arisen currently resides.

Whoops–veered into Jaded Writer Cynicism for a moment there.  It’s an easy pose to effect, but it’s just that–a pose.  I’m not really that concerned about story length.  It’s more important to me to produce some prose.  I spent too much of last year brooding on marketing considerations.  Got me nowhere.  The story will be what it’ll be, and no amount of brooding will change that. 

It’s not like I have anything else that needs doing at the moment, anyway.  So I’ll keep rooting in the story slime.  Finding some interesting stuff in there, actually.  It hasn’t all coalesced yet, but it’s early days.  And you know, slime can be kinda fun.

Speaking of From Earth, I do still need to embark on a rewrite of that one–but I have more slime to play with first.

Write Club updates:

Tier one reject from Daily Science Fiction.  Response time:  12 days.

Tier two bounce from IGMS.  Response time:  about 6 weeks.

Onward.

Revised my time travel essay last week, making it read like an actual article and getting it into submission shape. 

See, I had originally thought it was going to be a blog entry, so the first draft was a bit chatty and colloquial.  Once I decided I might actually try to sell the thing, I knew had to make it . . . well, not exactly formal, but I had to comb its hair and tuck its shirt in.    provided sage advice, as always.  Thanks, man.

Outside of blogging, I don’t write much non-fiction.  It is, of course, a very different animal in a lot of respects.  On those rare occasions when I do attempt an article, I feel like I’m faking my way through it, trying to use what I’ve learned from fiction, and hoping much of it still applies.  But you know me:  I’ve never let a little thing like total ignorance get in my way.  Isn’t that right, Magic Meter?

All this took me a little longer than I would have liked, but I did also manage to scribble a few notes for the next novel project.  Ideas are stirring.  Might just be a book in there, after all.  I’ll keep poking at it, see what rises from the slime.

Write Club update:  Tier one reject from Clarkesworld.  Response time, seven days.

And so to bed.  Night, kids.