Writing Status Update

It occurs to me that I haven’t talked about my own writing projects in a while. On the (rather dubious) theory that y’all come to this site partly to hear about me, here’s a quick rundown of what I’m working on (and waiting on) right now.

1. The Novel. I haven’t mentioned The Counterfeit Emperor in a while. I’m still in the Getting Feedback phase. I’ve gotten a ton of critiques back on the latest draft, and I have a pretty good idea of what kind of revision it needs (mainly: tighten up the opening, sharpen the ending, miscellaneous to-do list in the middle). However, I’m still waiting on one more critique in particular before I tackle my next, hopefully final, revision. So in the meantime I’ve been practicing my short fiction. For example…

2. The Machine of Death story. I submitted my story for Machine of Death Volume 2 just before the July 15 deadline. So did, um, about 2,000 other people, so the competition is pretty stiff. Fingers crossed – I actually think my work here is one of my best stories. Unfortunately I won’t hear back on that one till October 31, so in the meantime I’ve been trying my hand at a bunch of…

3. Chuck Wendig’s short story prompts. I’ve written stories for three of Wendig‘s weekly challenges so far, plus a sonnet for fun. I’ve really been digging those, for a lot of reasons: the prompts are intriguing, it’s fun to read other people’s stories, and it’s fun when the other participants read my stories. And hey, I’ve done pretty well; “Scissors With Running” and “Bald Pregnant Women” were chosen as top-five winners by Wendig and his readers, respectively. Cool! However, I don’t have a story this week. That’s because lately I’ve forsaken Chuck (he’ll get over it – in time) to work on…

4. Agent Courtney’s short story prompts. I don’t know if I’ve linked to Agent Courtney yet, but she’s fairly new to the agent-blogging scene and she’s already got a bunch of story prompts up on her site. Deadline is August 26, and the prize is a query critique. I was planning to have a story for this challenge up here today, but it just hasn’t worked out. I’ve made no fewer than three false starts on two different prompts, and I just can’t seem to get anything I’m happy with. Very frustrating, actually. But August 26 waits for no man, and I will have an entry up before it does. Next Thursday it is. In the meantime, I’m also waiting on…

5. Something secret. I don’t want to say anything just yet, because I’m not sure when it will happen, but I do have something else that I’m looking forward to announcing. Oh, and in the back of my mind there’s still…

6. The next novel. Which I have a lot of truly righteous ideas for. But this is a long ways off yet so I won’t talk too much about it, either.

Huh. That’s weird – I was feeling unproductive lately, but when I write it all out like that, it actually sounds like I’m pretty busy. Ok, we’ll go with that.

What projects are you working on, writing or otherwise? Tell me in the comments! (I mean, if you want. If not, that’s cool. Just click that little X and close the window. No, go on. It’s fine. Not like I’m sitting here…waiting…alone…in the darkness…)

Uh, right. See you tomorrow!