Yes, today is the 15^th of February, the day I’d originally planned to drop the first episode of “Small Realities”.  I've learned several things in the past few days resulting in my making a few critical decisions about my creative path over the next few weeks/months.  The relevant one here is that I’m going to hold off on the podcast for a little bit as I rearrange my “online presence” a little and get things ready to go on a couple of fronts.  Not too long, probably only a couple of weeks, but there it is.

The first episode, when I’m finished with the prep work, will feature a flash piece called “Highway Pirates” with Paleoboy as a guest voice.  It’s got a few sound effects, too, or will when I’ve put them in, so I hope it turns out well.  The plan is that it will also have a poem in it and potentially a second flash piece – I’ve recorded several of each and need to pick.

I’m also obsessing a bit over theme music and I’ve spent a lot of time at Magnatune and other places listening to a lot of great stuff but have yet to find the music that tells me I must use it.  Soon.

So, podcast coming but not quite yet.  Other stuff definitely coming, too, but my focus at the moment is the final line up for Distant Worlds.

Stay tuned.

Quick and dirty update this week as I’m trying to focus my efforts on a couple of specific things.  All thrusters still firing, but with a particular short term goal in mind.  Distant Worlds.  In the last couple of days, I’ve done very little writing, more or less this blog post and a couple of scenes in Act #6.  I’m going to keep my own pace slow until I’ve got a TOC for Distant Worlds and have started into the reading for Distant Realms.  There are a couple of later drafts I need to do for short stories with deadlines, but the year is young and I’ve got plenty of time.

Act 1: Project Stoneweaver. A little over 25,000 words and more or less sticking to the outline, barring a new minor character referred to in the first chapter who’s now actually going to be in the story and a murder suspect.

Act 5: Short Story #2. Pilgrimage is complete at 5,600 words.  I’m pretty happy with how the first draft turned out.  Future drafts for the future and not a lot of time for editing lately anyway.

Act 6: Short Story #3. The story with 100 100-word scenes. 11 complete and I’ve got a solid idea of where the story’s going.  Still no title, but since I’ve got 92 scenes left to write, that’s probably okay.

Act 26: Distant Worlds anthology. 2 stories left to read.  Still not quite where I’d hoped to be, but I’m feeling pretty good about my progress in the last couple of days, really for the first time since submissions closed.  More time devoted here than anywhere else and pretty much all of the spare time I had this “weekend”.  Holding to my commitment to read every story start to finish.

Act 27: Distant Realms anthology. Twelve submissions, still haven’t started reading.  I may have to keep the pace for a while

Act 28: “Star Trek: Fractured Unity”. The casting call is up at VAA and I’ve popped it on my Facebook page and Twitter several times.  I think there should be more places for it to go, but that was on my original list for this past “weekend”.  See my comments under Distant Worlds to know why that didn’t happen, but know that it will.  Here’s the link to the casting call if you’re curious.

Bonus Acts: Small Realities isn’t much further along than last week.  Still hoping to drop the 15^th, but that will depend a lot on the next few days leisure time, if any.  I think I’ve got theme music now, though.

Like I said quick and dirty. Next Update, February 17th.

Rumbling in my ear
Whiskers twitch against my cheek –
Feeding time

Update number 5 and that means we’re closing in on the 10% mark. Am I 10% done? Well no, but I’m still pushing ahead on all thrusters.

Act 1: Project Stoneweaver. I’m almost 21,000 words in and 3k ahead of plan as of now. Doesn’t sound like much, but the plan calls for 750 words per day, so that’s four days off the end. And when is the end? Well, I’ve plotted this out to be around a 90k story and budgeted writing time to go to 105k since I often end up going long on bigger stories, figuring on a mid-June finish. But if it does only go 90k and I continue the current pace all the way through, it could be more like the second half of May.

Act 5: Short Story #2. Pilgrimage is in the home stretch at 4,100 words. I’m enjoying this story and the research I unexpectedly found I needed to settle some background stuff in my head. Most of it didn’t make it into the story, but that’s okay. The extra facts made things fun for me.

Act 6: Short Story #3. I’m trying something a little experimental: telling a story in 100-word scenes. 100 of them to wind up with a novelette exactly 10,000 words long. So far I’ve written the first 6, setting the basic scene and introducing the hero. A hundred words can go by awfully quick, but staying to exactly 100 for each scene is a bit of work.  No title yet.

Act 26: Distant Worlds anthology. Six and a half stories left to read in the first round. I seem to be perpetually behind where I want to be on this, but reading a novella critically can be a major task and I tend to spend several hours on each one. While I'm able to write in even five minute bursts if I need to, reading with an editor’s eye doesn’t seem to work that way for me and I want to be as fair as possible to each story.  So it's taking longer.

Act 27: Distant Realms anthology. Nine submissions so far but I haven’t started reading yet.

Act 28: “Star Trek: Fractured Unity”. The casting call is going up several places tonight and tomorrow with an audition ‘deadline’ of March 15^th.  I have high hopes of filling all 26 roles. I think my overall timeline might be a bit aggressive, but we’ll see how things go. I really want to do this and not just because I’ve put it on the list of 40 Acts.

Act 33: Pop Song. It’s called “I Was Just a Kid”. Unfortunately, it’s about Star Wars, so I’m not sure it really qualifies as ‘Pop’, except maybe in a Weird Al kind of way (which is still good, but not my original thought). Not giving up hope, though, as there’s something else rattling in my head right now.  Needs at least one more going over, and probably two, before I think about posting it.

Bonus Acts: I've decided that there will be a podcast. The first episode of Small Realities is mostly finished recording. Planned drop date is the 15^th of February. Surprise! I’ll put full details up when I’ve got somewhere to link to. I’m planning it as a twice monthly podcast to showcase my work, mostly fiction and starting with short stories. “Turn the World Around” will show up there when it’s read, but “Fractured Unity” will have its own feed, I think. On episodes where the story I’m reading is on the short side, I’ll add in a little poetry.

I’ve decided to do a Video Documentary of the YoC. Probably not very scripted and utilizing my kids as camera crew. I love to include them in things like this and hopefully they’ll enjoy it, too. If not, I suppose I can always video myself.

That’s all for now. Next Update, February 10^th.

It’s the end of January already.  My production level has been pretty good, up to now, but I’m back on nights for four weeks and I’m gunning for a strong show during that time.  This is posted very early in my day so I haven’t done much writing yet and any word counts I note are as of going to bed early this morning.

Here we are after 4 weeks:

Act 1: Project Stoneweaver. 15,564 words total, about 1k ahead of schedule by timeline and 3,300 words long at the end of Chapter 7.  All the major plot points are in my head or on paper, but I’m hoping for some little twists along the way.  Starting Chapter 8 tonight.

Act 5: Short Story #2. 1,546 into a SF story tentatively titled “Pilgrimage”.  It’s related but not connected to a story I wrote last fall, originally slotted to submit to the Shine anthology, but didn’t come out nearly “positive” enough.  Still, it may have set me on an interesting path that could cover 10 of this year’s 18 stories if I want it to.

Act 26: Distant Worlds anthology.  I’ve got 8.5 stories left to read for the first round.  Then comes the hard part: choosing the final line up.

Act 27: Distant Realms anthology.  Five submissions so far and they’ve only been open for two weeks.  I have the feeling that I may get a lot more.

Act 28: “Star Trek: Fractured Unity”.  I’ve come up with nearly all of the sound effects I think I need.  Just short a couple of non standard ones, footsteps, and some Gorn weapons.  Casting call is going to go up on the 1^st of Feb, I hope.

Bonus Acts: I’ve decided that there will be a podcast.  Episode 1 of The Adventures of Writing Dad will drop as soon as I figure out theme music, with further episodes every couple of weeks.  The first episode is about the Year of Creation, but the second is going to feature the audio version of a flash piece I wrote a while back called “Highway Pirates”.  The story runs about two minutes and has a guest voice.  I’m considering also sharing a poem to go along with it.

Still toying with the idea of a video documentary.  Paleoboy still willing to act as camera crew.  Need to find some way to make it exciting, though.

Next Update, February 3^rd.

I learn late last night that my story “The Bacon Cometh” has been accepted by the editor of the forthcoming anthology Baconology.  (Bacon + anthology = Baconology, get it?)  It’s a themed horror anthology in which every story requires bacon in some form.

Horror about bacon?  Come on, what’s so scary about bacon?  Well, aside from the artery clogging cholesterol goodness, I’m betting this anthology will show us many ways to fear bacon.  I can hear you saying, “Yeah, right.  I’m not afraid.”

Insert raspy Yoda-like voice here.  “You will be.  You will be.”

Details to follow as they become available.

Migrating money
Chips stream across games of chance
There are no winners