Urf. I think I need to take a sabbatical this week.
But, some minor research implies that sabbaticals last anywhere from two months to a year.
Hopefully I can just take a sabbatical-lite?
So. We near the end of the first part of our journey. Dragons slain, kings overthrown, worlds flung unto the apocalypse.
Mhmm.
About six months ago I set my first significant scheduled goal on the Calendar, which was an uninterrupted block of time working on The Brocade Goat through to May 31st 2012. Now, it hasn’t all been roses, and the experience has taught me that perhaps I should go with slightly smaller blocks of time, (Two months, three months?) but on the whole?
On the whole I’ve made more progress on the project than I have with any other similar project I’ve turned my hand to. Yes, I had to trash a large chunk of it because I started the narrative in a problematic spot, and no, I haven’t worked on it with quite the dedication I started out hoping to, but I have my teeth into the start of the thing, and this is new territory for me.
It’s sometimes easy for me to forget how little experience I have with longer works, but, you know. That just means I need to gain that experience.
Other news of the week includes another completed short story, some material I’ve sent around to slush piles is currently lined up for the obligatory rejection slips, and I May just find some month-related puns to title my workblog posts with this month…
Oh, hi there. Would you like to save ten percent off the purchase of everything I’ve written in print to date?
You would?
Awesome.
Furplanet’s holding a sale from May 1st to May 3rd, with the checkout code ‘OUTDOOR’. Now, while you could use this opportunity to buy everything else Furplanet sells as well as my own work, you and I both know that all you really want is my stuff. (And maybe the other cupcake novellas.)
In rough chronological order, you can get your hands on:
A non-fiction column being angsty about what ‘furry’ as a genre is all about, in New Fables 2009.
A story about one of those Thylacine sisters, Jane, and her problems with dick, in ‘Dick and Jane’, from Heat #6.
A story about a cloned dog-soldier not quite ready for the war that is a normal childhood and growing up, in ‘War Dog’, from New Fables 2010.
A story about yet another of those Thylacine sisters, Jill, and her trouble with casual fling number 49, in ‘Jill’s 49th’, from Heat #8.
A story about a cloned rabbit-nurse not quite ready for the war that is an abnormal patient by the name of Marika Estian, a girl with bite, in ‘Tuesday’s Child’, from The Fortune Teller’s Poem.
Yet another story about one of those Thylacine sisters, Jade, and her trouble with just about everything other than Martini olives and casual sex, in ‘Dangerous Jade’, which is my cupcake novella and completely awesome and you should totally buy it, no, seriously.
And, of course, if these are books and stories you’ve read and enjoyed, even if you got them from another vendor, please feel encouraged to leave reviews to help others decide whether or not the books are for them.
The other cupcake novellas, which I can recommend, are Bridges, The Peculiar Quandary of Simon Canopus Artyle, and Science Friction.
And don’t forget your ten percent off, courtesy Furplanet’s checkout code of ‘OUTDOOR’, which you can read more about here.
Two huge, huge events this week.
The first involved the arrival my first payment for Dangerous Jade – roughly fifty copies have been sold so far, which, you know, for a debut from a guy most people haven’t heard of, that’s pretty damn good. So, does that make me a ‘real author’?
How about being called up and asked to sign someone’s books while they were, so briefly, travelling over here? Does that? Because that happened this week, too, when I went off to meet Mangi, Sparf’s SO, while he was in London on business. Yep, that’s right – I rate being requested to meet international travellers so I can sign their copy of Dangerous Jade. (Along with a copy of the Fortune Teller’s Poem anthology.) (Also, a very pleasant experience first experience going out to sign books for people. Mangi, and Sparf by extension, are rad people. :3)
Does that make me a ‘real author’?
Well. It certainly helps me feel like one, but the primary ingredient here is actually writing, too. And while my progress is slow, it’s steady. Very important.
(Other things that help me feel like a ‘real author’ – personalized rejection slips, friends, Kyell, inspiration hitting me when I’m incapable of sitting down to write, people staring at me while I scrawl things, bad handwriting, and my wrists making clicky noises.)
So, apparently, making notes is helpful. How do I know this? I have gone so far as to add ‘made notes’ to my work records two days in a row. And it has been helpful.
What my technique seems to be, and it’s rather astonishing to me that I am developing a technique, is to outline. But not the whole story, no. The next scene-and-a-bit with a few other scattered notes appears in square brackets at the end of my manuscript, and somehow the writing of this short term, very flexible little outline helps immensely.
Not a perfect help, mind you, since I’ve been forced (forced? Just thought it was smart) to cut out a fairly large chunk of what I’d written early in the week, since I’d made a bit of a wrong turn with the scene in question. Boo. 
But now I have a new scene and I finished off the chapter. Yay. 
And, I’ve been writing some Askazi for ‘fun’. A strange thing, when writing’s my profession, right? It seems somehow obscene…