I have a few things going on right now in the writing arena.

Copy editing work on Mr. Gunn & Dr. Bohemia is, of course, the big thing, and that’s coming along pretty well. I’m in the middle of Chapter 9 (the whole thing is twelve big chapters . . . maybe I should have written shorter chapters. Oh, well; lesson learned). Another couple of weeks should see the whole thing done, although there’s bound to be a little more bouncing of chapters between me and my copy editor before we can say it’s all done, and then there’s still line editing and final approval, so still some work to be done—but the copy editing is the toughest, and it’s good to see that the end is in sight.

When I’m not working on the editing, I’m relaxing, by . . . well, by writing something else. This one, which doesn’t even have a working title yet, is a fantasy short that I’m intending to submit to Xchyler’s next anthology contest. Submissions open on July 31, so there’s plenty of time.

I’ve read plenty of fantasy—Tolkein, Eddings, and quite a few others—but I’ve never written for that genre before, and it’s not something that I’d ever thought of doing. And it’s been a long, long time since I wrote a short story for publication; the last one was an SF short that I submitted to Interzone (they didn’t like it). I decided to have another go, in part just for a change of pace, but mostly because I’ve refined my writing process—thanks (again) to my awesome editing team at Xchyler—and I’m just itching to put it into practice. So far I’ve got my story outline, and I’ve made a start into the scene-by-scene description. Target word count is around ten thousand, but to be honest I think it’s going to be a bit over that by the time it’s finished (but that’s fine, as long as it doesn’t go over fifteen).

Of course, it may never see the light of day; it’s being submitted to a contest, after all, and it may not make the grade. But all the same, it should be fun, and it’s all good practice.

There’s one other thing on the horizon that’s pretty exciting: barring any major hurdles, Kate and I will be at the Xchyler booth at Salt City SteamFest, which runs July 26-28. The current plan is to be there on the 27th, but I’ll post any corrections here closer to the date. Watch this space.

Until next time . . .

Editing of Mr. Gunn & Dr. Bohemia is coming along . . . and about time, too. Last weekend’s yard work left me with only a couple of hours of writing time, then during the week I managed to squeeze in maybe about an hour or two on one evening, and that was all. It’s been pretty ghastly—and of course, my rotten luck, this had to happen while I was editing Chapter 7, which also happened to be one of the worst chapters in terms of the amount of work needed. (Chapters 6 & 7 seem to have needed more work than any of the others, because of various factors that it would take too long to explain.)

This weekend has been much, much better. Chapter 7 is done, apart from one last passage that still needs a little polish (the words say what I want, but the phrasing is a little awkward). So now I’m into Chapter 8, and it’s coming along nicely. I’ve got my momentum back, I think, but in addition to that I have the feeling that the remaining chapters were better done the first time round, and the editing should go a lot faster as a result. For that, big thanks are due to my editing team at Xchyler; I’ve learned a lot, and that shows in those later chapters.

I’m taking a short breather to make some tea, and to write this post; in a few minutes I’ll get back to work. I have music on headphones—I have trouble writing when there’s too much ambient noise, but I also have trouble when it’s too quiet. I have to choose music-to-write-to carefully; nothing too powerful, and nothing with lyrics (having words feeding into my ears is a concentration-killer when trying to write). I find that soundtracks from movies and games is best (right now, I’m listening to the soundtrack of Sacred).

Tea’s ready; back to work. Until next time . . .