Keith's November Newsletter

Hi Folks

Boy I wish I had a good excuse for this newsletter being two days late. I don’t. I simply forgot. I tend to do that a lot, as many of my ex girlfriends will attest. In fact it’s one of the many reasons some of them are now my exes.

I just worked five 12-hour days straight, which tends to turn my brain to mush. Didn’t do anything productive yesterday, which is why I’m only getting round to this today. Working for a living sucks, but it especially sucks when it gets in the way of the things you want to do.

Olso And Back

First up, there’s no news on the flat front except to say they didn’t start the checks until a few weeks ago (maybe) so there’s no chance of me being in by Christmas. At this rate I’ll be lucky to get in by my birthday (start of Feb). Both sides are blaming each other of course, and here’s me stuck in the middle, unable to do anything about anything. Ah well.

I did get to go to Oslo this month though.

It was good. I enjoyed it. Quite a compact city so easily walkable. The apartment was nice, and when the weather was good Oslo was really nice too.

It did rain quite a bit though, which saw me take shelter in many bookshops and museums. Didn’t buy any books, but I did get a lovely Norwegian landscape calendar which I’m looking forward to putting up in the new place once I move in.

I also managed to resist buying a new pocket watch and/or compass at the Fram Museum. They were very nice but 799 Norwegian Krone is about £60 and I was spending WAY too much already. Just food and fees (trips, entry fees, etc.) cost me about £600. I wasn’t about to add junk I’ll never use to the bill as well.

News From The Steam Factory

Much has been going on writing wise this month, little of it good.

My short story Committee On The Bounty got rejected, my second short rejection in two months. Bit gutted about that.

Not as gutted as I am about Odds Bodkins and the Night Mayor of London being rejected by the agent I sent it to though. She liked the writing but thought it skewed a bit too young for her, in that she wouldn’t know where to place it, which is fair. I now need to decide what I’m going to do with it. I’m probably going to sub it to a bunch of agents but right now I haven’t got the spoons for that. All the recent rejections have knocked the wind out of my sails.

Regarding In The Valley Of The Wind, my solarpunk YA that was with Northodox Press, that’s also not going to be published by them. They announced this month that for business reasons they will only be publishing historical fiction going forward. This makes sense for them as that is where they’ve had most success with financially, and it was either that or shut down completely. Bad for their current authors though, who now have to find a new home for their already published novels, and especially bad for people like me who were hoping to get their book published through Northodox in the future. Still, can’t be helped. Everyone is struggling right now. The fact they can keep on going in any way is good news for them, and us. Northodox do great work, it would be a shame for them to disappear altogether.

Because of the above, and the fact that I’ve sent In The Valley Of The Wind to over thirty agents already with no joy, I’m now looking to publish it myself some time next year. I’ve already made enquiries about editing, and I need to start thinking about cover design. More on that next month I hope.

Speaking of cover design, I’m in the process of commissioning an illustration for the cover of Attack Mars!! I’ve put together a brief, got a bunch of reference material together, and I’ve even done a rough sketch of what I’m after to get started.

All of this has been sent to my illustrator Mike. I’m now just waiting for him to get back to me.

Speaking of Attack Mars!!, word count on that is up to about 74,000 words. There’s still a long way to go, with several pages of notes to get through, so I wouldn’t be surprised if it ends up 120-130,000 words long. At the very least I’d expect it to top 100k.

This does put me on a tight deadline though. I want to get it finished, but I also want to take one last look at In The Valley Of The Wind before I send it off to my editor; one final polish before it starts getting locked down. The could take several weeks, and with the edit planned for March (and a house move in the offing) that doesn’t give me a lot of time to get Mars finished.

With all that in mind it’s probably a good thing I haven’t heard anything from the designer I want to work with about my airship card game. Sent him all the stuff he needs to give me a final quote but as yet nothing. Thankfully it’s not a priority. For now it’s very much on the back burner.

When I’m Not Writing

With everything that was going on this month I put aside the books I was trying out and stuck with one I knew I’d like, The Well Of Ascension by Brandon Sanderson.

Here it is, in a surprsingly expensive Norwegian cafe.

I enjoyed it, although it felt like there was a lot more telling than the first one. More thoughts in people’s heads which meant less storyline. Still it was good, and I look forward to reading the third one in the trilogy.

I also last night watched the film Mickey 17. Can’t say that floated my boat very much. The main character was unsympathetic and there was some inconsitencies in the internal logic of the film that didn’t work for me. Plus when the Bad Guy is so obviously repulsive as to be unbelievable I tend to check out as well. It’s probably fine if you like that kind of thing but I was on my phone playing games way before the end.

This newsletter finishes on a note of sadness. An online author friend, Matt Mason, passed away this month. Disagnosed with cancer earlier this year his passing has been unbelievably quick. It’s sad because he was a kind and supportive member of the writing community and will be greatly missed. And it’s reminder to all of us how quickly things can change. You never know what’s going to happen, so live your best life now before it’s too late.

For those that knew Matt, and those that would like, a Just Giving page has been set up in his honour in support of Macmillan Cancer Support. If you feel moved to contribute something in his memory you can do so here.

Alright, well that’s it from me. Take care, be good, be nice to each other, and do your best to follow your dreams whatever they may be.

Toodle-pip for now.

Keith