I've been working through Endurance revisions, with notes from
casacorona, arcaedia, mcurry and others. Also, my friend K— has kindly made me a map of Copper Downs based on reading Green, Endurance and the various bits of short fiction and collating all the named streets and location. This has been a great help. Likewise, my profound thanks to mcurry for actually tracking the weapons all the way through the book — there is much losing and gaining of knives.My process at this point is what I've previously compared to lacquering. That is to say, going back through the manuscript over and over in multiple careful passes dealing with specific issues on each pass. Other than two significant inserted scenes, this revision has mostly been about errors of characterization, voice and continuity, so this incrementalist approach seems to me to be working well.
I suspect I'll be done with the draft this weekend, if not, early next week. That means it has at least a chance of squeaking through one or two more readers before being turned back in.
Pending surgery, chemo and the maybe-trip to NZ/AUS, I have several other projects that must be done. I owe a short story almost immediately to an audio market — it is in draft, but needs a bit of revision. I have a tiny bit more to do on the recent Sekrit Projekt (which will be announced Real Soon Now, btw), though the core effort on the novella is all complete. I have another Sekrit Projekt due by October, a novelette in this case. I need to finalize the draft outline of Kalimpura, and then get cracking on the first draft of the book so I can have that in place before the next round of chemotherapy melts my brain too much. I'll be revising Kalimpura next spring when I come off this chemotherapy. Also if time permits, I'd like to revise the lost colony steampunk religious novella, "The Stars Do Not Lie", and get it out to market. Not to mention the collaborative novels with
calendula_witch and with my Dad, which have languished in the face of my medical issues and my narrowed focus. And of course, a possible trip to the South Seas, another round of cancer surgery, and the six months of the aforementioned chemotherapy.Originally, I had planned to be working on Sunspin this fall, having written Kaiimpura this summer. Cancer is cutting my productivity down by more than half. Yes, the above list is me running way underspeed and behind schedule. I refuse to surrender my expectations of myself in this regard, even when I have to seriously compromise them in the face of disease.
I am a writer, therefore I write. Fuck cancer.