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Can*Con is a science fiction and fantasy convention in Ottawa put on by The Rocket Words Society. I’m planning to be up there on Saturday the 18th, hoping to meet many new people and quite a few folks I’ve connected with online but never met in person. The convention is at the Brookfield hotel in Kanata. My original “I’m going to write a novel!” plan had me targeting Can*Con 2023 for the release of my book, but it’s a much longer, more frustrating, and more rewarding journey than I’d expected. Now I think there’s a pretty good chance I’ll have an actual book in hand by 2026. Am I projecting confidence yet? Putting yourself out there and talking to people is something a lot of authors are uncomfortable with, and that includes me. I’m compensating for this with a t-shirt that should hopefully help to start many conversations: If you’re at the convention come over and say hello! Deadlines are very tight but if all goes according to plan, I should arrive with a pile of these bookmarks, so hit me up for one or two: There’s going to be a heavy dose of nostalgia for me at this event, since as a much, much younger man I spent a couple of years working on projects just across the street in the heyday years of Mitel, in what is now the Nokia campus. I promise to try to refrain from relating old war stories. |
I write fiction, make images, and tinker with other creative things.
My working title for this issue was "The Glacial Pace of Edits" but things are picking up! Writing I continue to work on the seemingly endless edit of my novel, although the end is getting closer and closer, with just some forty pages to go as of this moment. If only page counts were a reliable measure, for I’ve recently spent the better part of a day turning the simple note “too much exposition” into something I’m happy with. Other pages have minor or no changes at all. There will be no way...
Those of you who follow the podcast I do with mystery writer Michael Pinkus are probably aware that both of us struggled through June. We struggled with progress, with confidence, with if all this was worth the effort, the works. It's unfortunate that we both hit a lull at the same time, but even so I think we managed to offer each other enough encouragement to get through it. Now in July's first podcast, it's clear we've both recovered and are on our way to being fully fired up and back at...
Developmental Edits and Theory vs. Practice This task I've taken on, bringing an idea to life by telling a story around it, has taken two major efforts. The first has been learning how to create a good story. The second has been maintaining my desire to tell that story in the face of a skill gap that was a lot larger than I anticipated. Along the way I've also learned a ton about the challenges of getting a story to market. That's not quite right; getting it to market is actually dead easy....