Been working on the novella again. Still not sure about the form–I feel it should be more complex than a short story, but I have this sinking feeling I put way too much in this, and that it’s really a novel in disguise. I’m also fighting my own genre pre-conceptions with this: I wanted to do a generational tale on a space station, focused on the troubles of a family in the wake of a civil war (basically, Dream of Red Mansions rather than Three Kingdoms), and my brain keeps insisting that I’m doing unimportant fluff, and that there should be explosions and battle scenes, and Important Scientific Problems to solve. Grr. Not where I wanted to go. Which isn’t to say, of course, that things aren’t earth-shattering in this, but they’re meant to be far less of a Boys’ Own Tale of Adventure, and more focused on consequences of dramatic acts on families and children (yes, I’m partly doing this in reaction to the whole Women in SF thing. You can tell).

Anyway, hope this shakes out all right. But darn, it does feel good to be writing again.

In other news, let’s see if replacing bean paste with hoisin sauce in the xa xíu marinade was a good idea. (my local Asian grocery had no bean paste, as it’s a Chinese ingredient and not a Vietnamese one).

32,000 words. Beginning of chapter 9, which means I’m back on track wordcount-wise. Nezahual and Teomitl are back to their old habits. Fun. *sadistic author*

I’ve just submitted two short stories. Been a long time since I haven’t done that.
In other news, my 2011 schedule is filling up (can’t say anything yet, but some sekrit event is definitely on the cards)

And 1,000 additional words on the novel, bringing me to 30k or something like that (right now, the novel’s in two pieces, of which one is on a computer and one on my neo). I was complaining to the H about feeling bored with the whole thing, and he looked at me and said, “yup, that seems like the right time for you to say so.” Guess it’s official: we have entered the Terrible Middles.

Still trying to select which stories to pimp for the Nebulas. The novelette’s pretty much self-explanatory (“The Jaguar House in Shadow” got good reviews, a mention in Rich Horton’s year-end summation, and high visibility); the novel’s easy, as I only published one this year. The short story… I’d want to plump for “The Shipmaker”, but the odds are it won’t be eligible for the Nebulas (it’s been published in the paper edition of Interzone, but not in e-version, and I’m not sure fictionwise will have the e-version up by the end of December). So it’s a choice between “Memories in Bronze, Feathers and Blood” (how can you not like Aztec steampunk, plus it got a number of good reviews), and “As the Wheel Turns” (my Chinese reincarnation short story published in GUD, which has a more original structure, more lyrical language and who’s left a lasting impression on the couple of people who’ve read it).

Decisions, decisions…

Wordcount: 24,000/100,000

Awesome title ideas: no further ones.

Body count: 1, 3 in progress. Oh, and 1 owl and 1 jaguar.

Best moment of the day: Everything appeared normal: a dead body was being carried back through the gates, followed by a procession of priests in grey cloaks.

Unexpected moment of the day: the jaguar’s death. Seriously. Some characters are just made of awesome.

Research: used the fact I owed my French publisher maps of the city to replace everything into a coherent system. Also found out about Tlatelolco via the Spanish version of Wikipedia.

Wordcount: 17,000/100,000

Awesome title ideas: no further ones.

Body count: 1, 3 in progress. Oh, and 1 owl.

Best moment of the day: the Tlatelolco marketplace.

Unexpected moment of the day: the merchant. Thin, armed to the teeth, and determined to defend his goods…

Missing research: none so far.

Wordcount: 9,500/100,000

Awesome title ideas: no further ones.

Body count: 1, 3 in progress. Oh, and 1 owl.

Best moment of the day: Acatl being called in to examine a sick man (yup, he only does autopsies 🙂 )

Unexpected moment of the day: throwing in a further autopsy, just for the heck of it. Oh, and a character turning abruptly responsible.

Missing research: well, a missing book, really. I forgot Ross Hassig’s Aztec Warfare on the bus Thursday evening, and just realised it. Darn. I had to forget the expensive research book…

Missing bits: we’re down to extra bits, with a little scene that I mean to use at the beginning of chapter 4.

4000 words on the draft of book 3 today. Chapter 1 dusted and done.

Body count: 1, 1 in progress
Best moment of the day: Acatl trying to sacrifice an uncooperative owl. Many scratches ensued. Good thing blood is magical…
Missing research: need to find out if a character (Nezahualpilli) took part in the coronation war of the new Aztec Emperor. Will hit the history books.

Also, my birthday gift is apparently that I get to see my French editor to talk book, translation, promotion etc. (well, I had to place the meeting somewhere, might as well be on a nice day :=) )

Temporarily titled The Shipmaker until I can think of something better. 5000-ish words, Xuya story.

Ships were living, breathing beings. Dac Kien had known this, even before she’d reached the engineering habitat–even before she’d seen the great mass in orbit outside, being slowly assembled by the bots.

Her ancestors had once carved jade, in the bygone days of the Le dynasty on Old Earth: not hacking and cutting the green blocks into the shape they wanted, but rather whittling down the stone until its true nature was revealed. And as with jade, so with ships. The sections outside couldn’t be forced into becoming a ship. They had to flow together into a seamless whole–to be, in the end, inhabited by a Mind who was as much a part of the ship as every rivet and every seal.

Interesting facts… For writing this story, I researched, in no particular order: Vietnamese names (I know the naming system, but looking through the dictionary for suitable first names took more time than I’d envisioned), the history of Vietnam and of the Vietnamese language, shipbuilding, aircraft-building, feng shui, physiology of pregnancy and childbirth, and childbirth in Ancient China.
Grand total: 2.5 days, including a long conversation with the H about the merits of building in orbit vs. planetside.

The actual writing of the story? took me 1 day, and 1 other day to fill in the little holes I’d left.
(we’re not talking 12-hour days here, as I was at the dayjob all along, more like lunchbreaks, a bit of commute time, and large chunks in the evenings).

I think we’ve proved I’m a research addict. Quite hopelessly so.

Also, it feels good to write stuff again.

So, it looks like I have about half an outline for book 3. Missing: any kind of sense, and a number of plot elements which come in way too late. Slowly chipping away at it…

Also, I’m sitting on a piece of good news I’m dying to share, but can’t right now (and nope, it’s not the one in the next post). Stay tuned for an update (I hope soonish, but you never know in this crazy environment…)

And finally, I’ve started learning Vietnamese. Currently struggling a lot with a number of wrong-footed instincts (tonal languages are %% counter intuitive when you’ve never learnt one, and I’m mixing up a lot of the many many vowels as well. On the plus side, the alphabet’s mostly recognisable)…

PS: and here’s an obligatory short reminder that you can win a pretty anthology, simply by leaving a comment in this post until next Wednesday.

The writer took a day off for some administrative formalities–except that of course, we’re having a massive train strike here in France, and the person with whom we were supposed to do the formalities can’t make it to Paris. Well, at least I caught up on sleep, and am slowly catching up on email backlog and stuff.

Got BF’s crit of Harbinger of the Storm yesterday. Basically, lots and lots of problems, but most of these should be small fixes: the basic structure of the novel looks to be sound. I’ll brainstorm some extra fixes, and then go roll up my sleeves and tackle revisions…

Finished a short story for the upcoming Villa Diodati workshop. Temp title is “Age of Miracles, Age of Wonders”. Set in the same universe as “Memories in Steel, Feathers and Bronze” (upcoming in Beneath Ceaseless Skies), and “Prayers of Forges and Furnaces”.

Snippet:

The god
The weals on Coztic’s back have begun to heal by the time they reach Axahuacan. The marks of the chains on his ankles and wrists–the deep burn lines rimmed with red, puffed skin, encrusted with scabs–haven’t. At night, when the moon rises over the desert, its light as pale as the face of corpses, he shifts in the copper cage and feels pain lance through his limbs, as familiar and as welcome as an old enemy.

The hierarch walks ahead of the cage and of its guards, the metal of its face turned straight ahead. If it thinks of anything–if metal and cogs and wheels can have thoughts–it doesn’t say.

I have three major deadlines at the end of the month (the novel, one other sekrit one, and a work-related one). April is going to be loads of fun…