February writing wrap-up.

March, already? Yikes.

A fairly busy month, though it doesn’t really feel like I accomplished all that much. I hate that feeling. The bulk of my writing time was (allegedly) spent working on the new novel project, but a few other things still managed to sneak on to my plate. Discussions about possible future projects also were had, though I’m scared even to think about them for fear that I might jinx them in some way. I guess we’ll see.

So, February: How’d it go down? Something like this:

Peaceable Kingdoms – The fifth of five books comprising a series of linked novels with the umbrella title Star Trek: The Fall. The other writers are David R. George, Una McCormack, David Mack, and James Swallow, with me bringing up the rear to finish off the whole thing. Like the other books in the series, it’s set in the 24th century era, and mine “stars” Captain Picard and the crew of the Enterprise-E. I started work on February first, and progressed in fits and starts throughout the month. I’m still well within the strike zone for where I’d like to be at this point, but I’m definitely wanting to find a higher gear here in March. As things currently, stand, my manuscript for this novel is due on June 4th.

From History’s Shadow – My forthcoming Star Trek original series novel. I received a copyedited manuscript and other notes back from my editor on February 7th, and returned an updated version with all questions/notes addressed on February 21st. You can read more about the book here and here. The book’s “official” publication date is set for July 30th, 2013.

“Finding the Happy Medium with Social Media” – My most recent monthly column for the Novel Spaces blog, which was posted on February 17th. This time around, I babble on a bit about the pitfalls of being a writer (or other creative, self-promoting sort) and overdoing the whole “self-pimping thing” on social media platforms like Twitter, Facebook, and so on. It happens every day, and it’s not pretty, folks.

The Adventures of Space Marshal Dylan McCade: “The Terror of Entropia’s Ice Cannon!” – A short story/serial I wrote, which has since been adapted into audio script form by David Taylor so that his merry band of voice actors and other malcontents can go to town recording what we all hope is the first in a series of pulpy SF audio dramas. David completed adapting the story into audio script form on January 23rd, and the gang is set to record all of the dialogue during one monster session over the weekend of March 16th-17th, with post-production to proceed afterward. More info on this as things coalesce, including website details, artwork, cast and crew bios, where you’ll be able to get your ears on the finished deal, and so on. Stay tuned!

Other stuff in the pipeline:

“Three Decades Ago, In A Movie Theater Down the Street: Ten Favorite Science Fiction Films of the 1980s” – Guest blog for Forgotten Flix. I was approached by my friends there to provide this piece for a series of guest blogs they were putting together. I sent my article to them back on November 4th, but it seems that the site, podcast(s), and so on are undergoing some renovations, so I’m not sure when it might run.

Tie-in novel – For mid-late 2014. I’ve talked with my editor about this, but only in the most broad, high-level terms, mostly just to figure out possible scheduling and manuscript due dates. As things stand now, we could be talking about something due out in late summer/early all 2014. We’re still a long ways off from being able to say anything meaningful about it, but there was movement on it today, as a matter of fact. Yay!

Short story for charity anthology – The basic idea, as fellow writer and blogger and anthology editor H.E. Ellis, puts it, is to re-imagine a classic fairy tale, which, as H.E. puts it, “can be as funny, sick, twisted, erotic or vanilla as you wish.” I decided it might be fun to play, and opted to take a crack at “updating” Peter Pan (a riff on A Clockwork Orange came to mind). H.E.’s intent is to have all of the stories in by spring 2013 so that they can be compiled into anthology format, so I still need to set aside time to finish this thing, sooner rather than later.

“The Enterprise Job” – Back-burnered, again. My grand plan to work with a small-press publisher for this seems to have fallen through, so I’m likely going to have to do this on my own. That means figuring out how best to get it set up for one of the e-Book venues like Smashwords or whatever, as well as making it available for print-on-demand. I’d really like to have this ready to go in time for this year’s Starfest convention in late April, but at this point I don’t know if that’s in the cards. We’ll see.

Also, I’ve continued to answer the call of friends Nick Minecci and Terry Lynn Shull, they of the weekly Sunday G and T Show, responding to queries submitted to them via their show’s “Ask Dayton” feature. What can I say? I’m an idiot.

Possible future projects:

Steampunk short story – I plan to get back to this one and finish a draft, but I don’t expect it will be happening until after the first of the year. It’s a new genre for me, so it’s proving a bit of a challenge, but I really like the idea I’ve come up with. I’m even thinking I can expand the general premise–if not this particular tale–to novel length, and really go crazy. I guess we’ll see.

Kid’s story book – Though my original idea (an illustrated story book for younger kids…5-8 range, etc.) might not end up going anywhere, a recent discussion has opened a door to possibly getting this going as part of another, larger project. This would be a licensed product, and things are still very nebulous at the moment as different parties weigh in on this or that, but you can be sure that if anything breaks, I’ll be one jazzed geek.

Okay, March: Bring it.

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