Category Archives: My Novels

Right after I turned in The Nature of a Pirate Kelly and I had a vacation, followed by a lot of out of town company. I’ve spent much of the time since then considering a possible Nanowrimo project, mostly because I was feeling the need for a bit of a mental kickstart while I waited for notes on that third Sophie book.

I wasn’t sure cranking out a draft in November was the best idea ever, though the book (tentatively titled Exposure) has some definite cool things. But we’re on the road in November, headed to the World Fantasy Convention in Saratoga Springs–I’ll post my schedule soon! I’ll be in the lucky position soon of having to do promotion for A Daughter of No Nation. And my nano drafts tend to be shambling, unlovely things, studded with wonders, blood and miracles, but a lot of work to beat into shape.

The other recent project was pulling together a grant application to do just that, polish up a book set in the same universe as the newly outlined yet purely theoretical Exposure. It’s called The After People, and it has an excellent beginning, one chained like a plow horse to a somewhat mud-spattered middle and end. I’ve wanted to set aside time to clean up AP for awhile, but Stormwrack things have, of course, been more important. Writing a trilogy while lunging across the country, it turns out, is something of a long haul.

Anyway, my somewhat cursory records seemed to show that I had sent out a grant application for AP in the spring, but I was sure that couldn’t be right. There was no rejection in my files, for one thing, and anyway I didn’t remember applying. Remembering is something I apparently can’t be bothered to do anymore if I think the information is somewhere in my sent e-mail archive. So I hauled my nicely polished beginning and attendant paperwork off to the slowest copyshop ever, to watch teams of monk-scribes scratch out every page by hand (all while taking union-mandated coffee breaks and indulging in quick bouts of Gregorian chanting) and from there I schlepped the whole thing off to not one but two post offices, because the one near the house was experiencing technical difficulties.

Then, coming home from the further-away post office and having finished precisely that errand, I opened my mailbox… and found a grant cheque from the Ontario Arts Council. For The After People.

This means I did apply in May–go me! It also means that if I’m going to insist on forgetting every act I commit as soon as I hit SEND on it, I should at least trust my electronic records. On the other hand, it created an incredibly cool illusion: to mail something and then receive the answer, to have it waiting for you at home before the package has even hit a sorting station? Very cool.

More importantly, though, it means: WHEEEEEEE!!! Thank you, Ontario Arts Council!!

Finally, it means I can allot some serious time to turning the shambling 30K-word back end of AP into something twice as long and actually worth reading.

Needless to say, I am very pleased.