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2011 Fiction Plan

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My 2011 fiction writing plan is vague in the same way last year’s was: it’s composed of a lot of “drop everything,” as in:

If X hits my desk, drop everything and do it. If Y comes in, ditto.

In other words, I still have a lot of stuff in progress and lines in the water.

In 2011 the priority will be on turning around completed works as they are given to me. BLUE MAGIC is scheduled for 2011, for example, so it’s certain to hit my desk three to four times before November. Meanwhile, I have three other big projects that might go forward soon, or later, or possibly not. In theory, three or even four drop-everything projects could land on me at once. How I will deal with that, if it happens, will be interesting.

What’s more likely (she said optimistically) is that the priority stuff will stutter in in dribs and drabs over the next two to three years, and I will have some downtime for working on other things. The goals for this hypothetical allotment of time are:

1. Finish either of the two novels drafted in 2010.
2. If 2010’s proposal is unsuccessful, write a 2011 Canada Council proposal and thirty sample pages of another new novel.
3. Finish the outstanding short stories from 2010.
4. Draft short fiction rather than novels in 2011 until some of the above projects shake out.

The upshot, if I’m not buried in drop-everything projects? Six stories drafted, three finished and to market, and a novel finished.

Kingfisher

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I told you all, didn’t I, that I spotted a Kingfisher in False Creek this November? I’m hoping it’s the first of many, and that subsequent sightings will allow less blurry documentation:

Kingfisher

And since it’s good to be hopeful as the calendar ticks over, I share him with you, along with all my wishes for a great 2011.

Books read in 2010

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Here is is, the big annual list… enjoy!


2010 Books Read List

1. UNDERTOW, by Elizabeth Bear
2. THE BEST AMERICAN SCIENCE AND NATURE WRITING, edited by Elizabeth Kolbert and Tim Folger
3. THE CHAMELEON’S SHADOW, by Minette Walters
4. NEKROPOLIS, by Maureen McHugh
5. REMNANT POPULATION by Elizabeth Moon
6. GUNPOWDER: ALCHEMY, BOMBARDS AND PYROTECHNICS: THE HISTORY OF THE EXPLOSIVE THAT CHANGED THE WORLD, by Jack Kelly
7. GALLOWS THIEF, by Bernard Cornwell
8. CORDELIA’S HONOR, by Lois McMaster Bujold
9. THE GHOST MAP–THE STORY OF LONDON’S MOST TERRIFYING EPIDEMIC AND HOW IT CHANGED SCIENCE, CITIES, AND THE MODERN WORLD by Steven Johnson
10. TAKE ME, TAKE ME WITH YOU, by Lauren Kelly
11. THE WARRIOR’S APPRENTICE, Lois McMaster Bujold
12. WE TWO: VICTORIA AND ALBERT: RULERS, PARTNERS, RIVALS by Gillian Gill
13. NIGHTINGALES: THE EXTRAORDINARY UPBRINGING AND CURIOUS LIFE OF MISS FLORENCE NIGHTINGALE, by Gillian Gill.
14. THE BLOOD-DIMMED TIDE, by Rennie Airth
15. RIVER OF DARKNESS, by Rennie Airth
16. CEMETERY LAKE, by Paul Cleave
17. SEIZE THE FIRE: Heroism, Duty and Nelson’s Battle of Trafalgar, by Adam Nicolson
18. THE BRIDGE: A JOURNEY BETWEEN ORIENT AND OCCIDENT, by Geert Mak
19. MOZART’S BLOOD, by Louise Marley
20. FAITHFUL PLACE, by Tana French
21. MISTRESS OF THE ART OF DEATH, by Ariana Franklin
22. Quarrel with the King: The Story of an English Family on the High Road to Civil War, by Adam Nicholson
23. In Triumph’s Wake: Royal Mothers, Tragic Daughters, and the Price They Paid for Glory, by Julie P. Gelardi
24. A Star Shall Fall by Marie Brennan
25. The Uncommon Reader, by Alan Bennett (Kelly read me this on the evening of October 15th.)
26. The Best American Crime Reporting 2010, edited by Stephen J. Dubler, Otto Penzler and Thomas H. Cook
27. All Clear, by Connie Willis
28. Bloody Crimes, by James L. Swanson
29. Winnie the Pooh, by A.A. Milne, with original color illustrations by E.H. Shepard
30. Matterhorn: A Novel of the Vietnam War, by Karl Marlantes
31. The Poisoner’s Handbook: Murder and the Birth of Forensic Medicine in Jazz Age New York, by Deborah Blum
32. Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers, by Mary Roach
33. So Cold the River, by Michael Koryta
34. Grandville, by Bryan Talbot
35. The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, by Stieg Larssen
36. The Devil and Sherlock Holmes: Tales of Murder, Madness, and Obsession (Vintage), by David Grann
37. The Serpent’s Tale, by Ariana Franklin
38. The Troublemakers, by Gilbert Hernandez
39. Blind Descent: The Quest to Discover the Deepest Place on Earth, by James M. Tabor
40. Death Blows: The Bloodhound Files, by D D Barant

Rereads:
In the Woods, by Tana French

The Shape of Snakes, by Minette Walters

Check-In – 2010 Fiction Plan

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Last year, at about this time, I set out the following 2010 goals:

1. Draft a novel.
2. Finish a novel.
3. Draft a story.
4. Finish a story.
5. Sell a story.

(This is just the fiction portion of a larger business plan. Non-fiction, promotional work, and other targets are separate.)

Draft and finish were separate items specifically because I’m working on multiple projects: drafting one book didn’t necessarily mean finishing that same book.

As plans go, this one looks rather fuzzy. The reason specific projects weren’t named (Finish this book, draft that story) in the above list reflects the fact that I spent a fair amount of 2010 waiting for other parties to get back to me on things. The timing on when I received edits for my next novel, for example, was entirely up to my editor’s schedule, and out of my hands.

So I kept it modest, and a little vague. And, of course, a nice thing about modest goals is that it’s often possible to overachieve. So here’s what I accomplished, working from the above plan:

1. Drafted two novels.
2. Finished one novel.
3. Wrote a series proposal and two sample chapters, polished it all, and sent it off.
4. Wrote a grant proposal and thirty sample pages, polished that, and sent it off.
5. Drafted, finished, sold and celebrated publication of a novelette, “The Cage.”
6. Drafted three short stories and embarked on a fourth that proved to be a false start.
7. Finished two 2009 stories, which are now off at market.
8. Sent a novel to market.
9. Sent out material relating to a potential short story collection, after I won the Sunburst.

Need A Good Stiff Bonk?

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The push to get a few more books read before January is an odd sort of end-year resolution, and it prompts me to wonder if any of you has a similar deadline looming December 31st… something that isn’t work related, so much. Most of us decide to embark upon Personal Improvement during the holidays, and have forgotten all about it by April, am I right? Anyway, this is my quest. And I’ve failed, so far, to plump up my numbers by striking gold in the graphic novel dept: I did like Grandville, but I didn’t love it, and have set aside a bunch of the other prospects after 2-3 pages.

Before I read So Cold the River, I read Mary Roach’s Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers. Roach is a rockin’ fusion of science journalist and comedian, as evidenced by the following Very Not Safe for Work TED Talk on orgasms:

Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers covers bases I expected–cadaver research in a variety of contexts. It examined the ethics surrounding how donated bodies are used, stuff about Body Worlds, and lots of material on forensics, including the examination of decomposition by leaving corpses lying around outside. (You may have encountered this in procedural novels like The Body Farm). It also had plenty of things I’d never thought of: using corpses to make crash-test dummies, the cannibalistic use of bodies in medicine, for example, and a discussion of how much mercury is released into the atmosphere during your average cremation.

Intriguing, frequently guffaw-worthy and occasionally gross beyond words, Stiff
is a great read. I am planning to absorb Spook: Science Tackles the Afterlife
and Bonk: The Curious Coupling of Science and Sex in the near future.