Yesterday was a good day for writing adjacent activities. I formatted the story in Vellum for my secret steamy project and asked Steve to proofread it. I also worked on deck plans in Illustrator for our second secret project and made progress.

Today I start a new short story and it is an open question whether I’m going to work on something weird (to practice before Cave Creek), something romantic (for an anthology), another story for our secret steamy project, or something for the SSWS anthology on ideas. I’m veering toward the SSWS anthology and my plan is to write a historical short story either set in the second great age of exploration or in the ancient world. Perhaps something maritime.

The goal today is to have 500 words of a beginning that starts a story that I want to write. That sounds modest, but it can actually take several tries to get a 500 word beginning that I’m interested in continuing. I don’t waste the false starts. Those sometimes become other short stories after they’ve had time to ferment.

Another thing fermenting is the novel. Last night we continued watching R.L. Stine’s Masterclass, which was great. Lots there to think about for novel writers. He’s the opposite of Dean in how he writes. He outlines, for example. But much of his advice is similar but phrased just differently enough that I got a lot of new insights from it. Later on, I thought, ‘Oh, that’s what Dean meant!’ I’ll be sure to do a full review of it when we finish it.

We are just eleven days from MidsouthCon where I’ll be moderating three panels. I hope you will join us. I’ll be dressed as a member of Babylon 5’s Psi Corps, which gives me an excuse to wear gloves. Last year, I discovered that glove wearing reduced my chances of catching con crud, so it seems like a good idea for this year.

I hope your projects are sailing along. Be well, friends!