I Had a Good Week

Really, I did. Four days ago I sold a short story, one that I had put a lot of work into. It was originally written in 2019, and got some nice personal responses from a few magazines, including Analog and The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction. (Gratifying, but neither  bought it.) However, it has sold, to an anthology. More details later. I can't even reveal the title just yet.

I also sold a novel, to Readict: An End to Housework, which is more or less mainstream with some speculative elements. I wrote the book ahem cough years ago, and have occasionally revisited the manuscript to update it. Housework was definitely experimental. What actually kicked it off was my reading of Cancer Ward by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn. That, plus the underground comics of Dave Sheridan and Fred Schrier. The novel (mine, not Solzhenitsyn's) has three interlude sections that were originally meant to be drawn, like a graphic novel. But it would have taken me too long to do that, so I ended up scripting them instead. Hey, who knows -- maybe Readict will allow me to do it the way it was originally intended. That would be fun!

I also completed the first 5K of my current ghostwriting gig, my 4th cozy mystery and the third paranormal one for one of my clients. Payment is in the pipeline, and the story is going well.

So writing-wise it was a good week for me.

I also put some time into the cover illustration for Before Baker Street, which I still mean to self-publish later this month. To that end, here's the first stage of the layout, scanned into Photoshop and pieced together seamlessly via its Photomerge function (for which thank the graphics gods).

I'll carry on with the drawing during the week, I was originally going to do the whole thing in pencil, but now I think I'll use this as the basis for continued digital work, instead.

And finally, I am finding it kind of a pain to update this blog twice a week, so I'm going to drop it down to once, on Sundays. It's easier on me, and I am getting kind of busy now anyway, between my ghostwriting and other things.

Hoping you all are the same...