While I was in CZ this summer, not only was I editing my scifi novel and my logic textbook, I also started two new works of fiction, intending both of them to be short stories that I could finish in a matter of weeks. As it turns out, I didn’t touch them again– until yesterday. Which is perhaps appropriate. They are October stories.
Autumn in Gatineau Park. My own photo, from 2015.
They take place in the same world as my Fellwater: The Hidden Houses novels, although they are set in a different town and they feature different characters. It felt good to return to “my world” again. A hint: one of them features Urania, the muse of philosophers, mathematicians, and astronomers; and it starts with her having a conversation with Nicholas Copernicus.
I have not yet heard back from any of the publishers I approached, back in the spring, with a pitch for my scifi novel. I know the publishing industry and I know these things take time. Now that it’s October, I will probably never hear back from some of the big-name New York agents I approached back in June (such as Tor). But that’s okay; the publisher I originally wanted is a mid-size indie, owned by a friend of mine, and they’re reading the whole manuscript right now.
By the way– I originally called it “Lorelei’s Planet” but I’m considering different titles. What do these possible titles make you think of?
– The Starshot Race
– The Nightfall Equation
– The Terminus Equation
– The Razor’s Edge
– Where There Appears To Be Nothing
– After Starlight
– After The Darkness
– The Verlassen Discovery
– The Distance
Probably the planet Venus, setting over the hill south of Krenicna, CZ, August 2017
While I wait, I can work on the beat-sheet for the sequel. And I can work on these other novels. And on a nonfiction project about ecology and enlightenment, which I also worked on this summer while in CZ. And on– well, you get the idea.
By the way– you can help me. By buying my books, writing reviews on Amazon (even if only one sentence, that’s all they need), and telling your friends about my work. (You heard that I published a new one two months ago, yes?) I do as much marketing as my time and money allow, but it isn’t much. I don’t expect to become a big-name celebrity intellectual. But I do hope that more people will read my books, think about them, study them, discuss the ideas in them with friends, occasionally criticise them. I’d like to see a community of sorts formed around the ideas in my books: made up of people who live according to the questions and the values raised in them.
And please accept my most sincere thanks for your ongoing support of my writing.