Hi everyone, and welcome to May’s second full moon! You only get a newsletter like this once in a blue moon 😉 Here’s what’s new:

• I submitted the vampire story!
• I went to the Locus Awards ceremony!
• I made progress on Viper... sort of... it’s complicated.

Current Phase

Yesterday I went to the Locus Awards ceremony: congratulations to all the winners! Thomas Ha was new to me, but he was on an engaging panel about POV, and then won two awards, and there was a bookseller right there, so now I own a copy of Uncertain Sons. Plus a dozen other books, because Locus receives a gazillion books per year—for review—and then has to get rid of them somehow, so they just kind of... load up tote bags and hand them out as party favors?

I was hoping to finish the new scenes for the Viper rewrite by the end of May, but they keep multiplying. Right now I'm inventing new characters—apparently I threw the Emperor's bride into the harem and forgot to assign her new servants, which is absurd. And of course the servants are observing her. Spying on her. Complicating her plans. Complicating my plot.

Part of me says, but it’s draft #4, I don’t want to add new characters, and part says, am I sure I’m not chasing impossible perfection, but most of me says, god damn it, I did it again. It’s true: I do this all the time. I write a huge gorgeous landscape (with the dubious aid of my buddy Xuanzang) and then populate it with six characters. I am the Samuel Beckett of epic fantasy. (“Shall we go to King’s Landing?” “Yes, let’s go to King’s Landing.” They do not move.)

Looking Ahead

So my goals for June are to actually finish the new Viper scenes, to finish reading slush applications for Viable Paradise, to possibly apply for the FSG Fellowship, and, if the story about the ice skating vampires gets kicked back to me, to send it out again without dawdling.

In other news: I’m going to 4th Street Fantasy in three weeks, and I managed to get into the Friday writing seminar where John Appel demonstrates getting unstuck without complicating your plot (relevant to my life!) and Arkady Martine demonstrates using divinatory tools, procedural generation, and such to generate inspiration (you may recall my interest in this subject.) I promise to tell you if I learn anything really excellent.

(I’m also applying to be on a panel, but I’m secretly hoping they don’t pick me. Now that I’ve said that, they probably will.)

See you next time the moon's full!