What’s up with Jotham?
What Happened to the November Newsletter?
A human wrote this. Or is this something a machine would say?
Life! Yeah, there is only so much time and there is only one me. Besides the usual holiday activities and work related stuff (Check out this article), I’ve been figuring out how to streamline the newsletter writing/publishing, podcast stuff (or not stuff), and I got the edits back from my agent, and two Con’s already lined up for next year!
Agent loved the first part and third part of my manuscript rewrites, but the second part suffered from what I called a mushy middle that slowed down the pacing (spoiler alert: that’s never good.) I had all the ingredients in there, but a lot of other stuff—i.e. too many sub-plots—got to kill those darlings—
What did you call my Middle?
You know what happens after you turn 40, eating too much pie and lazing around thinking about running, but figuring out how to drive everywhere—No not that mushy middle.
So what is this mushy middle, if not part of a gym’s motivational slogan? Okay, I made the term mushy middle up, but I mentioned over the last few newsletters that I’ve been studying story theory (see this month’s non-fiction read below), and in particular story structure and sequences. Most stories that you read/watch, are told in eight sequences (a sequence is the order in which things happen in the story). The first and third part of the story have 2 sequences and the second act has four sequences. Not to get too much into the weeds about story sequence (if you like weeds here is a good place to start: Story Sequences), but my second part had a lot more than four sequences and too many sub-plots pulling away from the main narrative. See, a mushy middle! Don’t worry, I’ll be creating a resource page on my website and in future newsletters about all the stuff I’ve been learning (I’ve had a lot of authors ask me for the writing, editing and marketing resources that I’ve been compiling). Just one more thing to throw on my BBQ!
Back to my story’s mushy middle—After some back and forth, a couple zoom calls to go over things, I had a new outline for the second part and a personal goal to have a rewrite done by January (Before I go to MarsCon 2023, did I just bury the lead?). In a few late night writing sprints, I have already finished the first draft of the second part rewrite, and now editing that to give to a few beta readers. And if you are a numbers person, the second part went from a mushy middle of over 67,000 words down to 47,000 words. That’s a lot of mushy darlings. Fingers crossed we go out on submission in Spring 2023 (this is where the agent sends the book to editors at the publishing houses). Fingers Crossed!
MarsCon 2023
MarsCon January 13-15th 2023! Yes, I am going to be a guest and panelist at MarsCon in Virginia Beach, VA! I’ll be on six panels:
Religion, Magic and Science
Worldbuilding: Food and Drink
Researching Your Story
Do They Still Need HMO’s in Your World?
Dystopia is a Double Edge Sword for the Author
How Do You Define SciFi in 2023?
I am so excited. This was one of my personal goals to be invited to a Con and be on panels. Come on down and check it out! Hope to see you there.
NWI Comic Con
And speaking about Cons, I’ll be at the NWI ComiCon 2023with atomicnumber14 (Georgia) February 11th, 2023!
The Future Newsletter
Maybe you didn’t miss another email, but I didn’t send an email out in November. A few of you did reach out (thanks). So first, I decided to figure out a new way to create these newsletters and streamline the process of publishing them. It was some effort to make the newsletter and then make an blog and then post everything, exhausting. So I’m trying a couple new things. Using a Markdown editor to write the blog/newsletter in, so I just have to do the bulk of formatting once. Using an WordPress plugin so I can use one editor for both newsletter and blog. In the end, I should be able to write the newsletter in one editor and import it into WordPress for both newsletter and blog!
Second: The future of the newsletter. The OGs subscribers know I used to send two newsletters a month, one with updates and the second was a fun exploration of science by looking at our favorite science fiction and fantasy. This is how The Rabbit Hole of Research was born. I haven’t done a science Rabbit Hole of Research in a few months, but people have been asking for it to return. The podcast is coming, but part of exploring ways to streamline the newsletter/blog process was to get back to the thing I really enjoy is asking the tough questions like, Why Do Vampires Suck?; and can you really be Sexy in Space? (For the record no one still has gotten busy in space. LOL). Big announcement, Starting in January okay maybe February—expect some science in these emails!! And the podcast!! And the Zines!!
Have a great end to the year. Until 2023, Stay Safe and Healthy!
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Stuff I’m Digging in December
Comics
Mega Centurions by
Jon Parrish
I’ve talked about Jon in my Newsletter before, (Click here to check it out), but in short Jon worked with Scout Comics to release his comic series Mega Centurion. The final book was just released. Go check Mega Centurion and all the rest of Jon’s stuff on his website: Jon Parrish’s Home Page
Books
Fiction:
I’ve been busy editing my new MS, so reading has taken a back seat. Yet, I pulled this off the To Be Read Pile (TBR), Nnedi Okorafor’s Africanfuturism novel “Remote Control”. It’s a much welcomed break in between editing sprints.
Non-Fiction:
The last few Newsletters I have talked about getting more into story theory and Robert McKee’s book was highly recommended. Even though it focuses on Screenplay writing (future project?), it goes through the essential elements of crafting a story.
