Multiple Projects
George R. R. Martin offers some excellent advice for new authors looking to break into the world of published science fiction and fantasy writers. “Given the realities of today’s market in science fiction and fantasy, I would also suggest that any aspiring writer begin with short stories,” he writes. It seems like sound advice. It is far easier to land an agent and sell a novel if the author has already been published, and the various short story magazines like Fantasy and Science Fiction are still a fledgling author’s best chance at making a first sale.
With that advice in mind, I now have a second project underway running concurrently with the writing of Child of War. I am also working on a short story entitled “The Dream Time”, set both in the present day and in the California Gold Rush era of the 1850s. The target word count for the short story is 25,000 words, a count based on the writing guidelines published by several of the pulp magazines. The goal is to complete The Dream Time and have it ready for submission by the end of 2009.
Switching between a short story and a novel brings with it some rather interesting challenges. In Child of War I have several major plots all intertwined. Those plots are all building towards a major climax in the final chapter, and they also set the stage for any number of subsequent books set in the world of Westerloch. Not so with The Dream Time, however. Given the word count restrictions, the short story by nature has a single plot that will hold the reader’s attention throughout. There simply isn’t time or space available to develop sub-plots. That I’m introducing two distinct time periods is challenging enough, although it is safe to assume that the reader is already familiar with the present day.
Without giving too much away, The Dream Time centers around Ethan Stuart, a young boy just entering high school. While walking home from school one afternoon, he decides to take a shortcut through a sandlot. A coin in the dirt catches his eye and he’s surprised to learn that it is a $5 gold coin inscribed with the name Moffat & Co. and dated 1849. The coin, however, launches him on a series of nightly adventures that take him on a journey through time to 1851′s San Francisco, Plumas City, and Rich Bar, California. These are all very real Gold Rush cities from that time period, and some of the characters Ethan meets along the way are historically accurate.
I finished the outline for The Dream Time tonight, and it looks to be an exciting story. I look forward to writing it. As to Child of War, work is progressing nicely. I have spent some time tidying up parts of Chapter One, and research into medieval battle tactics continues. Writing time will now be split between these two projects, but the net result will hopefully be a published story early in 2010. Stay tuned…
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