This month’s Read Around the Rainbow blog topic is our writing plans for next year! Let’s see…
Honestly, I’m still trying to finish up a couple of things for this year (there’s something with a deadline of Jan 10!) so I haven’t thought too far in advance! But there are three things I’ve been thinking I want to try to accomplish…
First, write some of the sequels that’ve been lingering too long: the Magician sequel about Lorre’s daughter (that one’s probably a novel), the Frost & Raine sequel novella, the Featherbed Puzzle spin-off (imagine Justin planning a wedding!), the next short story adventure for Aric and Em in the Snails of Dun Nas pulp fantasy adventure world (there were always meant to be at least three of those). And the third and last book in the Spells & Sensibility trilogy, with K.S. Murphy! And some sort of follow-up project with our Naked Gardening Day Stories group. Oh, and the f/f collab follow-up to One Night in London, which we have sketched out but not done yet…
(A “someday” vague idea: I’ve always kind of wanted to have a universe that I could invite other authors to come play in, like Mercedes Lackey with the Valdemar anthologies! Maybe someday we could do that with the Magician universe – Tales from the Middle Lands, or something…if some friends would like to expand the universe with me… *laughs*)
Second, write more novels. I feel like I wrote a lot of short stories / novellas last year, and those are fun but I also miss a sustained narrative and world-building and spending more time with characters. This will probably mean doing less in terms of joining in publisher events – for instance, last year I was trying to write a story for every “this or that” holiday theme that JMS Books had (like the “trick or treat” or “rain or shine” themes – those ended up being all the Wes & Finn stories), and I did it, but the pace of that meant that I had to keep writing the next one, and the next one, for the next month, and then the next, and so on! If I want to work on something longer, I need time and brain space to do that. And I have a couple of ideas that’re definitely novels…the one about Lorre’s daughter, and the final Spells book, as per above, plus Ember and Serenity, which is the book I think of as “very Patricia McKillip but also very gay” (okay, to be fair, that’s a lot of my books, but especially this one) (I’ve shared the opening line of this one in the little meet-the-contributors interview I did over at the RoMMantic Reads zine, a while back), and then also the m/m–but-eventually-m/m/m medieval thing that’s very loosely based on the medieval “Sir Orfeo” (which actually has a happy ending! and is more about good kingship!), which might even be two books.
Third, not exactly writing plans but related: get a little better at promo! Actually launch the FB group I’ve had in existence but private (because it’s not set up properly yet) for a while now, and do a real newsletter, at the very least. And update the website. I don’t have time to do much more than that – still teaching, academic work, all that! – but those seem like things that would be helpful? Also maybe get better at Mastodon, which I exist on but haven’t done much with, because that’s One More Thing.
I have an online event to pop over to in 10 minutes, about medieval pubs, so I think that’s it for now! Come check out the writing plans of my fellow marvelous RAtR bloggers over here:
K.L. Noone Writes 
Promo is so boring, though. Selling myself is destroying my will to live and stealing time I’d rather use to write.
Look at me being all supportive 😆
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Yes! Promo is a whole different job, and a whole different skill set! It’s so awful, and it takes so much time – time that could be writing time! *flails*
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Oh yay! I’m looking forward to your added sequels and a new novel!
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I feel like 2023 is going to be the Year of the Sequels! Finally, in some cases…they’ve been waiting a while! 😀
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✨💖✨ I love sequels to fave books!
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There can never be enough time with favorite characters, right? 😀
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I should probably do some Mastodon too, but… 😕
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yes, it’s like…I should do more over there, but it’s One More Thing at a time full of Things, and the amount of brain-space I’ve got is just like….nah. :p
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Yeah, it doesn’t really make the list of important things to do.
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All sounds wonderful!!
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I’ve also realized I totally left the Character Bleed spin-off novel off of my list, there! Which might have to be two novels. Or one REALLY long one. It’s already longer than I meant it to be….
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Oooh!! 😁
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Leo needs his happy ending! It’s about time. 🙂
#
Leo’s father, with the tact that made him a much-beloved administrator, kept the conversation on work, students, the new laboratory building they’d be getting in the summer. Leo’s mother chatted about the theatre; they both asked about Steadfast, about the joy of the success and the excitement of the press tour and the premieres, about his earlier meeting and the multi-episode villainous science-fiction arc he’d agreed to. They did not push; expectance hung in the air above plum and apricot crumble, topped with freshly grated ginger, but it hung there unobtrusively.
Leo’s mother, when they’d more or less finished and were picking at the last bones of the demolished crumble, said casually, “Anyone up for a family game night? Something cooperative, perhaps, solving a mystery or escaping a mystical island?” and Leo took a deep breath and said, “Yes, but first, I did have something to tell you,” and both his parents smiled at him, holding hands.
He fiddled with a fork. Made himself stop. “Er…speaking of Steadfast. And love stories. Between men.”
“Oh yes,” his father agreed encouragingly. “So lovely, seeing that.”
“It is, yes. And I’m proud to be part of it. Er…when I say part of it…I mean I’ve sort of met someone. Someone I, ah. Really like.”
His mother instantly put a hand out, gathered up Leo’s anxious forkless one, and said, “Oh, darling, we’re so happy for you, what’s his name? How’d you two meet? Is he also an actor, or in the industry?”
“Sam, and he’s—” Leo skidded to a halt, mouth open, every single atom quivering with multiple emotions. “That—you—you just…”
Chester and Harriet exchanged glances.
“You’re not even surprised,” Leo said.
“Well, you see,” his mother said, “the thing is, well…we already rather thought you were, er, not entirely straight, perhaps…”
“You did not! How did you know? I didn’t even know!” He waved the hand not being held in his mother’s, gesture landing someplace between desperate flailing astonishment and equally desperate laughter. “Why was I the last one to know?’
“To be fair,” his father put in, “we thought you did know. Given all those comments about attractive male co-stars, or that time you brought, what was his name, Matt, as a date to that awards show, and then kissed him in front of the cameras…”
“He dared me to! And I thought it’d be fun!”
“And there was the time you bought the dildos,” his mother contributed cheerily. “There were pictures in all those magazines.”
“Those were for someone else! She was embarrassed about wanting them!”
“We always hoped,” his father took up, beaming, “that you’d feel comfortable enough to tell us, someday. Not that we’d ever push, if you weren’t ready. Not at all.”
“Oh my god,” Leo said, and buried his head in both arms atop the table. “Oh my god.”
“We’re so very honored you’ve told us now.” His mother patted his arm. “You did say he, so were you going to tell us it’s all the men all the time, from now on, as it were, or something a bit more all-inclusive, or are you still sorting it out?”
“Oh my god, Mum.”
“As long as you’re happy and they treat you right, that’s the important thing.”
“Thanks,” Leo said into his arms and the table, and then looked up. His parents were still holding hands and radiating fondness at him. He took that in. Sat up more. “I, ah. I’m still sorting it out, but I think…probably bisexual? Or pan. It’s definitely not all the men all the time from now on, Mum, thank you for that. Though actually it kind of is, isn’t it? One specific man’s getting all of my time, so I suppose that works. But it’s something with room for being attracted to lots of people, and genders, I think.”
Saying so, he felt like himself: back to humor, back to teasing, but even more than that. He’d said it aloud, to his parents; something in his chest felt new and raw and fragile and inexpressibly overjoyed.
“Oh, so lovely,” approved his mother. “And, you know, it’s not as if that’s not respectable; look at William Shakespeare, he liked both the women and the men, and he did fairly well for himself, didn’t he?”
Leo, caught between laughter and a sigh, got out, “Thanks, Mum, glad to know you think I’m on the same level as Shakespeare.”
“You’ve certainly got better hair. Though we’ve still got some pictures of you with that unfortunate bleach—”
“We don’t talk about those pictures! I made you pinky swear, Mum!”
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Oh this is glorious!! 😁💖 I already love Leo but I now adore his parents!
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Leo’s parents are 100% the sort of parents who will immediately run out to buy “I Love My Bisexual Son” t-shirts and wear them EVERYWHERE, with enthusiasm. Which also explains a lot about Leo, honestly. :p
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It’s so easy to get sidetracked by publisher events! They were a great deal of fun, but they toppled my 2022 plans.
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Exactly! I had a ton of fun doing all the “this or that” stories – but then that was basically what I was doing, all year! This year I think I need to work on some of the things that’re already in my head. Including our Naked Gardening follow-up, of course! 😀
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