If an agent has a blog I know about, I read it. I consider it part of my education into what it takes to be a professional writer. And if any agents are ambling past, reading this (you’re lost, aren’t you? You should’ve taken a left at Albuquerque), I’d really like to thank you for the time you take to blog. If a picture is worth a thousand words, an agent’s blog is worth a thousand SASEs!

That doesn’t mean I agree with every opinion that’s offered by an agent. And, to be honest, opinions vary and conflict from one agent to another, as well. However, for the sake of this blog, one I read recently said that an author’s blog should only be used as a vehicle for an author to take about author-y things. Ixnay on the personal tuffsay. If you combine that with the prevailing wisdom that you should blog regularly several times a week, then it means that I have to come up with exclusively author-type posts 3 times a week.

Yikes! And also, not possible.

Do you know how slowly publishing moves? I’ve seen livelier glaciers on Jacques Cousteau documentaries. (ZZzzzzzzz…) So, considering that there are months (if not years) between releases and news on submissions, what writing-related stuff am I supposed to blog about? I’ll be honest with you; I think I’ve done my dash with some agents, because I so often dip my toes in things such as economics, religion, politics and the Great Pumpkin, and if agents ever come here, they’ll see that I’m too opinionated for my own good and have an unhealthy obsession with alcohol. However, to my credit, I also don’t bore you with how much cough medicine I took last week when I had a killer of a cold (and I did), so I guess it all evens itself out.

Writing. For a change. If you’ve visited my blog, you’ll see that my current wip is a novel with the working title of Quinten’s Story. (I’m not happy with that title, but it’ll do for now.) It’s set in the Republic and is a standalone story, much like On Bliss, Prime Suspect and The Turk (still in wip). And it’s the story of a crippled human who finds himself drawn to a female shapeshifter. I’m going through some flashbacks at the moment, and trying to hit them all in one stretch so I don’t lose the flavour of what I’m trying to portray. I’ll pretty it up during edits. However, that’s not all. On my plate for tackling this month, I also have three other things, besides dear Quinten:

• A short story for the Return to Luna short story competition. (Entries are open till mid-June, if you’re interested.) I’ve finished that one. It came in at 4,000 words and I’m editing it at the moment.
• An excerpt for a romance, to see if I have the cojones to write something contemporary. Unfortunately, I haven’t started that one yet and the end of the month is next week.
• The start of an s-f short story, tentatively titled “Natural Ability”. I’m hoping it will come in at around 5,000 words, and it would be nice if I could at least get it started in April.

So it’s 3 shorts and one long, and that’s the rest of April and all of May (and a fair slice of June too, I should think) all wrapped up. I suppose I could try to string that news out across 3 months, but my heart’s really not in it. And if I get bored thinking about it, I’m sure you do too. So, if you want to read about writing again, I suggest you visit again around June. It’s back to normal programming (for better or worse) next blog.