An active week

This has turned out to be a busier week than I expected. After posting my new Troubleshooter story “Legacy Hero” on my Patreon, I figured I was free and clear to begin writing Arachne’s Legacy (whose similar title is coincidental, and indeed I only just noticed it). After I finished rereading Arachne’s Crime and Arachne’s Exile, I created the manuscript file on Monday evening… though I didn’t really add anything new until Tuesday morning, since the prologue is the short story “Comfort Zones,” which I wrote as a bonus for the duology’s Kickstarter (and reprinted on Patreon) but always intended to be the prologue of Book 3, before I knew it would be included in The Arachne Omnibus. Its inclusion will be redundant for people who have the omnibus, but necessary for those who bought the two books individually.

Anyway, on Monday night, I got an e-mail informing me that a story I wrote and submitted at the end of last year had been accepted! It’s my first sale of a “flash” story, i.e. less than 1500 words, and I’ll say more about it later. It hardly pays anything, but that’s less of a concern for me now than it was a month ago. Right now, the important thing for me is that it’s a chance to get exposure in a new market, an established magazine that will hopefully bring me some new readers.

Then on Tuesday, I got a reply about a couple of pitches I submitted to another new market, telling me they’ve been forwarded for the approval process. Nothing’s been given the go-ahead yet, but it’s a step forward.

And on Tuesday afternoon, I got something I’ve been waiting to see for a while now: the galley pages for my upcoming Analog story “Aleyara’s Descent,” which I sold nearly half a year ago. Assuming the headers and footers are accurate, the story will appear in the May/June 2023 issue of Analog, which means it should probably come out in April or thereabouts. I really feel this is a special one, and I can’t wait for people to see it at last.

So since I’ve been working on the galleys, I wasn’t able to make any progress on Arachne’s Legacy today. But I’m still figuring out how to write the next scene, reintroducing one set of the main characters and their situation. Beginnings are often the hardest parts to crack. I plan to do another proofreading pass through the “Aleyara” galleys tomorrow, and hopefully letting the book simmer for another day will help me figure it out.

Assuming, of course, that even more business doesn’t crop up in the days ahead…