Author: S.C. Mae

So it’s 2022. The year after 2021. In fact, we’re already more than halfway through January. For me, at least, time has travelled different over the last couple years. Faster. Others I’ve spoken to say that for them time during the pandemic has crawled. But not for me. I’m not sure why.

Anyway, this is a place for writing talk, so before I get sidetracked before I’ve even begun, what’s happening writing-wise for S.C. Mae?

Well, last week I finished the first draft of The Votack Rebellion, book 2 in the Lincoln Reilly series. It’s finishing weight was 105,400 words and it’s now resting for a while before I start on edits. Last week I also finished polishing up my short story, Byte Tanzil and the Case of the Neural Mods, and moved it from my ‘In Progress’ folder to my ‘To Sell’ folder. It took about 3 months to get the story from start to out the door. It’s already picked up its first rejection and is out at its second market. I now have 3 short stories winging their way around the spec-fic zine universe. Flights of Fancy has picked up 5 rejections, as has A Question of Returns.

On a side note, if you’re a short fiction writer and are after an easy-to-use piece of software to keep track of your submissions, then check out Sonar3 from Spacejock Software. It’s free, and very awesome.

This week, I’ve started big edits on Spider’s Hub, Lincoln Reilly book 1. I’ve changed things up a bit from my usual process. Generally, my big edit starts with me printing out a hardcopy of the manuscript and going through that hardcopy page by page, identifying what needs work (which is typically almost everything, if I’m being honest 😅). Then I take my hardcopy notes and apply to the softcopy. This time around, though, I’m starting with a softcopy edit. Then I’ll print out a hardcopy and go page by page, and so on.

There are a couple of reasons for this. My last major edit was Bil’Tross, the final book of the Jazz Healy, Reunion series, and that edit took nearly 6 months. During that period I was learning how to publish books but still, when my plan is to publish 3 books this year, 6 months is, well, long. And while this might sound counter-intuitive, I feel that adding a relatively quick softcopy edit to the beginning of my big edit process will speed things up because a cleaner hardcopy means I should be able to focus primarily on plot rather than how clunky everything reads. Maybe! 😆

Too, I feel like Spider’s Hub is one of the loosest drafts I’ve written (though I think Votack is even looser, but that’s a problem for another day). So this can only help, in my opinion, mostly for the reasons already stated.

It’ll be interesting to see how long this edit takes me, especially now that I’ve wholeheartedly adopted the Pomodoro Technique. See my last post for more discussion on that topic. Though, that being said, I’d only just discovered pomodoros when I wrote that post, so I guess I can now present some evidence that the technique works for me. Prior to going all pomodoro on Votack, my best week of words was the second week of the draft, where I churned out just over 9500. My average, though, in the 8 weeks before I started pomodoro-ing, was only 6600, and I only surpassed the 9K mark 1 more time. My first week trialing (inconsistently, I might add) the Pomodoro Technique I wrote nearly 8200 words. The next week I started properly applying the technique and I added more than 11.5K to the draft. That even included a day where I didn’t write at all. In fact, from that point until I typed END, I took 2 days off a week, yet I still averaged nearly 11K per 7 days, including a week where I pounded out 13000 words. It took me over 8 weeks to get to 53K, but only a further 4 1/2 to add the next 52+K and finish the draft.

So yeah, the Pomodoro Technique works for me. And not just for novel writing but also for short stories and other creative stuff.

In fact, I’m even using pomodoros to make sure I get some regular reading time in.

Apart from edits on Spider’s Hub, I’m still working on the first Jazz Healy shorty to be included in the short story collection I’ll be releasing soon. That’s still at the draft stage, though I’m confident I’ll finish the draft this month and be well on the way on the second story.

I’m also working on the outline for my next novel. This won’t be a Lincoln Reilly book (I have hazy ideas for the third book but they haven’t coalesced into anything solid yet), or a Jazz Healy universe book (I’ve got lots of solid ideas there but I’m not quite ready to dive full-on into that universe again). It’ll be a multiverse-themed book. Back in 2011 I wrote a piece of flash fiction in a multiverse setting. It didn’t sell, though one of the venues I subbed it to responded that the piece felt more like the opening of a novel than a short story. I fiddled around with it over the next few years, still determined to make it work as a short story before, around 2015, I decided that yes, the idea and story would work much better in a novel. At that point I put it away in my ideas folder with, as I wasn’t seriously writing at the time, no real plan to come back to it. Then in 2019 while browsing through said folder I came across it again and the idea morphed into a series, the first book of which I’m now outlining. I have no name for it yet but I have the overall plot, and a pair of POV characters whose stories I want to tell. I’m kinda leery about writing it at this particular point in time, with Marvel having ripped open the multiverse doors and therefore anything published in the next few years having the potential to be seen as merely jumping on the bandwagon, but the story keeps bugging me and I’m not going to ignore it anymore. So there! 🤣🤣

There’s another piece of writing from way back when that won’t leave me alone, either. Between 2009-2011 I drafted a first-person POV novel that told the story of a bunch of genetically-enhanced and technologically-advanced animals. About when I finished the draft the thing turned into a trilogy in my head and so I started on the second one (well, I wrote the opening scene of the second one). Except that this one focused on another group of animals within this universe and thus felt more natural in third-person. I toyed with the idea of redrafting the first book into third person but at the time that felt too hard so I left it. But like the multiverse idea, this story also keeps bugging me, and I’ve decided to add the redraft to my project list. No timeframe on that one, though.

‘Your project list?’ you ask. ‘Is that a word document saved to your writing folder?’

What a great question and I’m glad you asked. Actually, right now it’s primarily a whiteboard. Each of my active projects is listed, with a timeline beneath showing what stage I’m up to, the completed stages crossed out. Each project has been assigned a different-colored marker.

But wait, there’s more! Very recently, I had to change phones and sadly discovered that the app I used to keep track of my novel writing no longer exists. I poked around looking at other apps but they all seemed to do a lot more than I needed, and while they did have the basic functionality I required they weren’t quite as nice as the App That No Longer Exists. So I decided to go back to a spreadsheet.

Then, after doing up a spreadsheet for Votack, I thought to myself, ‘Hang on, instead of individual spreadsheets for each project, why don’t I create a master spreadsheet to keep track of everything?’ That way, I reasoned, I could accurately track how many words I write (or edit) per day, week, month, perhaps even year, across all my projects, as up until now I’d really only been tracking daily progress on my novels. Because, well, I do be loving stattage, and for some reason find keeping track of stattage to be motivating.

And so the Progress Tracker Master, the spreadsheet to end all spreadsheets, has been born. Actually, it’s really very basic but I love it. In fact, this week I’ve been more excited to enter data into it than I have been to start edits on Spider’s Hub 😂. And when a project is finished all I need to do is hide the four columns that relate to it and the data remains intact.

Currently I have 3 projects open in the PTM, though the multiverse project has itself been split into 3 parts (I’m writing separate outlines for each of the POV characters, and I’ve added worldbuilding as a standalone element, too).

Anyway, I am definitely in waffle-mode, so before I completely send you to Boredom Town I’ll sign off. As always, thanks for reading. And again, a massive SHOUT-OUT to all you awesome folk who’ve left ratings or reviews of my books across the various platforms. You all rock very, very much!

Oh, one more thing: Above I mentioned my plan is to release 3 books this year. In previous posts, I said that I wanted to publish a short story collection in March but I’ve decided to push that back to April, to give me a release schedule of April, August, December. A book every 4 months. Feels nice and symmetrical. So that means short story collection in April, Spider’s Hub in August, and The Votack Rebellion in December. In 2023, I hope to be in a position to publish 4 books, which will be a book every 3 months, but that’s a long way away so I should really just focus on the now, right?

Thanks again for stopping by!
S.C. Mae

(In case you were wondering: this post took me 3 pomodoros to draft, and 1 to edit 😁)

So it’s probably time I posted, right? Gah, I am terrible at this blogging thing!

What’s been happening in my writing world, then? Well, all 4 books of the Jazz Healy, Reunion series are out, but you already knew that because they were out last time I posted. I’m still tossing up whether to do hardback copies on Amazon or not. At this stage, ebook and paperback are probably enough.

As far as the Lincoln Reilly books go, I’m over 60K into The Votack Rebellion draft. My planned finish date was 31st December but… yeah… maybe mid-Jan is more feasible. I’ve never written a story with such a large active cast, which is fun, but also challenging, of course. And there are still important characters I haven’t introduced yet… 😅

I’m partway through the draft of a new Jazz Healy short story, too, set well before the events in the Reunion series. Haven’t worked on it yet this week, though, because I’m currently focused on editing my Byte Tanzil short story. You may recall I mentioned this story in my last post. Byte Tanzil is a former pro spaceball (punnnnny) pitcher with addiction issues who’s turned PI and taken on a case involving an adversary from his playing days. Tentatively titled Byte Tanzil and the Case of the Neural Mods, the first draft clocked in at more than 11K but I want to get it as trim as possible before trying to sell it. 6K would be glorious but we shall see. Usually I don’t print out hardcopies of short stories for editing but due to this one’s length I decided to do so and I might just have to get back into the habit for all my shorties. Hardcopies are certainly part of my editing process for novel-length stuff and I’m not entirely sure why I got out of the habit for shorter stuff. Probably worried about the cost of ink/toner and paper. But the Epson printer I’ve got now does something like 4000 pages to a black ink bottle, and the bottles are cheap. In fact, I’ve had the printer for something like 2 1/2 years and I’m still on the initial inks. Actually, looking at the printer right now it seems I’ve still got about half the black left.

But anyway, as fascinating as that is, you’re not here to learn about my printer. Or maybe you are. That’s all good, no-one’s judging. If you are in the market for a new printer, check out the Epson EcoTank models. Mix that with an eco font on your documents and you could maybe get up to double the pages per ink bottle. I’m not saying you can but maybe?

Back to the writing talk. The plan is to have the Byte Tanzil story out looking for its first home before the end of the month. Then I’ll focus on the Jazz Healy short-in-progress and another Jazz story after that, both to be included in the short story collection I want to release March next year.

Related to writing, I heard about something called the Pomodoro Technique the other day. Now, I’m always on the lookout for ways to improve my focus because it seems the older I get the less able to concentrate… I am… no, that’s not right. It seems the older I get the less I’m able to concentrate. Hmm, that still doesn’t sound right but you get the drift, yeah? So I decided to try it out. And so far I’m loving it! I haven’t gone quite as old-school as recommended in the wiki link above – I’m using the Forest app, for one, because, well, you can get yourself a forest! – but I’m liking the 25 minute intervals followed by 5-10 minute breaks. You’re supposed to do the pomodoros 4 at a time, which would, with breaks, equal about a two-hour set, followed by a 20-30 minute break and starting over. I haven’t quite managed that yet (the best I’ve done without a longer break is 2 pomodoros) but I’m confident I can get there.

And that’s actually the end of a pomodoro right now. So Imma come back to this post in a little bit because after this short break I’ve got other work stuff that needs doing…

…Right, back. Though it’s now tomorrow, which is really today, so what that means is the words before this point were written yesterday and the words I’m writing after this point are from today, which will be yesterday tomorrow, and before you know it we’ll be in 2023.

I don’t have too much more writing stuffs to talk about, though I would like to shout ‘THANK YOU!’ to everybody who has left ratings and reviews for the Reunion series across the various retail and review platforms. You all rock very, very much!

Before I sign off, I want to recommend a book. The Story of China, by Michael Wood. An excellent, immersive historical narrative of China. A must read for any lovers of history. And if you’re not a history lover, well, you should still try the book out because you might become one upon reading it. Bear in mind that this isn’t a book to rush through but it is one to savor. The link above will take you to the Amazon store but you should be able to buy it virtually anywhere, and non-virtually, too, in most physical bookstores.

And finally, while I really like the design of my Microsoft Sculpt Ergonomic Keyboard, I’m also getting kinda frustrated by the fact that it seems to lose bluetooth connectivity/goes to sleep every few minutes, requiring me to jolt the keyboard in some way (usually by picking it up and setting it down quite hard on the desk because a soft tap doesn’t work) to wake it up. I wonder if there’s a wired version with the same design – the keyboard slopes down which I’ve found just amazing for my wrists.

Anyhoo, as always, thanks for stopping by and we’ll talk again soon!

(And if you haven’t read the Reunion series yet, why not? 😋 Also, did you know I’ll gift you books 2 & 3, book 1 already being free, if you support me on Buy Me a Coffee)

S.C. Mae

Bil’Tross, the epic conclusion to the Jazz Healy, Reunion series, has been released! Actually, it dropped over a week ago but the important thing is that it’s available, right? 😁

You can buy it on Buy Me a Coffee page (in fact, you can now buy all the Reunion Series over on BMC, and Miltan Epsilon, book 1, is just as free there as it is everywhere else), or you can procure it from Amazon, Google, Apple, and at plenty of other places, too.

To the fine folk who preordered the book: you are awesome and I appreciate you all very much!

Also, to everybody who has taken the time to leave a rating or a review for any of the books in the series, on any of the reseller pages or review platforms: you are also awesome and I appreciate you all very much, too!

Release day was strange, in many ways. Jazz Healy had taken up a large portion of my creative brain-space for many years – since 2013, actually, even though I didn’t start properly working on the first novel in the series until 2018 – and suddenly her journey was done. I should’ve been super-pumped, right, just bouncing off the walls to see the complete series out in the world. But strangely, I wasn’t. I wasn’t all ‘meh’ but, if I can describe it this way, I felt businesslike about it all. As in, ‘Well, that’s great and cool but I need to keep moving on my other projects.’

Over the last couple days, though, as I’ve been writing up this blog post, now I’m feeling it a bit more. Interesting factoids: 1) I wrote what I now think of as the Jazz Healy origin story (available to supporters here, which I’ll get to later in the post) in October/November 2013, and 2) I finished the first draft of Miltan Epsilon in November 2018. So symmetry, right, seeing as I’ve released the final book in the series in November 2021. Right, right? 😅

Yep, definitely feeling it now. Please excuse me for a couple moments while I lean back in my chair, put my hands behind my head and bask just a little in my accomplishment.

Okay, all done. Where was I?

Oh yeah, I tell you what, it feels like way more than 6 months have passed since I released Reunion books 1 & 2. But that’s all it’s been. Miltan Epsilon and Chak’r’Das dropped on May 4th, 2021, only a short 6 months ago. And man, have I learned a ton in that short time, and made plenty of mistakes (some of which I’m sure I’m not even aware of yet). But overall it’s been a blast, and I can’t wait to publish my next books! Without rushing them, of course. Gotta put out the best product I can for you all!

Speaking of next: Do I have any plans for Jazz Healy and the other folks we’ve been introduced to in the Reunion universe? Will there be any next for them? Well, for Jazz, I’m about to start work on a couple short stories set prior to the events in the series. So prequels, I guess, if we’re being efficient with words 😋 The plan is to include these in a short story collection I’m hoping to release sometime during February or March 2022. The collection will include some previously published stories, some previously sold but never actually published stories, and some brand new ones.

I’ve also got firm ideas for a standalone novel featuring Jazz’s Dad and a series featuring Turk B’sin’Glou and Lady Celia D’san’Edo, plus potential ideas for some Vince Eisner novelettes/novellas, and a Four-One-One + Xandra series. Those are all very much future projects right now, however, as I’m currently waist deep in the Lincoln Reilly universe. Spider’s Hub is sitting in a digital drawer awaiting edits and I’m 23K into The Votack Rebellion, Lincoln’s second adventure. Unlike with Jazz, where I knew early on that the story I wanted to tell about her would take 4 books, I don’t know how many I will need for Lincoln.

Once I finish drafting The Votack Rebellion, which I’m hoping to have done by the end of December, I’ll outline my next project (whether that’ll be a Lincoln Reilly story or something from one of the several other universes currently vying for attention in my noggin I’ve still to decide), and then get to edits on Spider’s Hub. I’d like to publish Spider’s Hub by the middle of next year but as I mentioned earlier in this post I want to be very careful not to rush things.

In other writing news, I’ve currently got 2 shorties out in the world trying to find a zine home somewhere, plus 3 others on the go, though there’s just 1 I’m primarily working on right now. Thus far without a title, it features Byte Tanzil, former pro spaceball (groan, amirite?) pitcher with addiction issues who’s turned PI and taken on a case involving an adversary from his playing days. I hope to have that draft finished by the end of next week, after which I’ll let it sit for a month or so before starting on edits.

In August I set a goal to have 5 short stories on sub by the end of the year but the reality will likely be 3. My goal for 2022 is 12 short stories, including any I self-publish. This is part of the Write 1 Sub 1 challenge we’ve revived over at Absolute Write. If anybody reading this is into writing short fiction then you should head on over and join up. The more the merrier and all that!

Aside from the Jazz Healy books now being available on BMC, I have made some other changes to my BMC page. I’ve decided to scrap the S.C. Mae Book Club for now. I might bring it back at a later date or I might not. Looking at it again a couple weeks ago I decided the Book Club rewards were just too nebulous and actually a bit confusing. Which means there are no membership options currently available. But you can still definitely be a supporter. And because Miltan Epsilon is permanently free, now if you support me I will gift you Chak’r’Das and Garbadon Major, books 2 & 3 in the Jazz Healy series, in epub format (if you use a kindle, there are plenty of user-friendly, free convertors out there to get the book onto your device – Calibre is one that springs to mind). Also, The Parmethon Caper, Jazz’s origin story and exclusive to Buy Me a Coffee, is now available to all supporters, past and future. All you gotta do is click the link above 🙂

I think that covers most everything.

So, in conclusion, if you haven’t read Jazz’s adventures yet, then hurry up and get on it! Stop depriving yourself of something amazing! 😁

And, as always, thanks for stopping by!
S.C. Mae