Welcome to the September 2011 list of current projects, because I am the gift that keeps on giving, and time is the gift that keeps on taking. To quote myself, being too harried to say something new: "These posts are labeled with the month and year, in case somebody eventually gets the crazy urge to timeline my work cycles (it'll probably be me). Behold the proof that I don't actually sleep; I just whimper and keep writing."

Please note that all books currently in print are off the list, as are those that have been turned in but not yet printed (Blackout). The cut-tag is here to stay, because no matter what I do, it seems like this list just keeps on getting longer. But that's okay, because at least it means I'm never actively bored. I have horror movies and terrible things from the swamp to keep me company.

( What's Seanan working on now? Click to find out!Collapse )

It's reasonably rare for me to have a short story run up, punch me in the teeth, and run away giggling to itself. On the occasions where this happens, I sort of feel like I have to write the story down, since otherwise, it might come running back and hit me again. That was the case earlier this year, with a nihilistic little piece that I kept describing as the prelude to a Vertigo comic series.* I wrote the story, I revised it, I read from it at Arisia, and now, finally, I get to announce...

"Crystal Halloway and the Forgotten Passage" has been sold to John Joseph Adams at Fantasy Magazine, to appear in one of their upcoming issues (probably still within 2011). It's the story of a girl named Crystal, and how she finds her way home after an awfully big adventure. It involves dire bats, children's book logic, wicked roses, giant spiders, and broken hearts.

I am very, very pleased with this piece, and very, very proud of it; it's the same sort of half-mad fantasy as "Lost" or "A Citizen in Childhood's Country," but it's also its own creature, wild and strange and a little bit lost in its own world. I'm totally delighted to have a story in Fantasy Magazine, which I love, but I'm even more delighted that it's this one. I feel like I'm growing as a short story author. I feel like this story proves it.

Coming soon to an internet near you!

(*Dear editors at DC: I am an internationally well-known author with a good sales record, and I love your Vertigo line. So if you want to make this the prelude to a Vertigo series, I would be a whole wide world of happy to discuss it with you. Just saying.)

Words: 6,220.
Total words: 54,400.
Reason for stopping: I have finished chapter thirteen. Now is the time of sleeping.
Music: an awful lot of Glee, really.
The cats: Lilly, on the bed, Thomas, on the orange tree; others, unknown.

If I did not have a bedtime enforced by biology and my need to get up at five o'clock tomorrow morning to go to work, I would have broken two hundred manuscript pages tonight. Since I have this thing, I have stopped at the end of the chapter, which should make the Machete Squad happy. They get a little cranky when I drop eight chapters on them in a single fell swoop. Something about the way where I still expect my comments just as fast...

This was a pretty easy chunk to write, and the next chunk is likely to be the same, since it has characters I adore (and am pretty good at writing for), fun things to do, and lots of running down corridors (which Doctor Who has taught me is a necessary part of all stories). I'm starting to feel pretty darn good about this book. Better yet, I have this entire weekend to work, with the exception of a few podcasts and a trip to the Farmer's Market on Saturday.

Life is good. Goodnight, world.