Blog is active again, HI update

y helo thar

I have a confession.  I'm a terrible blogger, I know I'm a terrible blogger, and I always feel a little bit bad every time I restart a blog because I know I'm going to abandon it in, like, a month, and leave my readers hanging.  Nevertheless, here I am, restarting a blog.  If you don't want to follow it, I wouldn't blame you.


So where have I been lately?  On the Intertubes, I've mostly been on Testingstan and EVE Online.  Testingstan is a message board where a certain clique of bitter trolls act like idiots all day long, and EVE Online is a sci-fi MMO where thousands of bitter trolls act like jerks all day long.  It's pretty fun, to be honest.  Unfortunately, EVE is a horrible time-sink.  Lately, I haven't been able to play because of computer problems, and honestly, it's probably good for me.  I'm paid up on my corp dues and I've got a couple long skills that need training, so it's a good time for me to be offline anyhow.

Ask your mom where I've been in real life.

OK, so, HI update.  I've been in contact with a professional agent since the beginning of the year.  He's been incredibly helpful, making suggestions to improve the book and correct nagging structural problems.  At this point, I've just finished the ninth (!) draft and I'm getting ready to start the tenth.

A brief explanation about how I work: since the third draft or so, I've basically been working with paired drafts.  Odd numbered drafts are where large-scale changes are made.  Even numbered ones are where I polish out all the new mistakes I introduced in the previous draft.  You could probably argue that the even numbered drafts are just proofreading the odd numbered drafts, but it's easier for me to keep things organized if I count them as separate drafts.  Once upon a time, I thought I could get this damn book done in three drafts, but, that's not exactly how it worked.

My goal is to finish the 10th draft by Labor Day, a ludicrously soft deadline that even I should be able to meet.  Labor Day wasn't an arbitrary choice--before then, the entire publishing industry is on vacation in the Hamptons, so there's no point rushing to get something submitted before then.  Of course, I have no idea if #10 is really the final draft (to be honest, I'm not completely happy with how #9 turned out, but I struggled a lot with it and that might just be leftover bad feeling).

I have other books percolating in my head, as well as a novella.  I should try to hammer out some short stories, but I just can't seem to make the short story work for me (so much for becoming a television writer).  There's also the Voyager Rewrite, which I promise I'll finish soon--I'm almost there anyhow, and it'd be a shame to abandon it.  I have some thoughts about Voyager and Trek in general, but I'll save them for another time so I have more material for later.

That's it for now.  Incidentally, I went back through my comments and noticed a ridiculous amount of spam.  I can't be arsed to delete it all.  If it turned out I missed some agent or publishing scam trying to advertise on my blog, let me know and I'll nuke it, but anyone foolish enough to buy Viagra from a link in a blog comment is on his own.  I did notice some people asking me about publishing scams, and I'm really sorry for never replying to them.  I'll try to make up for it with some posts later.