Writing Newsletter Third Quarter 2024

 

This quarter I continued writing a story each month on my website, publishing, “Sink to Their Level,” “Hot Enough for Ya?” and “Other Means.” I also reposted “Choices,” “Same Old Line,” and “Flaunt It” on my Ko-fi profile.  I also reposted the story “Hot Heads” on one of my blogs.

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If I counted correctly, this quarter I posted seven microfiction stories, which can be found on my Untitled Works Page.  I also, if I counted correctly, posted 17 haikus.  The links to them can be found on my Haiku Page.

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I think the only other writing news from this quarter was a decision I made about my writing plans for next year.  I’ll write up a blog post about that around the end of December, which will explain everything, so you’ll just have to wait until then.

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Image from Pixabay.

A look back on my projects list

I recently decided to do a post on what ebooks I hope to self-publish sometime in the next year.  That post should be up later today.  But after I started it, I realized that I had done a previous post like that.  In December 2015 I posted The projects I’m working on, and the following March I added some Additional projects.  Before doing my new list, I should see how I did with my last.

Altogether, I wanted to publish the short stories “Relics” and “Rediscovery,” and the collection of essays “The Moon Before Mars: Why returning to the moon makes more sense than rushing off to Mars.” There were also the short story collections: “The Uncapped Pen,” “Amongst Us and other stories,” two scifi story collections, and three general story collections.  There were also other projects like, “140 Twitter Length Stories,” “Stephen L. Thompson / A collection of haiku / Two hundred total,” and “Possible Futures,” which was a mixture of essays, short stories, and random thoughts.

And what have I accomplished?  I’ve self-published “Relics,” and “The Moon Before Mars: Why returning to the moon makes more sense than rushing off to Mars.” I’ve also started posting “Possible Futures” blogs on my other blog.  Maybe someday I’ll collect them into an ebook.

So out of thirteen projects I did two and-a-half-ish.  It’s probably a good thing that my new goal list has only three projects on it then.

And what of the other ten projects?  I have a very, very rough first draft of “Rediscovery.” It needs a lot of work, and also there are a couple of stories I need to write to fit into “Rediscovery.” I’m not sure when I’ll get around to that.  I’ve probably been working on, but mostly off, “The Uncapped Pen” for six or seven years now.  I think it will be at the top of whatever list I make in 2018.  “Amongst Us and other stories” has also been floating around for a few years, and it will probably also be on my 2018 list.  “140 Twitter Length Stories” and “Stephen L. Thompson / A collection of haiku / Two hundred total” are projects I can do anytime, assuming I can get around to writing enough short, short stories and haiku to fill them out.

As for the short story collections, two of them have been combined into my “Seventh Story Stockpile,” which I’ll discuss more in the next post.  I’ll also talk about “Travels Beyond Imagination,” which is the title for one of the projects that was untitled.  As to the other two story collections, I’ll slowly plug along on them.  Maybe they’ll make my 2019 list.

On one hand it’s good to make such lists, but on the other it probably helps to put it someplace so you can refer back to it and hopefully keep your goals.  Which is why I’m going to post a link to my new list on my website.  That way I shouldn’t forget about the plans I make and will keep plugging away at them.  We’ll have to see how that works.

Some haiku for the season

Over the years I’ve written a few haiku for fall or for Halloween.  Some I’ve posted on places that are no longer around, so I figured I should gather them together and put them here.  Hope you enjoy.

awaiting the frost

dead leaves fall on vines plucked clean –

an empty garden

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rattling windows

creaking building, moaning wind

is it storm or ghost?

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windows rattling

moaning spirit of the house –

nightmare stage music

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smiling pumpkins watch

as black-caped vampires dance

with thin skeletons

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awoke in a field

full of shambling zombies –

my new brethren

The projects I’m working on

There are ten Kindle ebook projects I’d love to publish in 2016.  Here is a quick overview of them:

Short Stories

“Relics”

This is the story of a guy who had a natural immunity to a plague that killed men.  So not counting the few thousand men in quarantine, he is the last man on a world filled with women.  I finished writing this story over a year ago, and I’ve started giving it a “final” polish a few times, but other things have kept coming up.  If I can get a week to focus on it, I’ll get it out.  So this will be the first of these projects that goes up.

“Rediscovery”

This is a story about a YA fantasy writer who lost her memory in a terrorist bombing and her “rediscovery” of the world and her novels.  Will she be able to write the last book in the series?

Short Story Collections

The Uncapped Pen

This is a collection of 40-50 short stories dealing with writers and writing.  The original idea was to have a paperback version, but I’m not sure if I’ll do that or not. 

“Amongst Us and other stories”

This is a collection of ten short stories dealing with aliens among us. 

Untitled scifi collection

This is a collection of thirty short stories (many of them rather short) of various scifi themes.

Untitled scifi collection 2

This is a collection of ten short stories all set on the moon, similar to “A Cabin Under a Cloudy Sea and other stories.”

Untitled story collection

This is a collection of my non-scifi stories.  Okay, there will probably be a few scifi stories mixed in, but this will be a collection for all the various kinds of writing I do.

Other Stuff

“140 Twitter Length Stories”

The title pretty much tells it all.  I just need about 100 more, and I’ll be good to go.

“Stephen L. Thompson / A collection of haiku / Two hundred total”

Again, the title pretty much says it all.  I just need about 150 more, and I’ll be good to go.

“Possible Futures”

This is a collection of short stories, essays, and my random thoughts on what the world will be like in the next few centuries.  How will 3D printing, automation, mining the asteroids, etc. change life on Earth?  I guess you could call this an extended version of “The Future is Coming.”

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I’m slowly working on all of these projects, and when I – hopefully in 2016 – get ready to publish them, I’ll put up more detailed descriptions for them.  So I need to get to work.