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Hot Nights, Cool Writes

August Writing Wrap-Up

J. Brandon Lowry
Sep 3, 2018 · 5 min read

Thirty-one days have slipped by, and August is in the rearview mirror. The weather’s grown hot, but my writing has cooled off a bit, as I seem to be experiencing a bit of a summertime slump. This has been my least productive month in terms of publishing new stories to Medium, and yet I’ve been super busy on other projects. Time to take a look back and see what I managed to accomplish, and what could use some tweaking, in this month’s writing wrap-up.


THE NOVEL

This is easily my biggest current project, and the one that I should be dedicating most of my time to. Last month, I talked about the experience of reading my first draft from beginning to end and how useful it was for understanding the work as a whole. This understanding has been crucial for rewriting the introductory chapters, as they need the most reshaping in order to make it all feel cohesive. Part of the problem is that this is a Fantasy novel, and therefore requires a lot of world-building. However, this is my least favorite part of the process, and I put off as much of it as I could while writing the first draft, only doing what was necessary in the moment to drive the story forward. So now I’m going back and adding in details that will make the world feel complete from the beginning.

I’ve seen lots of fellow writers on social media complaining about the editing process, but I have to say that so far this is my favorite part. Not only do I get the chance to experience the story from the beginning, but I get to reshape and polish to my heart’s content, making sure it’s just right. The one qualifier here is that I’m disliking just how much I’m rewriting completely vs polishing. There have been some whole chapters that barely resemble what came before, or are entirely new. I know it’s the right decision for the story as a whole, but I certainly prefer one over the other. Plus, it never feels good to trash parts of your work that you had previously felt proud of, even if it is necessary. Kill your darlings, indeed.

Current progress: Halfway through Chapter 7 of 55


SHORT STORIES

I’ve got a couple things in the works on the short story front, the first of which is a collection of my stories that have been published here on Medium. The plan is to bundle them together based on shared themes, and write an introduction/reflection for the ones that stand out in my mind. I’m going to try not to edit them too much from the state they already exist in, but there is at least one story that will end up with a “Special Director’s Cut Ending”, and I’ll have at least one story exclusive to the book. There will also be some cool cover and chapter art to go along with the stories, and I plan to record an audio version to publish at a later date. It’s a fun project that I’m hoping to complete before the holidays.

The other big thing is that my social media marketer and manager (and lovely wife) has challenged me to collect five rejections from professional short story markets by the end of the month. It’s a concept inspired by Aeryn Rudel’s excellent blog REJECTOMANCY. The idea is that the only way to get rejected is to actually submit, forcing me to, you know, submit my stories. I’ve got two stories ready to shop around, and a third in the works, so it should be doable. I think this will be a fun little experiment, I’ll report back on its success next month.


THE EXANTHROPIST CHRONICLES

My experience in the world of serial fiction has been somewhat mixed. On the one hand, I’m having a ton of fun writing Nightstalkers. I feel like I’ve got a great feel for where this whole thing is going, I enjoy my characters and the world, and I think the finished novel is going to be a lot of fun for readers. However, getting people to read past the first chapter has been difficult. For one thing, it’s hard to market later chapters individually. They see “Chapter 4” and think, “Wait, I have to read three other things just to appreciate this one? No thank you.” And since I’m releasing new chapters every two weeks (because writing is hard, y’all), I lose the attention of those who’ve already started (with a few exceptions, which I really appreciate!). It’s a real pickle.

So I’ve had some ideas for how to combat this. One is to combine multiple chapters into Volumes and release them on Amazon for a couple bucks a piece. Not only will this expand my audience beyond Medium, but it will manage the expectations of readers so that they see it as a single, cohesive reading experience instead of a bunch of small ones. The other is to release an accompanying audio component. Again, this opens up a new market, and creates another way to enjoy the story. I’m in the middle of recording the first two chapters, to be released sometime this week. In the meantime, pop over to The Exanthropist Chronicles and check out the latest chapters from August:


WRITERS OF HORROR, SCIENCE FICTION, AND FANTASY

Because I’m not spread thinly enough, I also recently started a Facebook group for writers of speculative fiction. Although, to be fair, it’s primarily the brainchild of my social media manager, who is also the group’s executive admin. This group is geared towards those who take their social media marketing seriously, but don’t want to spend hours each day working at it. We have daily share threads that should, ideally, take no more than 10–15 minutes to complete, and dedicated group accounts to share the work of our members. So far we only have thirty members, but it’s only existed for a week, so I think that’s actually pretty good growth. Interested? Click here to check us out and sign up! You can also follow us on Twitter, Instagram, or Mix.


In the midst of all this, I did manage to publish some new stories on Medium this month, though it’s been my least productive month in this regard. I’ve stepped back a bit from my usual three posts per week in favor of working on the novel and everything else. However, these stories are some of my favorites, particularly A Vessel, Spilt. A big thank you to all of my loyal readers out there; see you next month!


J. Brandon Lowry

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Wayward PhD turned full-time writer. Topics: Health, Science, Medical Marijuana, Fiction and Poetry. Travel editor at http://theplaceswe.live.