As has become the custom in SFF circles, this blog is to place on record those items I will have created in 2019 that might be of interest to those nominating and voting on SFF awards. (Or any other genre of awards, for that matter, but there really isn't any equivalent culture within the lesbian literary community.) At the actual end of the calendar year, I'll do my usual "What Hath She Wrote" post that summarizes all my activities, but this one is just for the plausibly SFF items.
Novels
I'm drafting up entries for an Alpennia FAQ based on either overt or implicit questions I get asked about the books. This time I tackle one more of the possible genres the books might fall in:
Are the Alpennia books SFF?
I've been writing an improvised photo-essay ghost story on social media over the last few days (on facebook and twitter). I was hoping to post the final compiled version here, but I'm having trouble getting the blog to behave with regard to posting the in-line images. Eventually I'll sort that out, but in the meantime it's on my other (personal) website.
I'm drafting up entries for an Alpennia FAQ based on either overt or implicit questions I get asked about the books. Since this week is asexual awareness week, I thought I'd post the question about sexual content in the books. Because some people get confused about the difference between books that don't include explicit sex scenes and books about characters who don't have sex.
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Content: Do the Alpennia books have sexual content?
Worldbuilding:
Where is Alpennia anyway? What are its cultural connections?
I'm starting to draft up a FAQ about the series, based on actual questions I've received or that have been implied in people's comments on the books. Let me know what your questions are, or if you want additional detail in these explanations.
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Genre
Are the Alpennia books historical?
The setting deviates from real-world history in two major ways. Magic exists. And the country of Alpennia does not correspond to any real-world place or nation.
Worldcon proper doesn't start for another week, but I'm taking my "extra time" before the convention this time. At the point when I'm writing this, everything is packed, cleaned, organized, set up, checked in, and so forth.
I just hit "send". The manuscript for Floodtide has now officially been delivered to the publisher. And three whole days before the contracted deadline, too!
Yes, I'm kind of proud of that because, while I use deadlines to schedule and organize my project planning, I really dislike coming down to the wire. Things happen. Computers break. Networks go down. People get sick and don't have the energy to leave their beds much less do serious last-minute editing. (Wait, that was two weeks ago. Already ticked off that box.)
I love getting reader questions as blog prompts, and given the sort of people I hang out with, I get some really fascinating ones! Here's a question that Riia sent in for the blog. I've known Riia through the SCA (Society for Creative Anachronism) for a very long time and have been following her professional travels and adventures from Alaska to California to Tasmania (am I remembering that correctly?) to Italy to Sweden doing research with lasers and garnets (among other things).
My friend Karen periodically holds a "backyard writing retreat" for a small circle of friends. The idea is to set aside the day for actual writing, not chit-chat (though we do some of that) or web surfing (though that happens too) or getting caught up on ancillary tasks (yup, check). So for this past Sunday's writing retreat, I committed to actually starting the revisions on Floodtide, which has been "fermenting" in messy first draft since...oh my goodness, since before last year's Worldcon? I'd have to check.
