Once again, we find ourselves in that special place of thinking maybe this year will be different, maybe this year will be better. I despise this manner of thinking, though I still fall prey to it somewhat. A rounded rock covered with water and air corkscrews through endless night like spiraling down a toilet’s drain, chasing endlessly in the wake of a massive ball of nuclear fire, and we pick some arbitrary point in its orbit to call a turning point. There is no turning, no angles or corners, only the spiral.
Anyway, I’m not seasonally depressed or anything. No, truly. I’m always this much fun at parties.
What’ll I do this year? I expect I’ll finish up my Vorkosigan re-read sometime in February. I’ve currently just started Memory, which (if memory serves, ha) marks a major turning point in the saga and the end of the military-sf focus. So I’m in some kind of home stretch. Still very much enjoying each book as I tear through them. Six to go after the current read.
I also expect to finish my cyberpunk novel starring Serotonin Overload and Random Access. It’s currently sitting at 47,000 words. The finished draft should clock in somewhere around 85,000. The story is standalone, albeit set in the same universe as my Voidstrider books.
I’ve been toying the last few days with an idea for some serialized storytelling, also set in the Voidstrider worlds. Might fuck around with Kindle Vella for that, might not. The idea I keep coming back to is sort of “biography of a space pirate,” probably starring Voidstrider background character Fang Covarrubias.
At the risk of yelling “squirrel!” this is too good not to share: a squirrel just jumped from the tree outside my window to the window ledge, quite a startling noise upon impact. I look up and this guy is staring back at me through the glass with a most un-squirrel-like intensity. Aggressive little bugger. I gave him the finger and he reared up and made squirrel noises at me before finally scampering off.
I think I’ll take a cue, then.
John A. Underwood 