Writing and Me by Bonnie Le Hamilton

I have no idea how much I’m going to write today; I had another of what I term a “bad night.” Though this time it wasn’t the usual aches and pains causing me trouble. Last night I fixed myself a cup of tea and I overfilled the mug so as I walked from my kitchen to the living room (only a few steps) I sloshed some of that boiling hot water onto my foot.

I immediately put burn ointment on it; it feels better this morning, but I didn’t sleep all that great. It was hard to get comfortable when I couldn’t let anything beyond air touch my foot. And I have issues with getting comfortable at night anyway.

I always have to find a position that doesn't bother my back, accounts for my bad knee, and doesn’t set off my carpal tunnel, which is easy to do. And I should have worn my brace last night, but I didn’t, so I am paying the price this morning. Namely, I’m wearing said brace while I try to type.

I have also been trying to edit more of my sci-fi, only trouble is I didn’t get as far as I wanted to this last week; mostly because on Monday while I was at work, I came up with an idea to tweak the first chapter, so I was doing that Monday after work instead of getting further with my edits or doing something productive like maybe start this post.

Nothing like waiting until the last minute, especially when you didn’t sleep well the night before.

Anyway, my sci-fi seems to be getting better by the day (but who am I to judge? I like it). Konnie’s sci-fi is getting closer to polished by the day.

Konnie and I had a conversation this past week about how far along our respective sci-fi’s are. I had to point out to Konnie that she had a completed rough draft long before I started mine, so hers is clearly closer to “done” than mine is; especially since I don’t have a completed rough draft of even the first book in the series and she has a completed rough of her whole series.

I might also point out that while both stories are sci-fi, and both even have war as a central part of it, they are nothing alike. For one, hers centers around the relationships of the characters in her story while they deal with the issues of war, mine centers around the cause of the war. At least that is my central theme. Of course, I do have relationship issues in mine, but the underlying driving force is the character who caused all this conflict whereas in Konnie’s the cause of the conflict isn’t discussed, the war is only mentioned on how it affects the characters’ lives.

I think if I thought about it a little longer, I could think of other differences. Well, for one, she has more POVs than I have.

So far, I only have two POVs, with a possible third later in the series when he finally enters the picture. Konnie has, I believe, seven POV characters in the whole series. I don’t think I can produce that many.

There is a whole lot of difference between having a large cast of characters and having a lot of POV characters. Large casts I can manage. I’ve done that, but I’ve never had more than two POVs in any story. Seven seems astronomical to me.

Not that Konnie doesn’t see it that way too. Keep in mind that we both generally write romance, and those usually only have two POVs; the couple the story centers around. Even my speculative fiction centers around just one couple even if there are more couples in it. And, like I said, the majority of our work is romance.

In fact, for the longest time, I categorized my spec fiction as romance, or paranormal romance, with a hint of sci-fi, but none of those genres really fit. Then I discovered the genre called speculative fiction and that fits! Up until that point, I was worried that the story didn’t really fit anywhere, which was making it hard to sell. I am so glad I finally found a niche for it. Now just to sell it.

Finally having the right genre might actually help with selling it. Does anyone know a good speculative fiction publisher or agent?

Yeah, I have to work on my query and possibly my synopsis for that one as well, but I don’t know if I will have time with Nano right around the corner.

And that’s another thing; what do I write this year?

Anyway, happy writing everyone!