So a ghost, a varg, and an agoraphobe walk into a bar...

So that first post was supposed to be just a placeholder. It wasn't and this isn't. heh heh. Guess I can't resist.

It occurs to me that reporting my writing progress on my blog could be a great method of keeping me honest about how much I write per day -- besides blog entries and emails and other strategic distractions. I'm a big believer in writing everyday, even if it's only 200 words, even when life is throwing its tantrums or threatening to see other people. In future, I plan to blog a bit on how I find the motivation to sit down and get down to work and how I coax out my creativity when it's being skittish.

So what's on the current menu?

Short Story: Dis. It has ghosts, gang members, and bloody runes carved on stained popsicle stick staves. How's that for alliteration. No alliteration in the story, though, I promise. First draft complete at 8,100 words. Overshot the planned word count by 1,100 words, but that's an improvement for me. Unfortunately, the rewrites suggested by my critters will almost certainly add words. The cuts -- that's where it gets ugly. This one is going to sit for a few weeks while I work on another story.

Short Story: Shriver. Mardi Gras, skinwalkers, and vargs -- California style. In progress. This story is my current writing priority. Ouch, a daily total of only 221 words. That's what I get for starting a blog and playing with it for hours. Words to date: 545. I'm going to try to bring this one in at 4,000 to 5,000 words. Much easier to place than longer pieces. In this case, though, I'm looking to place it with a particular anthology. Fingers crossed.

Short Story: Wight House (working title -- so unlikely to survive). Sort of a cross between a chick flick and 'Thelma and Louise' but with an imp and an angry agoraphobe. No road trip, obviously. No work on this one today. I have the first line down, because when something occurs to me, like it or not, I have to write it down or lose it forever. Going to try to keep this one down under 5k as well.

Novel: Bad Blood (working title -- GAWD, I want to keep this one, but L.A. Banks' urban fantasy of the same name hit shelves just a couple of years ago). I'm still in development on this one -- I'm a hardcore planner -- but I can say it involves all things Norse (or at least some things Norse), a strong heroine who doesn't deck or shoot everyone she meets, undeath, literal sacrifice, and sex! No, the heroine isn't a Valkyrie. Been done. I was supposed to start writing this one last month. Didn't happen. I'm guessing I have...maybe 50-100 hours left to put in on plotting , outlining, and character development. Now I'm hoping to start writing and have a considerable chunk behind me by March 2011, when I head off to Wisconsin (in winter!!!) for the Fire in Fiction Workshop with Donald Maass, plus the sci-fi/fantasy master class with Nalo Hopkinson. Despite the cold, I'm sure I'll come back with my brain fried. With Maass, the shorter the class the deeper the burn. Less time to sear the knowledge into our hungry minds.

So that's my check-in. I'll try to do this regularly, but I also want to make this a blog that urban fantasy readers can enjoy. I want to talk about what I'm reading (currently Rosemary and Rue by Seanan McGuire), what you're reading (oh theoretical followers), urban fantasy in film and tv, trends we like or trends we'd like to see, etcetera. For other writers, I want to talk about how I write, how you write, tips and crits and learning the industry, resources and successes, and whatever else we can think of to encourage and help one another along.

I'd like to end on a question to encourage participation, but crickets don't talk. It'll wait.

And so it begins.

A blog is born, alone, in darkness, hidden. A thing both fair and foul, full of wicked thoughts and machinations.

Which is my way of saying I threw this up here as a placeholder for the blog I intend to use to chronicle and support my fledgling writing career (supposing I can call it fledgling when I've been at it seriously for a few years with a handful of published short stories to show for it...fetid and stagnant writing career perhaps?).

The 'urban' is for urban fantasy, which is what I'm writing at the moment. HUGE fun, I tell you. The 'psychopomp' is for....MWHAHAHAHAHA... Er, which is to say, the 'psychopomp' is for my aspiration to take readers into something deep and subconscious and archetypal. I know lots of urban fantasy (especially the Angry Chicks in Leather sub sub genre as described by writer Lilith Saintcrow) is not really known for deep thought so much as gorgeous kick-ass chicks and hunky supernatural love interests (which I find pretty tasty myself), but I'll try anyway. Maybe add some Charles de Lint into the LKH soup, with a dash of Seanan McGuire a la Sparrow Hill Road and a chaser of Neil Gaiman gold label American Gods. But no leather for my heroines, or tattoos, or fighting in stiletto heels, or vampire boyfriends. Others have done it too well.

Gosh, this is an awwwwfully busy post for a placeholder. I guess I just can't see a stage, even a figurative one, without sneaking up onto it and playing with the microphone.