Fourth NaNoWriMo Update

I have a reprint out. "War of the Roses" (first appearing in Nature) is in the first issue of a new ezine, Comets and Criminals. They focus on Science Fiction and Crime/Mystery, among others (it's all in the name).

NaNoWriMo

One of the issues of doing shorts is some days, there isn't a starting point. At least with a novel, you know you can start where you stopped the day before. I wrote drips and drabs of things, but nothing seemed to be coming together. Then one evening, I wrote a whole story draft for a surreal thing about roads.

There isn't long to go now and I'm sure the stats are already laughing at me. However, I have stories, and my critique partner managed not to drop out this year. He's actually doing a novel, like sensible people.

I'll be finished on January 8, 2012.

Nebula Reading

Last week was flash fiction, so it's to the other extreme this week... novels (though one of the book I brought is in another category. It'll make sense when you get there). Most of my work was behind-the-scenes, as I've been reading novel extracts and looking for recommendations. I have a pile of new books to read before nomination time comes around.

These are a few I've finished and liked:

Akata Witch - Nnedi Okorafor (Novel / Norton) - Twelve-year-old Sunny feels out of place in Nigeria, both because she was born in America and she's an albino. Then she finds out she's a Leopard Person - someone with magical powers - and life gets even more complicated.

(Though it may sound it from the description, it doesn't fall into the magical albino trope. People's powers are influenced by their mind/body, but they're not created by them. Sunny is magical and albino, not magical because she's albino.)

Wolf at the Door - J. Damask (Novel) Jan Xu, a member of a werewolf pack in Singapore, has family issues to deal with and the repercussions of being a vigilante as a teenager. Then her sister Marianne returns, re-opening an old rivalry between them.

High Society - Paolo Chikiamco [author] and Hannah Buena [artist] (Short Story) This is a mythic steampunk ebook comic. In 1764, the Spanish have been driven from Manila in the Philippines, and place the blame on the British selling clockwork automatons to the locals. But the truth is closer to home.

The eligibility is more complicated here. It's an electronic publication available in the US, so should count as if published in the US. The word count makes short story the logical category (it's about 24 illustrated pages long, so short both ways).

I've either mastered the Nebula rules or not, but either way, I recommend the comic.