Happy Black Panther Weekend!

I went last night and it was a million times better than I even expected it to be, and my expectations were HIGH. All my fellow film geeks have been talking about Black Panther for what feels like eons. This is a historic moment in cinema. Along with last year's Get Out and the still upcoming A Wrinkle In Time, black protagonists are finally getting a significant spotlight in mainstream cinema. It's a drop in a very large, very overdue bucket, but it's a step in the right direction.

One of the horror and sci-fi films with black protagonists from last year that you may have missed, along with The Transfiguration, Sleight, and It Comes At Night, is one of the finest zombie movies out there, and a stunningly faithful adaptation to boot: The Girl With All the Gifts.

Watch on YouTube

I am going to spoil a few things here, so tread carefully if you haven't seen it yet.

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"It is a truth universally acknowledged that a zombie in possession of brains must be in want of more brains."

So begins the second adaptation of Seth Grahame-Smith's collection of monsterifications of period pieces. The first, of course, was Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter, which ironically was actually written after Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, and more an original alternate history type thing than a retelling of an existing work of literature. But today, I'm talking about the movie.


Via Giphy

Now, I was extremely skeptical when I first heard this was happening. I had no interest in the book, or any of the copy-cat retellings that followed, such as Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters, but . . . I don't know, somehow the trailer started to pique my interest. After the fourth or fifth time I watched it, and started to do a headcount of how many cool genre actors were a part of it--Charles Dance! Matt Smith! Lena Headey!--I decided I couldn't miss this one.

It didn't disappoint.

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So I'm not doing NaNo this year, exactly, but I do have a number of projects currently underway so I figured I might as well use this space to track my progress. If nothing else, it'll give me something to blog about, because seriously, I need to update more often.

Here's the score so far:

Short Stories:

Doppelganger--supernatural horror, clocking in at 6500 words. Longish for the markets I'm looking at, but not too long, hopefully. Ready to sub, at least as ready as I can make it with the help of five betas and one personalized rejection.

Early Risers--zombie short, horror-comedy, 1290 words. Submitted to Publisher A, no word back yet. It's been about a month since I sent it, but their kill date is 60 days, so I'm not worried. (Yet.)

The Candelabrum--good ol' fashioned haunted house story, no word count yet as it's all longhand. Inspired by the October Prompt on AW.

Novels:

Early Risers--same zombie short, expanding into a novel against my better judgment. (The first "chapter" is what I'm pitching as a short story, and I still think it works rather nicely as a standalone piece.) I'm also taking some of the pieces I couldn't make work from "Dusty" and trying them here instead. Progress so far: 4500 words.

Demigeists--YA horror/urban fantasy/magic realism. I put all those in there because it's still cooking and I'm not sure what it'll look like once it's done. I've taken one of my own nightmares, the random infestation of crows that popped up 'round these parts over summer, mixed in some characters from a trunk novel, and enrolled them in a prep school next to a graveyard. Progress so far: 5000 words.

Total rejections so far: 6 (1 personalized)

Full requests: 1

Like monsters? Read this article by self-described "icky bug" fan and author Fred Hayworth.

Like zombies? Check out this book trailer for Mira Grant's Newsflesh trilogy--the second of which, Deadline I bought just last week.

As for myself, I haven't accomplished as much word-count wise lately as I'd like to. However, I am progressing in a slightly different way, and pleased so far: I finished my "final" edits for my YA dystopia, which I wasn't expecting to happen as quickly or easily as it did, so I'm starting the query/synopsis/submission process again. YA dystopias are reportedly "hot" right now, and I just happen to have one, and this manuscript is decidedly more polished than the last one I sent out, so I'm hopeful.

Also, I joined a sci-fi/fantasy/horror workshop last week with a focus on short story format. I haven't successfully written a short story before, so I'm taking a stab at getting the form and pacing figured out. It's a good group, and I've workshopped with them before, so I'm excited. Wish me luck!

Happy Humpday!

Here is my progress thus far on the submission package for The Carrion Girl: I have the first fifty pages printed, as per the guidelines for one of my snail mail agencies; the query is now entering its third draft, and getting juicier by the minute (I hope); the manuscript itself is almost fully reformatted to the standard specifications (double-spaced, courier new 12 point font, my name and the title at the header and page numbers at the footer, etc.); and I'm just a handful of chapters away from being finished with the synopsis.

What I seem to be struggling with the most query-wise is wanting to hook whoever reads it, but also not wanting to spoil anything. In other words, I'm thinking of it like a book-blurb , which you're supposed to hold back for. One of the pieces of (sometimes conflicting) advice I've gotten concerning queries is that you should do that--write them as if they're book blurbs, like the thing you see on the back flap, to get people to read it. However, with a query, it's a little different. You're trying to get someone interested in buying the book who will then either shop it around to publishers (agencies) or publish it for you (publishers). Depending on who you're querying. Anyways, the query is really not where you want to hold back--whatever's unique and exciting about the book, you have it put it out there. What's screwing me up is that the unique, exciting thing about The Carrion Girl is a very big plot twist. It's revealed gradually, so this isn't something that I'd put on the back cover (which I will eventually have to write as well, assuming it sells).

It's a dilemma.

So instead of using the Book Blurb model of query-writing, I'm going instead with the Three Questions:

1) What does your MC (main character) want?

2) What does s/he have to do to get it?

3) What happens if s/he fails?

These are the things I'm trying to touch on, and the answers span the entire book--not just the first few chapters, which is what they'll be reading in the submission package once I send it out.

Bottom line, the goal with the query is to entice whoever's reading it to want more. A few chapters, for example. Then the full manuscript. Then, if they like the manuscript, the offer of their services to get it out to the general public and get it on a shelf.

So, I'm still hammering it out. I'm getting closer to my deadline, so this is worrying me slightly, however I also feel like I'm closer to having it right than I was before, and it's becoming more fun than work again. So this is a good thing.

Onwards!