the road to publication: the kite of stars

"The Maiden and the Crocodile" Illus. Andrew Drilon

Anvil sent me the first review copy of my collection a few days ago, complete with all the illustrations, triggering the editing phase. Thankfully, the best editor in the world is my wife, so Nikki did all the heavy lifting, painstakingly reading the entire thing and marking her corrections. Today, I have to finish my own pass, changing what needs to changed, and helping the publisher format one of the stories that stumped them ("Princes of the Sultanate", coming out in Story Philippines in the future).

I briefly considered adding a new story I wrote recently, "Strange Weather", a traditional fantasy with lots of action, but decided to save it for the next collection (siyempre naman, hope springs eternal haha). Also, I haven't even attempted to sell it, so I'll pass it around the block first.

The review copy of the collection made me tear up, seriously. It has all the beautiful illustrations by Andrew Drilon, and has most of the stories I've written up to last year. It feels like I'm holding a chapter of my life in my hands so you cannot blame me for my emo moment.

I'll get my own edits done today, consolidate those with Nikki's, and send the copy back to Anvil where the corrections will be made. After that, I think they'll send another copy for final review and then we're good to go.

Talking to Charles (who appeared like a djinn to to deliver books from Banzai Cat - thanks, man!), I realized that I'll have two books out this year: the collection plus the annual spec fic anthology. Now that epiphany provoked another emo moment (though happier and lighter, of course).

Writingwise, I have new stuff on my plate,including an invitation to a new anthology of tales edited by Christina Hidalgo, to be published by Milfores this year. Plus there is the young adult antho, a short story for kids, and one for another antho I just got wind of. And I still have to replenish my inventory, which at the moment, has exactly one story in it.

And there is the new novel... gah.

Whoever thinks that writing is easy has simply got it all wrong.