Robert Wack

Summertime, and the living’s easy. Trying to get some writing done, enjoying time off, and let’s be honest, the old “writers have to market” hustle has taken a back seat to other priorities. Hence, the lack of updates in a while.

Regarding the time off: my paying job came to an abrupt end back in May, unplanned, unwanted, but not entirely unexpected. Working in public health always has a political dimension, and it finally caught up to me.  I’m still piecing together the exact details of how it went down, but just with what I have so far paints a sordid picture of petty grievances, partisan stupidity, and the blindness of unbridled ambition leading to clumsy, cruel mistakes. Suffice to say, there’s plenty of material for future posts, so stay tuned. Probably a novel, too, but that’s way down in the queue.

In the meantime, distractions abound. When the weather breaks and the temperature and humidity become tolerable, yard work and chores remain unfinished while hikes and bike rides jump to the top of the priority list. The beach, traveling, visits from the kids, dog sitting, neighborhood gatherings – it all takes away from the keyboard, which overall is an excellent thing.  It is astonishing how, despite all my ostensibly extra time, somehow it’s been filled with all these other things and I’m still writing about the amount I was before.  Go figure.

I just had an interesting brush with a scammer on social media, attempting to take advantage of the chaos of the publishing world and soak me for money. When it is completely resolved, I’ll do a whole post on just that. Lisa wants full credit for sniffing it out first. It is amazing the lengths the predators go to concocting the fake credentials for pulling the scam.

The more I learn about the state of publishing today, the more astonishing it is that anything of quality gets published at all. It is a literal jungle, a tangle of legitimate authors, agents, and publishers, buried beneath layers and layers of other actors ranging from real resources for aiding authors who want to pursue some path other than traditional agent/publisher to book, all the way to people who exist only to separate the gullible and careless from their hard-earned money.

With the help of some trusted allies (thanks, Syzygy Editorial Board!), I’m carefully navigating this mess, but it’s slow. No nibbles yet on Grendels, a few rejections, still twenty something queries outstanding, and Time Bomber is still languishing. I’m going to do a round of queries to agents next. The work continues.

I did find a new criticism group, small but very, very helpful. Thank you, Tim and RD, for the feedback and support. They are currently smacking Grendels around and putting it into even better shape.

My current project is the third book in the Grendels series. It is in the “sprawling mess” phase of development, with a pretty much complete plot, an almost complete cast of characters (although new ones are still popping up), and a rough outline at least of most scenes.

It’s a big one, the biggest yet, with four braided plot lines, about a dozen characters, one of whom is the Pope(!), and of course Michelle is driving the story. It takes place about 40 years after Grendels. Portals, the nature of good and evil, selfhood, our relationship with the infinite, world religions, hostile aliens, the fate of intelligent species:  it’s all here.  I just have to pull it all together and make it make sense.

More soon!