Well, for all that 2020 has been one hell of a year, it was reasonably successful writing wise. I would say I probably reached my goal of writing 100,000 words at the very least, though on very disparate projects.
Two of the big wins were completing the dark fantasy stories Priests of the White God and Winter Law which has been submitted to Grimdark Magazine, and I actually got my first rejection letter from them! Those were fun to write, with Priests probably being the most involved one as I had to look up nautical terminology to use trying to lend some depth and realism to the mostly waterborne setting. Priests ended up clocking in at 12,809 words. Winter Law ended up at 3,588, and I wrote and edited it over the course of roughly five days. So one was much more in the short story length while the other was at flash fiction length, only slightly longer than The Disappearance of Wilson.
Secondly, I self published the vignette, 2069. Only 1,400 words, this little guy is the primer for another set of short stories I aim to publish in what I'm tentatively calling the sixty-ninerverse. Those who can read that without laughing get a hearty pat on the back for their maturity. This is intended to be a series of short stories or novellas set in a very wide ranging imagining of the future of humanity inside the Solar System. From the colonization of the moon, to Mars, Venus and the outer planets, and possibly beyond. It's an exploration of the 22nd century, all the way to the dawn of the 3rd Millennium, within reason. It let's me get a bit wacky with the ideas I can explore. Essentially, it's my own little verse that doesn't need an overarching storyline and plot connecting it, and just let's me write short fiction to anthologize. Expect to see more of those in the future, with hopefully the first little anthology tentatively titled Gateway to the Stars appearing at some point in late 2021 or so once I have a few more pieces set up.
Thirdly I was almost able to self-publish an anthology this October. It is currently titled A Darkness in the Mind and will include my horror stories The Disappearance of Wilson, Priests of the White God, and two others, one titled The Closing Hour, and another story as yet untitled. This was supposed to be my big October project, but sadly that one had to go by the wayside as real life and the global pandemic interfered in a number of annoying ways. I had thought about publishing in December, but on the advice of others, I am now scheduling it for October 2021, which gives me more time to properly edit the stories, tighten the narratives, and get it as well polished as I could hope for.
The other big news was that I sat down to dig into my alternate history stories. One is A Road Not Taken, a Canadian alternate history work I mentioned at the start of the year, set around the Battle of the Ridgeway in 1866. This one aims to be as diligent in getting the details right as possible and merely to wonder what might have happened had the Canadian militia gone where they were supposed to go rather than take a fateful turn up Ridge Road in June 1866. This project is hopefully going to see the light of day come summer 2021.
The second is a project I have battered away at in various iterations for over five years by this point. This project has taken on a pretty spectacular life of its own. That is a novelization of a timeline I have long worked on at alternatehistory.com called Wrapped in Flames. Something unknown to a lot of Civil War buffs and fans of American history, but known rather well to connoisseurs of alternate history, the Trent affair of 1861 nearly put the United States and the British Empire on a collision course. The two powers came dangerously close to war. The event itself was probably the Cuban Missile Crisis of the Victorian Era, with the rising power of the United States almost pitted against the might of the British Empire near the apogee of her own power.
Historically, the ship was stopped by the American warship San Jacinto under the command of the impulsive and cantankerous Captain Charles Wilkes (who was reputedly the inspiration for Captain Ahab of Moby Dick fame) and the two prospective envoys that the Confederate States were sending to Europe were then seized of contraband of war. This news initially elated the United States as they had, had a rough year in 1861 after the Battle of Bull Run. The British Empire on the other hand, was infuriated. Most observers in Britain thought, in 1861 and 1862, that the United States was going to lose its civil war and be split in two. Matters were not helped by the fact that neither the politicians in London or Washington understood each other, and the only politician in Washington that the British understood was then Secretary of State, William Seward, who had advocated war with Britain and annexing Canada numerous times in his life. Needless to say, the situation was ripe with the potential for misunderstanding and turning the American Civil War into a general war. However, it was Seward himself who very ably calmed the crisis and smoothed matters over with the British. Of course, what if events had gotten out of control and he was unable to do so?
It would be safe to say the idea of the British Empire intervening in the Civil War has been explored pretty thoroughly by historians and alternate historians. It is some well worn ground, but not very well fleshed out in print. There were some efforts to write novels, but they're mostly poor fare. Robert Conroy's abysmal 1862 comes to mind. Then there's the very steampunk lite series called Britannia's Fist, which while having a unique premise, strained plausibility past the breaking point.
Wrapped in Flames aims to, through a cast of historical characters from politicians, soldiers, and seamstresses, examine what might have happened had circumstances spiraled out of control in the diplomatic situation surrounding the fraught exchange of notes between the US and the UK. The original timeline was, to be frank, terrible. I had not flexed my research muscles or writing muscles enough to make it anything beyond drek. The second version of the timeline (still writing) is better, but not overwhelmingly so. I am working on it as a sort of companion to the novelization I am writing. The timeline itself is done, in rough notes, up to the 1880s. The novelization would cover from roughly November 1861 down to December 1862. It has a fairly sprawling cast, twelve viewpoint characters thus far who move the plot in various ways throughout the novel.
Now, anyone reading this who has read the current version of the timeline needs to know they will not just be reading the timeline as it is currently posted. It very much seeks to correct a number of deficiencies, research errors, timing of events, and misconceptions I had when I began the new version back in 2016. It also, unlike the original timeline with just brief vignettes surrounded by semi-dense history book style writing, is going to be 100% narrative. As it gets closer to completion I'll be giving more details on the characters who will appear in story. I fully expect this to be a monster project topping out at 200,000 words since there is simply so much I will have to cover to tell an engaging narrative.
Don't expect much of a big progress bar on this guy, it currently sits at 47,000 words. It will take time, and we may not see the final version until 2023. I do expect though, that this project will be a trilogy, the first covering 1861-62, the second novel covering 1863, and finally the third covering 1864-65. Updates as they come!
So there we have it. Some solid progress across 2020, and going into 2021 a solid plan for what I'm writing!
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