John accepted to Viable Paradise!

I'm thrilled to make two announcements today. It's pure accident that they're coinciding on the same day, but it's brought me to quite a high.

First off: The Last House in the Sky is done. It's been beta read, edited and revised into something I'm truly proud of. This novel is an absurd passion project of mine, about a trio of misfit thieves who decide to steal the last remnants of culture before a cult can waste them on blowing up what's left of the world. It's one of the Post-Post-Post-Post-Apocalyptic novels I'm always joking about, and I think when I can give it to you, you'll find it's something different.

I'll be bringing it with me to ReaderCon next week, and possibly to other events over the summer.  But something bigger looms in October.

Because my second news is that I was accepted to Viable Paradise! VP is one of the most prestigious F/SF workshops in America, hosted by Patrick and Teresa Nielsen Hayden, Elizabeth Bear, Steven Gould (Jumper, not punctuated equilibrium) and a roster of professional authors.

I have to thank Moses Siregar III for turning me onto VP in the first place, and Theresa Bazelli for encouraging me to submit for this Fall. Some of the authors to emerge from the program are the top of the field, and I'm too excited to go dive deep into fiction with the hosts in October. I'm working out travel arrangements now.

What a day. There can't be many like it in a year or a decade, but I'm extremely privileged to get just one. Thanks to everyone who's extended their support over the years. I'm doing as much with it as I can.

Now if you'll excuse me, I have to jump up and down a few times.

What I'm Learning from Beta Reading

If Sundays are going to become the lit corner on The Bathroom Monologues, then I might as well start with the book I've been hammering at all week. I'm fully editing Last House in the Sky, hoping to have a sparkling draft before ReaderCon in July. Four beta readers turned in fully marked up manuscripts, fewer than I was counting on, but these four did thorough and wonderful jobs.

I cheated on this novel, soliciting an alpha reader to let me know if the whole things too nuts. It's about thieves trying to steal a flying city from a cult, with a backdrop of dinosaurs and hungry robots, so there was the slim chance that it wouldn't make sense. My alpha was enthusiastic, and luckily the betas have agreed that running with my love of The Weird works. I'm considering running the very brief first chapter as a Friday Flash some time.

I'm not tired. I could write longer.

If you want it, I'll write about how the revisions process is going. It's been surprisingly fun so far, when I'm not shaking. But today I'd like to chat about what I'm learning from my betas, both about them and myself. All my old convictions remain true: a spread of specialties and interests among betas helps, you need people who will call you out, and there really is nothing as good as getting multiple betas to laugh at the same line.