February 2024
Hello! I am currently writing to you from Buttondown. You’ll notice I took the opportunity to do some rebranding, although the set up is still pretty minimal. I would love to make my newsletter pretty, and every month it gets shoved to the bottom of my to do list.
First Update—Marketing.
My Viable Paradise class, which has lovingly dubbed itself “Team Try Hard” decided to put together an anthology with the theme “New Year, New You.” It’s currently running on Kickstarter! It’s fully funded but you should still back it—buying it now is the best guarantee of getting a copy, and the more we sell, the better our chances of getting wider distribution.
I love all my anthologies, but this one is something special. It’s been a truly collaborative experience, and seeing everyone pull out their unique skills to make this the best book it can be is so inspiring. We have a huge range of stories, with everything from spaceships to gods to show girls. A lot of the people in this book will be bestsellers someday.
Second Update—Productivity
Remember that cool spreadsheet I made last month? I promptly forgot to use it. In my defense, helping to run a Kickstarter isn’t easy. I’ll be backfilling the spreadsheet as well as I can.
• I edited my short story for an upcoming Duck Prints anthology. (7500 words)
• I wrote the first 1500 words of a new short story and then decided it wouldn’t be ready in time for the Viable Paradise anthology.
• I wrote a different flash piece for the Viable Paradise anthology and edited it twice. (1500 words)
What I haven’t done is start editing Compass. I want to work on it, and I got amazing feedback from a lot of people, and I have an idea of the changes I want to make. But I feel like I need a solid 24 hours of being completely alone to get my head in order and map out an editing plan and it’s not happening. I have short stories and editing and bachelor parties and D&D games and overtime shifts and I’m tired. Once I get started, I’ll be fine. I just have to get started.
Third Update—2023 Reading Stats
I read 94 books in 2023! That’s a new record, and gives me hope that I might actually hit my goal of 104 books in 2024.
Did you see that article that said most Americans won’t even finish one book in a year? It’s unimaginable to me, because I’m surrounded by amazing authors who are publishing faster than I can keep up.
I think I read more nonfiction this year, but I don’t have my 2022 stats at hand. 29 out of the 94 were nonfiction, or 31%. I read three books in translation (The Illiad, the Green Knight, and Beowulf). At least six of them were pre-published, either beta reads or cheer reads.
My top ten favorite published reads (no particular order)
Spear (Nicola Griffith) – a feminist retelling of the grail story with a lesbian twist.
Hild (Nicola Griffith) – Maybe my favorite read of the year. A novel telling of the life of St Hilda of Whitby, with incredible research done into daily life in 7th century Britain.
Even Though I Knew the End (CL Polk) – 40s noir pulp with a lesbian romance at the center and occult magic.
Children of Ash and Elm (Neil Price) – An in-depth history of the Vikings, including daily life and explorations of why they went out viking in the first place.
Refuse to be Done (Matt Bell) – A writing book about structure and prose that is mostly about efficient and focused revision.
The Secret Lives of Country Gentlemen (KJ Charles) – I love all of Charles’ historical romances, but this one stood out. A smuggler and an accidental entomologist fall in love on the most beautifully described marsh I’ve ever read.
The Faithless (CL Clark) – A gut wrenching sequel to the Unbroken, in which a colonizer really tries to deal with her shit, and sometimes succeeds.
Stone Blind (Natalie Haynes) – A retelling of Medusa that is warm and surprisingly funny and completely disdainful of Perseus.
Empire of Pain (Patrick Radden Keefe) – A saga of the family behind the opioid crisis. Keefe is a fantastic journalist, and lays out the facts in such a way that the evidence speaks for itself before the court ever gets a chance to try them.
Romantic Outlaws: The Extraordinary Lives of Mary Wollstonecraft and Mary Shelley (Charlotte Gordon) – This biography parallels the lives of mother and daughter and highlights the greatness of Wollstonecraft and the way her writing was a foundation for her daughter’s fiction.
Honorable mention to my rereads of the year: the Queen’s Thief series and the Locked Tomb series. Both were great on first read and better the second time. Gideon the Ninth in particular—it’s masterful. On first read it felt goofy and a bit slow, but on reread I could see what every tangent was setting up. Even the puns were plot relevant. Chef’s kiss.
With so many books on my list, it should have been difficult to narrow down my best reads, but it wasn’t. There weren’t any other books vying for position. I think that means I should give up on more books in 2024 instead of struggling to the end.
As with every year, I want to get through some of my physical books too. I’m keeping track in my calendar of days I read before bed, in hopes of reminding myself how rarely it happens. Once I hit 30 days I'm going to buy myself new fountain pen ink.
Right, I'm off to edit this flash story a third time. Stay safe out there.
Love, Alec
