Two, Nan. Two.

I just read a collection of military science fiction (Terra Nova: The Wars of Liberation), and I’ve mentioned I have been plinking at a novel of military science fiction (tentatively entitled The Saviors From Mars Deep, spoiler alert).

But as it is November and the National Novel Writing Month, and all the lesser cool kids want to write a novel this month (the greater cool kids are novelists who write a book every month, like a lot of the newer additions to the blogroll).

Instead of writing a whole novel, though, I thought perhaps I would open a couple of novels I’ve started in various windows to switch between them every day and maybe build a habit of writing. One of the aforementioned new additions (Peter Grant? One of the members of the Mad Genius Club?) mentioned that that particular writer tends to have multiple projects going on at any given time and switches between them as the mood strikes. So I thought I would give that a real try.

In one window, The Saviours from Mars Deep (what, the English spelling? Does that mean something, or is it misdirection?). In another, Wraith, which I conceptualized in college (the air field in the book was originally Timmerman Field, walking distance from where I lived in college and the landing place of the only plane I’ve ever flown–briefly–but that’s another story, and not one to impress my cousin who just got his pilot’s license). And then….

Looking at the file names and dates, I found another, more recent entry: Canny, Awake!. I apparently typed the first sentence of that in April.

As you may recall, gentle reader, my poem “Canny” appeared in There Will Be War Volume X. The only poem in the anthology. The reason why I call Jerry Pournelle my editor, although not many kids these days know who Jerry Pournelle was. Also, perhaps a reason why I think I might already be a mil sci fi author.

So. I have two mil sci fi books in the works and one horror.

Okay, I could also open up my fantasy novel, Second Coming or Beyond the Range (it has had a couple of titles in the twenty-some years I have had it in various word processor file formats, probably starting with LotusWorks in the middle 1990s). I have a couple whole chapters of it, and my beautiful wife has read them and wants to know how it ends even before I got to how it middles. So perhaps I should open that in another window.

How’s it going, you ask?

Well, I have added two and a half sentences to Canny, Awake! Which is more than I have added in the last seven months. So, it’s going better. Although I have spent an essay-length amount of time and writing talking about maybe writing instead of actually writing.

Speaking of military science fiction, Wombat-Socho discusses a post on science fiction for the strategist and mentions a short story, “The Road Not Taken” by Harry Turtledove, whose outline I remembered from reading the science fiction magazine in which it appeared when it was new in the November 1985 Analog magazine. I’ll have to look to see if I still have it; although I don’t think I carted it off with me to college, I did inherit a collection of digest magazines from my sainted mother that might include it amongst the Alfred Hitchcock and Ellery Queen mystery magazines of the era. I have actually recounted this particular story (“The Road Not Taken”) to my boys relatively recently (given the age of the magazine, the boys themselves are relatively recent).

Also, I would be remiss not to wish luck to other people striking out on the NaNoWriMo journey like K1 or K2.