We’ve reached a completely arbitrary date in September, and that means it’s time for my annual Intergalactic Update. While I do my best to keep you updated throughout the year, I find it helpful to compile everything together for your reference (and mine) into a single post that reviews the preceding year and discusses the year to come. Last year, that meant a lot of discussion about Blood Magic, and what would be coming after that project’s completion. This year, there’s even more to discuss, but we’ll get to that in a moment.
First, I should thank all of my readers. I know the site doesn’t have a huge readership, and I know I don’t do as much as I should to promote the site, which makes those of you who have found it, and do appreciate the content I share, all the more valuable. IGC Publishing, while it does deliver benefits to me, does not exist in a vacuum; it exists for people to read. So, to all of you who visit the site, whether you read everything I ever post, come for the weekly book reviews, or landed here by chance after searching the internet for one of the esoteric topics we’ve covered, whether you’ve been following since the beginning or just discovered me, thank you.
Year in Review
Last year at this time, we were looking ahead to the completion of Blood Magic, and I’d just begun submitting stories to competitions and periodicals instead of publishing them straight to the site. To say that a lot has happened since then is something of an understatement. First, though, the obligatory statistics: I’ve written over 100,000 words of blog posts and book reviews (if you’re comparing to last year’s figure, I think WordPress’ word-count feature must double-count something I counted elsewhere, since I haven’t significantly cut down on posts except for the bimonthly story release or release posts), and almost 250,000 words of new story material. Is that a lot? I don’t know. It’s similar to last year, and I thought that last year was a lot. One thing I’ve realized is that no matter how prolific you are, someone is always going to be more prolific than you are. Maybe I could have written more, but there are other things I want to (and need to) do, too. For someone doing this primarily as a hobby, I think this is plenty respectable.
Since Blood Magic got its own reflection post after I finished the series, I don’t feel the need to belabor it here. If you’re not familiar, Blood Magic was the core programming for IGC Publishing for its first three years, a series of semi-episodic fantasy short stories. It totalled thirty seven episodes (including one bonus episode), and it has some really strong episodes. It also has some really weak episodes, and there are some tendencies and traits I notice when I go back to look at them that make me wince. That’s when I have to remind myself why I started writing Blood Magic in the first place: to practice.
When I first started IGC Publishing, I’d only been taking my writing seriously for three years or so, and I didn’t know much of what I was doing. I’d read a few books about writing, I’d done plenty of reading of the kinds of stories I wanted to write, and I’d been dabbling for awhile, but I hadn’t really dug deeply into how to become a better writer, and I had a tendency to flit from project to project without finishing them. The exception was a rough draft of a novel and a scant handful of short stories, and “finished” is a loose term, since I’d done no revisions on any of that material. Part of starting IGC Publishing was to hold myself accountable through you, the readers, to finish stories. Blood Magic, in a sense, was very, very public practice, and there are many things I would do differently if I were going back to write them over again. Which I’m not.
It was the practice of writing Blood Magic, though, that gave me the confidence to begin submitting to writing contests and periodicals. I joined Elegant Literature and started writing a new, independent short story every month for that contest. My weaker attempts still show up on IGC Publishing after they’re rejected, but the stronger ones, and other stories I write, I’m sending about to other venues. That’s a huge hurdle that I’ve finally cleared, and it is largely thanks to the practice and experience I gained with Blood Magic.
Also through Elegant Literature, I finally acquired a writing group. A dedicated writing group is something I’ve thought for a long time would be a significant boon to my writing, but I was never able to assemble one because I don’t personally know many other writers. I took a leap to join one of the online writing groups with Elegant Literature, and Group 5 has been an excellent, worthwhile addition to my writing habits. Critiquing others’ work, and having my own work critiqued, has made me a far stronger writer. I’ve learned far better what and how to revise, and had some bad habits of mine spotted for me (like my tendency to end too ambiguously or start too technically). So, it is in no small part thanks to them that I can say that, as of 2023, I am a professionally published author.
Did I bury the lead on that one? Yes, I am now a two-time published author. Charmers was published in the “Gambler’s Grief” edition of Elegant Literature (you can read about the story here), and A Rejection has been accepted for publication by the Sci Phi Journal to appear in their next issue. I’m proud of both stories, and I encourage you to go read them when they come out/if you haven’t already.
With no more Blood Magic episodes, I was concerned about a dearth of new content for the site. It’s true that there has been less, but posting rejected Elegant Literature stories that I don’t consider strong enough to try submitting elsewhere has helped make up the difference. Some of them, like The Arch, the Centering, and the Keystone, or A Meal to Life For, are really just okay, while others are simple niche or odd, like Finding Eden.
Many months, I think about skipping the Elegant Literature prompt, but I usually end up writing something. They’re quick pieces most of the time, so they don’t distract too much from my ostensible main project for the year, which is Impressions. As of January, with Blood Magic finished, I started work on another full-length novel. Progress on that project has been decent – I’ve written almost 100,000 words as of this posting – but also slower than I might have liked, since I’d hoped to finish the first draft before the end of the year, and I no longer think that likely. Granted, my original estimate was for it to come in at 120,000 words, and I’m now thinking it will be closer to 180,000. Raven has more adventures in part two to get through than I planned.
Could I have committed those words I spent on short stories to the novel? Probably not. My brain needs the break, and to write different kinds of stories, to keep it fresh and interested in working on the novel. The short stories are a good compromise, to keep me interested and creatively engaged without flitting to much between different projects. I’m deliberately limiting myself to just three stories at a time: the novel, a monthly short story, and one other mid-length project. Sometimes, that’s another short or semi-short story. Other times, it’s a novella. Like, for instance, a little piece called Archmage and the Unicorn Queen. More about that in the Year Ahead segment.
The Year Ahead
Hey, I wrote a novella. That weird, awkward length of story that no one really wants to publish unless you’re a big-name author. This one happened sort of by accident, combining a few story elements I’ve been wanting to write about for awhile into a relatively light fantasy piece that made for a nice contrast in writing to the heavier, historically-influenced, more complex Impressions. And because of that part about no one really wanting to publish novellas from small-time authors, it will likely be published here on the site. But not in the casual way I do for short stories – I want to do this one right. The story is currently in revisions right now, and I’m thinking about contracting with an artist for cover art and book design. It’s too soon for me to commit to a firm publication date, but I do anticipate it being sometime next year. Watch for updates in future posts or on the homepage.
As I mentioned above, I don’t think I’ll meet my goal of finishing Impressions by the end of the calendar year, but I am making good progress. I’ll keep working on it until it’s finished, and then see what my writing group has to say about it. Then it’s time for revisions. If I had to guess, I’ll maybe be finishing those revisions sometime late next year, and then I have to decide what I’m going to do with the story. That will depend on making more decisions about the direction that I want to take IGC Publishing in the future. Do I want this to be a publishing apparatus? Do I want to find an agent and try to publish through a traditional publisher? I still don’t know.
What will I work on after Impressions? Unknown. The world of Hiarathala (featured in this “frankenstory” post) keeps tempting me, so I might go that direction. I don’t think I want to go right into a possible Impressions sequel (the first novel is intended to stand on its own), but there are a number of other ideas I could see turning into a novel, maybe even going in a science fiction direction. We’ll talk more about that when we get to that point.
Anticipate more short stories in the year ahead, both for Elegant Literature prompts and otherwise. I’ll soon start shopping around a short story based on the technology we discussed in our post on “Revising Memories,” and I’m working on a couple of other pieces set in the Archmage world. Of course, we’ll also have the usual Tuesday blog posts and Thursday book reviews. You may have noticed that I stopped doing the weekly writing updates – I found that they weren’t adding anything, and were weighing down my writing rather than motivating it. The homepage is a better place to look for sporadic updates.
Conclusion
A lot of writing and a lot of reading has happened since last year at this time, but in some ways there’s less to say about the year ahead. It will, I imagine, look pretty similar to the year behind – I don’t have any major new projects to announce, changes to explain, or decisions to make. That will come soon enough, when I (hopefully) have a finished and revised novel manuscript on my hands. Meanwhile, programming here at IGC Publishing will remain pretty consistent, with the main difference being that I’ll be sending you off-site more often to read my stories if they get picked up for publication.
Again, thank you for joining me, and IGC Publishing. I hope you’ll join me for a fifth year of, through literature, exploring all regions of space and time.
-Lloyd Earickson
IGC Publishing 
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