Out of the Debauched Sloth
Chaz Brenchley's Fortnightly Newsletter
OUT OF THE DEBAUCHED SLOTH
Chaz Brenchley’s Fortnightly Newsletter
“News is what a chap who doesn't care much about anything wants to read. And it's only news until he's read it. After that it's dead.” - Evelyn Waugh
Not dead yet, dear Evelyn, dear Evelyn...
Sometimes it’s no bad thing if this newsletter is delayed [in the interests of full disclosure: it’s always delayed] between drafting and sending out. My original for this one began thuswise: “People, here is a piece of news fit to make the world tremble: I have in fact finished a thing.” This is no longer the case.
My second draft, just yesterday, began so: “People, I have in fact finished two things. Two. Two pieces of writing, at tolerable length.”
This is the third draft, and the one I totally intend to send: for after I’d finished #2, I suddenly wrote another 4000 words to finish a third thing. Unheard of!
The first is technically a novel, though structurally and functionally it’s a novella. Over fifty thousand words, though, so that’s a thing. It’s definitely a book. Those who’ve been paying attention will have figured out by now that I speak of HITHER, PAGE, AND STAND BY ME, my story of Sherlock Holmes on Mars, which kind people have been sponsoring me to write via Ko-fi. It is donety-done done, and a villain brought to book. In a first-drafty kind of way, at least. I gave it to m’wife, and I have sent it to my agent, and we await judgement. Meanwhile I continue posting pages to Ko-fi every time someone buys me a coffee (and occasionally just at random, because it’s fun), and you can find it appearing also in much larger chunks on my Patreon.
The second is a novelette, a length I rarely write, if only because they usually overspill into novellas (at least) as soon as I get any length at all under my belt. This one was of course meant to be a short story, but came in at 14K, which is dead-centre for a novelette. It is my Stalky-and-Co-on-Mars story (not actual Stalky! Merely a tribute band! I am not Prince Hamlet, nor was meant to be!) wittily entitled “War, and the Rumour of War”. Lord only knows at this stage where and when you’ll see that. I’ll let you know, obvs.
And for our third long-awaited piece of finishing news, I have completed the next chapter of MARY ELLEN - CRATEREAN! Again, you may find the full story-so-far, plus many, many others, over on my Patreon page. Which it would be great if you could either sign up yourselves or encourage others to do so; with Karen out of work again, we don’t currently have health insurance, and my next cancer surgery is in, gosh, less than a fortnight’s time, so that’s coming out of our pockets. Every little helps, etc.
Also I’ll be reading at SF in SF (at the Bookbinders’ Museum in San Francisco, that is to say) on November 20th. Y’all should come along.
Oh, and if you’re not reading Alexis Hall, you really ought to be.
- Chaz
Helpful links:
Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/user?u=1002984
Ko-fi: https://ko-fi.com/chazbrenchley
My website: https://chazbrenchley.co.uk/