Hugh Howey

Bestselling author of Wool and other books. Currently sailing around the world.

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More Shorts

Two new short stories started that I hope to have finished soonest. Don’t worry, this is in addition to my work on DUST, which is moving along nicely. The first of these is THEY COME FROM THE EAST, which is for a science fiction anthology with a western theme. The challenge here is that it can’t be a western in space, which has been done plenty (FIREFLY was my favorite of these). It needs to take place in the Wild West but be science fiction. Imagine the challenges if you will. We know the history of that place, so you have to take extreme liberties or be quite clever. I’m bad at the latter, but I’m giving that route a shot anyway.

The other short is KILL SCREEN, which is for an anthology with a video game theme. I get asked to contribute to anthologies all the time, and usually have to decline due to time constraints. But I really enjoyed the pitch for these two collections, and I think I have stories that will only marginally be the worst of the bunch. Fingers crossed. One of these is due in two weeks!

(2,000+ words in DUST thus far today, so no hostilities in the comments!)

15 replies to “More Shorts”

Looking forward to the new shorts!

Now that you are back from your worldly travels, how many words will you bang out on a daily basis? On average that is? I am working on my writing, and I seem to struggle keeping a daily pace of words. Some days I can barely get 2 sentences out that sound remotely connected. Other days I can knock out a few thousand.

I love the bare fact that you even have the counters on the side. It has become one of my internet obsessions to check in on your progress. They also make me very glad I am not a Writer with fans breathing down my neck. You really write fast in addition to writing good!

I kind of wonder how frustrating it would be to follow the ticker on game of thrones.

Hugh… are we ever hostile? I hope not. It’s just book-love, coming to you in advance!

I tend to write in fits and starts. (This is in response to Paul, above, who didn’t ask me, but I’m answering anyway. I’m generous that way.)

When I’m really rolling I have occasionally done 5 or 6K a day… which makes me a little tired the next day, like climbing a mountain. But I try never to do less than 2K, unless I take the day off completely.

What are you writing, Paul?

Thanks, Patrice! I’m working on a 5 (or 6) part serial. I have part 1 getting close, but my mind keeps drifting on to the succeeding parts. Bad mind! Bad mind! The story is a sci-fi/time travel piece where a man is recruited to go back in time to influence a change in wartime past.

Oooh, intriguing premise!

P.S. I’m just reading a book about Writer’s Block, which is fabulous, and one of the main messages is that all of our “bad” habits are really good… just, perhaps, not happening at the right time. Those ideas are great, and your mind is very creative! Just remind it to write one thing at a time, get that down, and then move on to the next concept…

It’s wonderful to have more ideas than time!

Please tell me Kill Screen works as a potential sequel to The King of Kong. I know it’s a documentary, but that would be amazing.

Hi Hugh! Wow, busy you`re a busy bee. I agree with the comment above about the “tick” to check the progress bar. I think sci-fi + western is great and I think we need more of that. So so fun that you decided to do something in that frame!!
I just finished Wool and Shift Omnibus. The books are amazing. It can be sometimes a bit hard for me to get into a book, I keep falling out in the beginning even though the story might be wonderfully written and exciting ( i guess im just impatient to get ahead in the story)But with your books it has been straight ahead with unnatural reading pace from Holston going up the silo stairs to Jules hanging up on Don. You kinda “gently” throw your readers in middle of whats happening, leaving us readers no choice but to get attached to the charachters, wanting to know more, and inevitably end up loving the books. And Dons story is ….well lets just say Im happy I got Kindle, if it would a paperback it would be salty pulp by now- thats really how much i cried! Anyway Im really looking forward to read more of your work! …..And also i think it is really great that you inspire other talanted people to enter the world of writing, giving them motivation and inspiring them to try. The concept of publishing that you chose i think is great in our informational and social age, giving people an opportunity that is much more removed from the “everyman-writer” in the conventional publishing world.

Anna

Hi Hugh,
New here, loved Wool by the way.
Just out of curiosity, do you start off a book or short knowing how many words you plan to hit? I always just start writing and let it go till it’s over (which involves a lot of editing, hehe). Sometimes it ends up a short sometimes a novel, oddly sometimes it lands in the middle. Again just a curiosity that popped into my head upon seeing the counters.
Keep up the awesome.

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