Status Update

One of my goals this year is to write a short story a month unless I'm actively working on a novel. That goal served me well for the four months it lasted last summer, producing: a mystery story that has vanished into the small press ether, the science fiction piece that got honorable mentioned at Writers of the Future, my first sale (yay, me!) and a flash fiction short that I'm currently not sure what to do with.

I made my deadline (barely) and finished the short story I was working on in January. I'm really happy about that, since it's the first story I've actually finished in a while. Now it's in for a polish before I set it adrift in the Great Slush Pile in the Sky. On tap for this month: two flash fiction shorts to share at the Hoover Library Write Club's Flash Fiction Night in March. (I hate using that many proper nouns in a row, by the way.) Also, I'm going to crank out draft 4 of Daughters of Majadan even though I know it'll probably never see the light of day. It's the one thing I've written that I'm most proud of, so I want to see it sanded down properly before I set it on the shelf.

Up on deck for the following month: a steampunk short that's creeping around in the dungeons of my mind and prep-work for a second stab at my once-again-untitled Hector Crade novel that I abandoned after NanoWrimo.

I may not be a pro, but at least I feel like a serious amateur. In the "neat crap on the Web" department, I just added a widget to the left hand column that shows you my most recent Goodreads reviews.

Okay, then. Back to work.

Honorable Mention

A story of mine just got Honorable Mentioned at the Writers of the Future Contest.

What does this mean? Well, for one thing it means I'm not moving on to the next round, but at least I made it past the first ring of the elimination process. It also means it's time to do another polish and rewrite on that piece and send it off to some other markets.

Writers of the Future is well respected in the SciFi community and is one of the largest paychecks possible for short fiction in SciFi and Fantasy. Hence, the competition is pretty fierce. My friend Teresa Howard (Hi, Teresa!) has been Honorable Mentioned every time she's entered, but she's had quite a bit of success publishing stories elsewhere in the semi-pro markets.

Ah, well. I've got another story I'm working on that I plan to enter in the contest, which you're allowed to do once every quarter. I expect I'll keep trying as long as I'm eligible. The only way you become ineligible is to make three professional-level short stories sales or publish a novel, so if that ever happens I won't be bitching about it.

That's all for now. Carry on!

It's dead, Jim.

Time for an update, I guess. My NanoNovel this year, Waking the Sky, is dead. As in shredded to pieces and fertilizing the compost in my mind. I knew there was a chance this would happen going into it, but I promised myself I'd stick it out... at least until I saw Avatar and it confirmed my fears.

I still like my characters, and I still like parts of my basic scenario, but there are too many points of similarity between what I was writing and a certain popular movie by James frickin' Cameron and they're too embedded into the plot for me to extract them and not kill the patient.

Oh well. Back to the drawing board. I'll bring Hector Crade and his crew of kamikaze filmmakers back for another try later this year, and I've already started stirring a few ideas around on how to do it. My main goal this year is to write something marketable, moreso than my two unpublished and probably unpublishable Majadan novels. While I get that back up to speed, I'll spend the time on some short fiction.

I've got a story now that seems to be turning into a novella (or at least a novelette) set in the same post-apocalyptic solar system as the short story I currently have sitting with the judges at the Writers of the Future contest. I'll be sure and let you know how that goes to.

Ah well. The book is dead. Now that I admit that, I can admit that I never really liked it much anyway. Love the characters, though. They'll be back.

GOOOOOOOOOOAL!

I'm trying really, really hard right now not to sing anything by Queen.

Oh, hell. Why not?

We are the champions, my friend,
And we'll keep on fighting to the end!

There, now it's stuck in your head too.

Of course, I'm only halfway done with the actual first draft but now I'm in the groove and back in the habit of writing 1500-2000 words per day so as long as I keep it rolling, I'll be finished in no time.

No time meaning "before the end of January."