Living the Fictional Dream

Yesterday, I got the proofs for my story, “Bridge Club,” that will come out in the October issue of A Thousand Faces. I spent a few minutes reading the story all over again. It was actually more enjoyable reading it with a little distance between myself and it. A little like reading something new.

A lot of times, after a write a story, I grow to hate it. I guess it depends on how much time has passed since the writing, but after a while, I just can’t stand those old stories any more. Maybe it’s because of my growth as a writer, or maybe it’s just my hyper inner critic (I notice a lot of writers have one of those!), but it tends to happen. But “Bridge Club,” I still really like. (The same with “The Widow and the Stranger” — I don’t get tired of that one, as far as my own stories go.)

Anyway, back to my original topic, I love getting the proofs for a story that’s been accepted. It turns a nebulous acceptance into something real and concrete, like the story is actually going to happen. I’ve had around a dozen stories accepted now, and it never gets to be old hat. Maybe it’s not quite as earthshattering as it was the first couple of times, but I still get that “squee” feeling when the acceptance comes in the in-box. It’s not why I write, but it is why I send stuff out on submission — well, that and the “squee” that comes when I talk to other people who’ve actually read the stories.

I currently have three stories coming out this fall and a fourth slated to come out next March, so that should be a nice line-up of sqeeage for the upcoming months. As always, you can read about it here when they are available for public consumption!

Before I wind things up, I just want to shout out a quick congratulations to my writing group mate, Jens, who just had a story accepted by Every Day Fiction, too. It’s a quirky little piece staring his 19th century steampunk adventuring duo Blankenship and Dawes called “Chrono-Conundrum.” I’ll definitely link to that one here when it’s available.

Happy Friday, all! Here’s hoping we all get some good writing done over this holiday weekend!

Today is a dreary Monday in Texas — humid and raining. On the up-side, at least the overcast skies mean it isn’t 100+ degrees outside!

Days like this are perfect for sitting at home curled up in one’s jammies, and the best activities for those times are reading a good book or writing a story. Sadly, I haven’t been able to do either today. Too much work to do! My company’s busy season gears up around August and lasts through November or so. If my updates around here are less frequent in the next few months, that’s the reason why. Never fear, though! There will still be updates.

I don’t have any particular writing news to impart at the moment. I have several stories in the revision queue and several stories for others in my crit queue, just waiting for me to find the time to work on them between all this work-work. I was out of town this weekend. Spending time with old friends is relaxing and refreshing.

If you’d like to read an actual blog on a writing-related topic, check out this post on Jen’s blog. It’s my guest blog spot — a column about young adult fiction. Sadly, the HTML tags that I handily put in the file for him so he didn’t have to worry about things like linking and italics, do not appear to have worked like they do on my blog, and have come across as text instead of as links or formatting. So, the column looks a little wonky, but hopefully it will be enjoyable just the same.

Have a great Monday, everyone, and if it’s raining where you are, try not to get too damp!

June was a hotbed of writing goodness for me. Acceptances and published stories all over the place. Since then, things have been pretty slow. Molassas, even. Though, as always, the rejections trickle in.

I’m waiting to hear about another semi-related gig, as well. No details on that right now, but if it pans out, you’ll be sure to hear about it here!

I don’t know where the summer has gone! I can’t believe it’s August already. I swear I just blinked at it was June! Of course, my day job as a technical writer has been overwhelming lately, so that is the reason behind some of that. And it looks like things at work will stay hectic throughout the fall (as fall is our traditional “busy season”).

But, I shall perservere and find time to write. On Monday, I finally wrote that new superhero story that I’d been ruminating on for a while. It’s about a girl with the power to change her appearance (face and body type). It turned into a nice little flash piece, if I do say so myself. We’ll see how it does at the market to which I sent it.

I don’t know that I should call the girl a superhero, specifically — at least not with all the baggage that term implies (Alex wrote a really interesting post about that recently… read it!). It’s more that she happens to have this amazing power — the term superhero seems to suggest that she is all about using her power for the forces of good and justice, and I’m not sure this character has such pure motivations.

Of course, characters who fall into the shades of gray are inherently more interesting than those who are black and white, in my opinion.

All right, that is enough babble from me today. I hope you all have an awesome Thursday!

Part 1 of a sci-fi novella by my writing group mate Jens is live on SpaceWesterns.com. It’s called “Corazon,” and it’s action packed. I know… I critted it! Dixie O’Dell is a kick-butt lady, too, which is always great. Check it out–you’ll be glad you did!

If you’re in the mood for a little fantasy flash, check out my story in the new issue of AlienSkin e-zine. It’s called “The Mad King.”

I love the graphic of the king that they used. He’s so snooty!

I wrote this story back in February. My writing group runs a monthly prompts contest, and I wrote enough prompts that month to win the prize. This was one of the stories that I wrote. Though, it was edited. I actually took out all but one of the words required for the prompt in the final version. But, that’s the way prompts are sometimes. They get your mind going in a good way, but the actual mechanics (must-use words, starter sentences, etc.) aren’t the best choices in the final version.

So, enjoy, and if you like it, leave me a comment!

The more stories you get out there, the more chances you have of getting published. A real “duh” statement, huh? But… I don’t know… sometimes I need to be reminded of that.

It can take so long to hear back on a story, it feels like they fall into a void for a while, even as I am obsessively checking my email to see if I’ve gotten any responses. Sometimes I need to think about tossing more stories into the void to see if they hit solid ground instead of waiting around for the stories to come back.

I read a thread on the Every Day Fiction forums about some of the regular contributors. There are authors at EDF who get stories published with as much regularity as every month. It was nice to hear some of those regulars say on the forum that to get that many stories into EDF, they max out their submission opportunities.

EDF allows an author to have three stories in their slush pile at a time (which is pretty unusual), and some of these repeat authors have three stories in the slush constantly. Talk about a dedicated approach! And yet, those authors have the credits at EDF to prove that it works.

It seems a method that one could apply to one’s writing in general. It’s simple, right? Get those stories out there, and keep them going.

Of course… that means I need to actually write some new stories! Luckily, tomorrow is my writing group’s monthly write-in. Two hours of writing with friends. There is something great about a write-in for getting the creative energy flowing. I have a werewolf story that is almost finished — my goal for tomorrow is to complete the revisions on that sucker, and then maybe I’ll even see if I can find a likely market or two for it!

In other news, I found this article about unstoppable rules for writing short stories interesting.

My writing group mate, Stephanie, has a new story out at The Cynic. Naked Confusion is the title, and its short and surreally funny. You should check it out!

The new issue of Electric Spec is live today, and with it, my story, “Alpha.”

The way this e-zine works is that you download a .pdf to read the whole story. You can download just a .pdf of my story, or you can download a .pdf of the whole e-zine. I’m planning to do the latter, so I can read all of the stories at one time (possibly while we’re on the road to south Texas for the 4th of July)!

You may also notice that my story is the first one on the table of contents. Now, I know that has more to do with the flow of the issue than anything else, but it still made me smile.

“Alpha” is the first story in my urban fantasy universe to make an appearance. It’s about a werecoyote, Callie, who lives in a small town in Texas not unlike the town where I grew up (Callie’s cabin is actually very similar to one my family has outside of town). Callie struggles with issues that plague most young adults when they’re trying to find their place in a post-college world — what to do with her life professionally, romantically, and otherwise. Though, considering Callie belongs to a pack of werecoyotes, she has some unique issues to deal with, as well, including those left behind when her parents, the pack Alphas, passed away.

If you like the character of Luke in “Alpha,” I’ve also written a short story all about him in New York (Rick is in this story, as well). It’s still in the revision stages, but possibly one day it will find a home, as well.

To all the other writers who stop by my blog, I would definitely recommend Electric Spec as a market to submit to. The editors work with you to make your story the best it can be, and they are very informative. You can even keep up with their status on the slush pile (and other writing tidbits) on their editor blog. Working with them has been a good experience.

If you get a chance to read “Alpha,” I’d love to know what you think. Leave me a comment here! And, finally, I want to send a big thanks out to my writing group. Their crits really helped me make this story the best it could be!

Superhero fiction is eating my brain! As in, I suddenly have so many ideas for short stories in my original superhero universe that I can’t write them down fast enough. Since “Bridge Club” was accepted by A Thousand Faces (no word on the release date as of yet), I’ve written two more.

One was a SED story during the midst of the competition, but it actually turned out fairly well. It’s about a superhero with ocean powers. I need to revise it and then send it out to my writing group. Then the second one popped into my mind this morning, and wouldn’t leave me alone until I wrote it down. It’s about a female superhero this time, which is a change of pace. It is somewhat in answer to a prompt that I gave to my writing group in May — writing a story about a superhero on a blind date — but it also ties in really well with “Bridge Club” and the rest of my superhero ‘verse.

Strangely enough, I have another idea bumbling around in my brain for a story about a woman who can change her appearance (yes, I know… Mystique, but what super power hasn’t been used already — it’s what you do to make the character unique after the super powers!).

I’m totally going to have to investigate other markets that might be interested in original superhero fiction, because Frank over at ATF is going to get tired of me!

And now, in a totally random subject shift, I was reading Shanna Swendson’s blog this evening, and I came across this post. It’s all about what a reader can do to support a favorite book series (her Enchantment Inc. series or any other series). If you’ve ever wanted to help out the sales of a series so that the publishers might decide to continue it, you should check out her ideas on things you can do. There’s more that just buying a copy of the book yourself or buying it for other people.

I especially note her comment about used bookstores. This is a rant that I’ve given many times since my college days working for local mystery writer Carole Nelson Douglas. Used bookstore sales don’t count with the publisher — only new sales do. Now, I understand budgeting and not being able to afford to buy all your favorite books new. It’s a common problem. But, if that’s the case, then you should pick and choose the ones you buy and put your money to where it will do the most good. I save my Half Price purchases for books that are either (1) best sellers (Meg Cabot, Robert Jordan, etc.) or (2) old and/or out of print.

And that’s it for me today. Have a good one!

I am totally inspired by the results of the SED contest. The group did so well. Four of us actually completed a story every day for 14 days, which is totally amazing. My congrats go out to my fellows at the finish line — Stephanie, Sandra, and Donna. I won the tie breaker, as I had the highest word count, which was exciting. Finally, my tendency toward wordiness came in handy!

But I think the real winner is the group itself, especially everyone who participated in the contest. Alex wrote 12 stories, and Janel, Brittany, and Virginia all wrote at least one. All totalled, in two weeks the group wrote well over 80,000 words. Yay, Writer’s Ink! Well done!

I’m fairly amazed by all the work we did, and now that we’ve done all this work, there are stories for critting and/or submitting. What fun! I fully expect to hear good results from my fellow writers soon. I suppose the next challenge is not to let the stories sit around, but to do something with them.

Of course, for me, all the stories weren’t submission-ready, or even submission-worthy for that matter. But there are defintely a handful that are worth pursuing. And that is more than I had before, so yay!

When looking over my new crop of stories, I notice that the stories that turned out the best are the ones that I had no intention of writing. Isn’t that strange? The ones I intended to write, such as the story about human colonies on the moon, all turned out poorly, but the ones that started with no apparent rhyme or reason became keepers.

I wonder why that is. Perhaps my muse is only captured by pure randomness? Or perhaps she is just perverse? Or is that the way of it for most writers — that their best tales come when they are least expecting it? What do y’all think?