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Posts tagged ‘Short Stories’

Sep 6

Summer 100K Results & Beginning of Short Story September

I haven’t finished typing up everything I wrote for the months of July and August 2016, but as I said before, I didn’t hit 100K words. I still estimate that it will be closer to 10 – 11K in words. This is a huge feat when you consider I had barely 1, 000 words this year. Once I finish typing it all up, I’ll give the final results (hopefully this week). So what happened that kicked my productivity into overtime? Here are a few things:

Change of Routine

July chugged along and I didn’t have much success, so in August I threw the game plan out the window and radically changed my routine. Up until that time, I had been an evening writer. My routine was to wake up, have a breakfast, work (I work from home full-time now.), workout, shower, dinner, and then finally write. You know what? By the time I got my workout in, showered, and ate, the last thing I felt like doing was writing. I just wanted to turn my brain off and watch TV or surf the net.

I had tried working out in the morning, but I couldn’t do it. I’m an early riser, but I liked working out at the end of my day after sitting in front of my computer. I was used to writing in the evening, because that’s what I did when I went to an office. But once I started working from home, I had no evening commute. So I got lazy and pushed the time further and further back until I was writing at the same time some TV show was on that I didn’t want to miss. (Side note: I don’t have cable so no DVR.)

So I told myself starting in August I was going to write first thing in the morning. I woke up and before I got dressed, looked at the news, or ate any food, I would write. And it worked. The pages started to pile up. Chapters got finished. I no longer felt worn out or tired when I wrote. I also didn’t feel guilty about staring at the TV, or going out at night. Before I would beat myself up for not writing, but now I could say – I got some writing in this morning. I’m good.

Consistency

Not everyday was perfect. I missed 6 days in August. But today is the 22nd day in a row I have written some fiction. It’s gotten to the point where I don’t want to break the streak. That can be addictive. I would say to myself You’ve made it 10 days, why not go for 11? And I would pick up my notebook and get a few words down, happy as a clam that the streak was still alive. Some days I still had to write at night, but mostly these were morning writing words. They were the first things done before the rest of the world got moving.

Speed

I have accepted at this point in my writing life, I am not a fast writer. I don’t get 1,000 words written a day. I get closer to 200-300 words done. While I admire those that can churn out fast copy, it’s not me. Frankly, I’d rather be slow, but consistent. The words do add up. Maybe one day I will build up my speed, but right now, I just want to be consistent again. Once in a while, I will do a marathon day, but that will burn me out. Yesterday was Labor Day in the US, and a holiday for most. I spent about 5 hours or so finishing a story. I happy it’s done, but I don’t want to do that everyday.

Conclusion

I’m going to stick with this routine until it doesn’t work anymore. That’s the most valuable thing I learned. When your routine doesn’t serve your needs, it’s time to change it. You might have great success.

Also I want to make a note that it is time for my annual challenge to myself called Short Story September. I started in 2014 writing a new short story every week. Last year (2015) I tried writing a story everyday, with not so great results. So I’m back to a new story every week. I’ve already started the story for this week and hope to be done by Saturday. I’m also writing a novel, so I may switch things up and work on that this month too. Either way I want 4 new short stories and/or 4 new chapters.

Submissions are also chugging along. I’m at 55 rejections, and I have four currently out for consideration. Hope to have a few more by the end of the month.

Thanks everyone for reading. Happy Writing!

 

Jan 31

I Self-Published a Book!

Hypergraphia

 

My new chapbook of short stories – Hypergraphia and Other Odd Stories – is available to purchase!

Exactly one month ago, I sat hunched over my computer staring at the Amazon Kindle store screen. Most Decembers, I have almost half the month off and this time around I decided to take advantage of all my time off. I had been tossing around the idea of self-publishing and figured why not?

I did this to see if I COULD do it. Could I format a book and upload it to Amazon? Could I design my own book cover? It was a challenge to figure out. One I enjoyed.

I had the stories. These five were written over the past three years. Some written and worked in class. Some I written on my own. All of them fun and interesting (to me at least).

Right now the e-book is only available on Amazon, but I am working on formatting it through Smashwords for other places (Kobo, iBooks, Nook, etc.)

I’m sure if I spent more time and energy mailing them out, eventually they would’ve found homes in various markets, but in a way this was a nice to set them free by self-pubbing them. They are out in the world and now I am writing more stories.

I definitely think I will keep doing this. I hope to do another chapbook this summer.

Buy Hypergraphia and Other Odd Stories here.

Dec 30

2 Comments

End of 2015 – End of One Year One Hundred Rejections Challenge

Final tally for 2015:

Submissions: 5
Acceptances: 1
Rejections: 40

On one hand, I am happy I hit 40 by the end of the year. It’s no where close to l00, but that number is larger than 2014 and lets me know I’m getting my work out there.

On the other hand, technically I failed. Big time.

I can’t help but look back and think, What if I worked harder? Wrote more? How would my numbers look better?

But all these questions will drive me crazy. I’m going to let them go. New year, new start.

When I started this challenge, I only wanted to submit more. I felt I was slacking in this department, endlessly rewriting and not putting myself out there. And it worked, I feel like I really made an effort and will keep making the effort. Now that I’m not in school, I have much more time.

And time management is now an important aspect of my writing career. I have to get better at this. Spending a year focused on submitting took away from my other writing duties. (See my upcoming Goals for 2016 post for more.)

Here are some other takeaways from this challenge:

・    I write weird stuff. I need to get better at finding places that like those stories. I have lists upon lists of journals and magazines, but I need to get better at knowing my markets. This year I found a whole new group that I hadn’t heard about.
・    Aim high. Not going to lie. I like getting paid for my work. Exposure is nice when you are first starting out, but really I aim for the paying markets first. This doesn’t mean that all unpaid markets are bad, but I have seen some places that are straight up scams. No I’m not going to sell all my rights to this story forever and ever for an on-line posting. No I’m not going to pay you (a stupid large amount of money) to read my story. I don’t pay any fees at all, but I don’t have anything against small, struggling places who charge a dollar (or so) reading fee. My issues is with the well funded places that charge a fee and then don’t pay the writer! That’s wrong.
・    Social media can be so helpful! Because of Twitter/Facebook Groups/E-mail lists I know when places are open/taking submissions.
・    When rejections come in, it’s best to mail them right back out… unless you have a place in mind and they don’t open for a couple of days or so.

So, I will continue to submit, but not post the numbers every month (but I will be sure to make a note when I hit 100). I really enjoyed this challenge and urge anyone who is shy about submitting to try it. Once they start to pile up, you start to get more and more efficient. It becomes a process and your stories stop being your “precious babies” and instead are just your stories. Fun, well-written, stories that you want to share. The depersonalization helps get you working. And this important point is the BEST (to me) reason to do this challenge.

GET TO WORK.

Thanks for sticking with me this year. Let’s see what new adventures and challenges I find in 2016.

Dec 3

4 Comments

Dear Robot Blog Hop – #iamhuman

This blog post is part of a blog hop for the Dear Robot Anthology. Please click here for details on the editor, Kelly Ann Jacobson, inspiration for the anthology and to links to other contributor’s stories. There is also a Goodreads sponsored giveaway until December 10th.

You know you want to get this book! Who doesn’t want a free book?

Here’s the story behind the story –

The ticket that started it all.

One year ago, on a cold December night, a handful of fantasy authors and their supporters gathered together in a local writing center. The night was the book release for the anthology Magical. I came to support my fellow contributors with a couple of friends and my mom in tow. The reading was fun and after, when we all were chatting and swapping autographs, the editor, Kelly, let it slip she had thought about another anthology.

“I’m thinking some science fiction,” she said.
“Ooo,” I said. “That sounds interesting.”
“Yeah, but I’m not sure yet. Anthologies are so much work. I’ll have to see.”

After that night, I didn’t think much about the antho. My final class for my MA was coming up and I had to shift my attention to my other stories. In no time spring came, my class was done, and I graduated. Kelly’s e-mail about her new anthology submission call came about a month later in June.

My first thought was, Epistolary Science Fiction????

Now that was new.

To be honest, my brain was fried in June. I was out of ideas and more focused on my brother’s up coming wedding rather than coming up with a brand new story. So I pushed it to the back of my mind. I had time. I would think of something.

In July, I felt more refreshed and ready to write. Sometime in the first week or so, a couple of odd things happened. First I went through some of my old papers, and by old I mean OVER 5 years. I found a few abandoned stories I never finished, but there was a story I wrote in 2005 or 2006 that I couldn’t find. I had thought maybe I would finish it.

Sadly, I think somewhere in the three household moves I’ve made in the last ten years the story got lost. Maybe tossed away in a stack of papers I thought were worthless. I was bummed because I loved the idea of that story, but I had never had a clear vision of how to finish it. I imaged an earth far in the future, where people had flexible genders, flexible sexuality, and flexible ethnicities. It was a daunting task to describe a world like this (mostly because I had to think about how this world would come into being in a realistic way) and keep it in the realm of short story. It was the kind of story I couldn’t write in my twenties, but could now in my thirties (or at least wanted to try).

So I stripped away the previous story (had to there were no reference points for me to refresh my memory) and instead focused on exploring the world’s origins. The pre-story, if you will. What would the early days of this new reality look like? Why would humans change themselves?

The second event was a late night idea I had of a teenage girl, who was getting surgery to get into college. I saw her clearly, red-hair, freckles, and reading a thick paperback waiting nervously for her doctor. Why was she there? I wanted to know more.

Combine those two ideas and my love of long form essays, and you have my story “#iamhuman.” I wrote it in a blistering three day focus, set it aside for a week, read it over, and sent it to Kelly.

A few weeks later, she accepted it.

Nov 21

Dear Robot Anthology

Dear Robot ImageMy short story is in the new anthology Dear Robot. Get it here.

Here’s the full Table of Contents:

1 NICKERSON INTERSTELLAR STUDENT EXCHANGE BEHAVIORAL CONTRACT by Tara Campbell
2 GOD ARTICLE by Rafael S.W
3 WHO DO YOU THINK YOU ARE by Misha Herwin
4 DRINK, KILL, CONTRACT by Michelle Vider
5 FUN(DRAISING) WITH METEOROIDS by Sarena Ulibarri
6 SLEEP FOREVER by Tabitha Sin
7 DODONA 2.0 by Llanwyre Laish
8 SELECTIONS FROM THE INTRAGALACTIC ENCYCLOPEDIA OF HABITABLE PLANETS by Kate Lechler
9 DUO-13-TRIP by Marlena Chertock
10 DEAR R.A.Y. by Tanya Bryan
11 SO YOU’VE BEEN CHOSEN TO FOSTER by Jamie Killen
12 WELCOME TO OASIS by Terri Bruce
13 AL’S ROBOT REPAIR by Bruce Markuson
14 USGITP COMMUNIQUE #544 ERC by Johnna Schmidt
15 THE INSTITUTE by Diana Smith Bolton
16 THE WRATH OF SEPHILEMEA by Gargi Mehra
17 CONSIDERATIONS OF HAVING ROYALTY AS NAMESAKE by Juliana Rew
18 #IAMHUMAN by Christina Keller
19 COUNTDOWN (MY DEAR ONE) by Jacquelyn Bengfort

Sep 15

3 Comments

Mid-September Post 2015 – Two Challenges at Once!

Mid month update. No movement on the submissions, except I got one more rejection. But, I mailed that story right back out. The rest are still out in the world.

Here’s the numbers:

Submissions: 12
Acceptances: 0
Rejections: 24

We are ¾ of the way through the year, so I’m sure I’m not going to get a hundred rejections, but maybe I’ll get 30 or 40? Maybe I’ll get at least one acceptance? One can hope.

My other challenge isn’t going so well. I started off strong, but somewhere around September 10, I fell behind. It’s not the writing that is hard, it’s the finishing. So now I have two unfinished stories sitting on my table. I opted to keep working on those rather than start yet another story. I suppose I could write a couple of flash fiction under five hundred words to catch up, but I’d rather finish up these two stories that I really like and am excited about.

What ever happens I’m glad I decided to do this. Like I said in my earlier post, there is something satisfying about finishing. I will have more new stories and I can submit those and add them to my challenge.

I would count the stories, but it’s getting late. I think I have 12(?) right now. Not too bad. Just a few stories behind.

A nice break from the longer story. In October, I will get back to that.

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