End of November

Well, it is the end of November. I have little hope that I will actually get any more responses this month (although it could happen) so I will start this post with my stats.

Accepted stories: 1 to 52 Stitches called 'The Problem With Gnomes' I like this little story and I can't wait to see the rest of the line-up.

Rejected stories: 2. both of which have gone on to find where they properly belong. (I hope)

Stories written: 0. None. Nada. Zip. Zilch. I couldn't even finish my nano book, although I do have a damn good start on it. I am also working on a short story that I have yet to complete. We will tack onto this stat that I still managed to write 43,000 words, just not all in one story. I can't complain. It was probably my last year to attempt NaNo. It was fun. Everyone should do it. At least once.

Published: 1. 'The Passenger' has been published, and beautifully I might add, in Midnight Echo. Link at the right because I am lazy today.

In other news I am a picture of health. Thanks to everyone for the well wishes. I went to the doctor today (3rd time this month) and after running a battery of tests usually reserved for men almost 2X my age, they have declared me to be in good health. While they could come up with no concrete reason why I have problems breathing sometimes lately I am happy to say that my heart is in good shape, especially. I am also in good shape, although after running the stress test I have found out I would have to do a lot of conditioning to get in shape for the Olympics. I guess that ship has sailed because I am not interested in doing that much work. I will stick to writing.

That is good because I have some stories I need to get back to work on. December is upon us. Hope you all had a good November.

Snowing in Hell

So it is October 12, 2009 and it is snowing for the second time in 3 days. The first time was actually a new record in our area. It had never snowed that much that early in recorded history. Now it is snowing again and that just seems cruel. It makes me want to rip an icicle from my roof and beat Al Gore with it.

Today I don't know if I will work on any new stories or not. I might just work on edits and re-writes from at least 2 different stories and maybe a 3rd. I have been wracking my brain trying to come up with something for 52 stitches but I am at a loss. I haven't been able to write a flash piece for quite some time now. I think I broke that part of my brain and I can't fix it with super-glue. I tried, but now my fingers are stuck together and for some reason my leg twitches all the time.

Happy Monday!

Doh!

I can't believe that I forgot that I had a short story published in Sand last month, plus I received a beautiful book called 52 Stitches. Yesterday my story Beneath the Willows was released at Bards and Sages.

So, yesterday I managed another 1500 words in my scoiry (to borrow a word from Carrie) story. I don't know how long this is going to end up. Something tells me far longer than will be usable in any short story market. I might surprise myself and pull it in under 7500 words. I don't know yet. I've got a few ideas where I could take it, I just don't know yet.

Last night, in one of the worst nights of my life, my boy (who my wife thinks is getting sick) didn't let me go to bed until 5. I think I am running on about an hour of sleep and I haven't had any coffee yet, mostly because I keep forgetting about it. Because of this I don't know if I will attempt any writing (my typing is seriously lagging and I am giving my delete button a real workout right now). I might try and find something on the History Channel and call it a day. At least until I have to go watch the homecoming parade that my daughter will be walking in.

Have a great weekend. A great, rest-filled, weekend.

Squirrel!

By the way, the title of this post is a reference to the movie UP! If you haven't seen it you are missing out. Anyway, I feel like a squirrel getting ready for winter. I have been running around doing just about everything but writing. Sure I have done some edits and actually I wrote a query letter yesterday that (after countless drafts) I am proud to say is mine, but my word count on actual stories has been zilch lately. This morning, before the boy woke, I managed to pound out 600 words and felt pretty good about it.

The rest of my days have been spent running around, trying to potty train my boy, and working on the yard, trying to get it into decent shape before winter sets in. I figure the better it looks now the less work I have in the spring, when all of my good intentions turn into summer and then fall again.

In good news there is a really good book trailer going around the web today for Barry Napier's collection, DEBRIS. The book will be coming out sometime in the next month. Also, 52 Stitches is out on Amazon. I look forward to reading all of my favorite stories and reading a few I may have missed as the weeks seemed to fly by this year.

Hopefully it will be a productive weekend and this next week will get more words out that this week has. Until later.

All sorts of goodness

Yes, it is Monday and I am associating that with all sorts of goodness. First off, a great big Congratulations to Felicity Dowker, one of the most kreative spellers I know, who won the Ditmar Award for Best New Talent. Talk about a gal who has taken the underworld by storm with her dark fiction.

In other down under news, if Jaws didn't make you squeamish to get in the water, BT's story Murky Depths on 52 Stitches will.

the third thing I am cheering about is that I am done hanging sheetrock in my spare bedroom. Most of you won't give a damn about that, but I am glad that part of the construction is done. (I still have more sheetrock to hang, but the bedroom is done which is all I was worried about.) My back is also so far out of whack I am afraid that I won't be able to sneeze this week. You think I'm kidding. It has happened to me before.

In other news we had a spectacular lighting storm last night. I wish I had set up my video camera to record it. Sometimes hindsight blah, blah, blah.

This week starts editing. Major editing of a 24,000 word novella I would like to submit to Damnation Books. I also have a Vermin antho story I can see the end from where I sit, I just need to get there, edit it and submit before the deadline is over. In July. These two projects should consume most of my free time this week, and then some.

Hope everyone has a good week. Probably read more about me tomorrow, unless My house floats away with all the rain we have been getting lately.

Nine

I have a new story today at 52 Stitches called Nine. If you haven't already, check it out, if you have Thank you.

I managed to get no writing done yesterday, today is looking no better. There is good news to come from this, however. My house is almost done. It has been years in the making and I managed to get a good chunk of trim up around the windows and doors yesterday and install a stairwell, properly this time. Today will involve the staining and finishing of more trim and if I feel ambitious I will take on my plumbing once again. I don't think I will feel that ambitious.

For now I am sitting here waiting for the boy to wake, and while it is time I could be using to write I need to re-format a story to send to another market after I got a very nice rejection letter from Shimmer yesterday. I also need to look at a story for a friend, but I want to be able to give it my full attention.

Better late than never-

Well I am going to do my month in review a few days late. It is only three days into November and I am already swamped.

In October I mostly focused on my YA book, Big Chief's Gold (working title). I have been trying to rewrite it and focusing on very little else other than housework. Other than that I wrote only two other stories, both flash.
1. The Proposal, a 700 word flash piece for the Dogs antho. I have yet to hear back from them.
2. Nine, a 650 word story I originally wrote for the Cat tales antho but after I got done writing it I realized I had failed one of the main guidelines (I tried to follow it but I just couldn't do it) of cats must be shown in a good light. I don't know if the cats in my story were in a bad light but something told me it wasn't quite what they wanted. I held it over and submitted it instead to 52 Stitches where they quickly accepted it. (Yippee!) It is officially my first paying market after giving away 7 other stories. (Thank you Aaron and Ed!)

Other than that I recieved a whopping 6 rejections for the month of October. I recieved them from Hobart, Dark Recesses, Time and Space, Night Train, Nineth Letter, and Susurrus. Half of them were personallized and quite nice, the rest were the same boring form letters that we all know and despise.

I already know that I will be working on nothing, other than the occational edit during November. Other than that I am trying to focus on my NaNo book Invasion. It was an idea that I came up with last year but haven't had the time to flesh out. I am hoping I can get this rough first draft done this month. It is more of a political thriller than anything else. I have never written anything quite like it. I hope it isn't complete crap when I am finished with it.

Good luck to all this month. Talk at you later.

Happy NaNo!

It has been a happy week, looking back on it I guess. We had a happy Monday, Happy Candy day and now to finish it off a Happy NaNo day.

Not actually the reason I wanted to write today. I wasnt' planning on writing at all, but Studs Turkel died Friday, October 31, 2008. He was a 96. For those of you who don't know who Studs was, he was a Pulitzer prize winning writer for his 1985 book, The Good War. He wasn't so much a writer as a historian, recording the histories of what he called the 'non-celebrated.' His boks were filled with accounts from everyday people who had lived through extraordinary and sometimes mundane things. He is a great reference for anyone looking for a character they just can't seem to flesh out.

Now, lets get out there and write. And don't forget that 52 Stitches opens for submissions today. They already have mine.

Coffee good-no sleep bad

Well, once again, Mark the re-write god was shining on me yesterday. (I don't know if he will come out and play today or if Cate Gardner is going to steal him from me) We managed to get through my daily goal of 1000 words on my YA re-write and then has out a first draft of a flash piece for 52 Stitches. It didn't start out that way. My original goal was for the Cat tales antho but I couldn't put cats into a positive light.

Currently I am running on little sleep because I was up until almost 3:00 am with my boy. I have no clue why every other night he decides to pull an all-nighter but last night was the night. I will need to chug coffee today during my session with the old laptop.