Author Archives: Jeremy Zimmerman

Goal Setting

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It’s been nearly a month since NaNo ended. I have been giving myself a break from the novel after the hectic pace of November. But now that rest period is over, and I’m trying to consider what step to take next. I’ve been working on a short story submission for Crossed Genres, but I want to get back to one of my bigger projects. I spent so much time last year working on short stories that my novel languished uncompleted. But some stuff has come to my attention that I’m considering trying to do. This has resulted in a timeline, which I will put behind the cut.

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Wily Writers is looking for submissions

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In connection with some new approaches in 2010, Angel McCoy has put up submission guidelines for the Wily Writers site:
http://www.wilywriters.com/blog/?page_id=1234

I think the really awesome thing about this site is the audio recordings they offer for stories that appear there. That’s really hard to top. Not that I’m biased or anything. *ahem*

State of the Writing

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I’ve been meaning to write a post-NaNo reflection. This is not that post. Between the hectic schedule of NaNoWriMo and the hectic travel schedule we’ve had, I haven’t had much time to blog. But here’s a quick recap of where I’m at with my writing.

– With November 30th come and gone, I’m taking one-month a break from the novel. In a couple weeks I’ll get back on the horse, but I haven’t decided what I want to do. Finish the novel I was writing? Go back to one of my earlier unfinished novels? There’s also the possibility that I could write more shorts, though I’m a little leery of that. I spent last year churning out shorts for Crossed Genres, some good some not so good. In the end it killed my ability to work on the novel. Some of it was just “busy with other stuff.” Some of it was that I didn’t have as rigorous a writing regimen as I do now. We’ll see.

– I finished the first draft of a short story for their “Any Previous Genre” issue. I’d started out trying to write humor with a dash of folklore. It seems a bit more serious than intended, so it may be “folklore with a dash of humor.” More on this later.

– I’m also mulling around ideas for their “Eastern” issue. It’s dedicated to “Eastern cultures.” I have two ideas for stories, both with Buddhisty themes. One is a bit stronger in my head but is not as strictly Eastern as the other one. Not sure what I’ll do.

– Sometime next month, my short story “A Necessity of the Present” will be available at Wily Writers. It will be available in both text and audio format. Both are free, but there is a donation button.

– I sent off the revised contract to Seraphim Guard for the game I wrote for them several years ago. I think it will appear sometime next year, barring misfortune. (There’s a reason it hasn’t seen the light of day yet.)

Ummmm… I think that’s it.

Looking for a home

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My first short story Crossed Genres accepted from me, the sci-fi/fantasy mashup entitled “Golden Apples,” has reverted back to me. They have non-exclusive rights to it still for another year, but I’m otherwise free to shop it around.

The challenge is: I don’t know what to do with it. It’s short, 1632 words. It fit their criteria but is a little short for what I’ve seen other magazines request. It’s also not new and I can’t offer exclusive rights to anyone.

Is there a market for such things? Peanut gallery?

A reading of my stuff!

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A friend of mine offered to have some of my writing read at at an open house for her artist-loft-community thing. I was gunshy about just doing a reading just yet since I’m, well, effectively nobody. And then it turned out I couldn’t make it there this weekend anyway.

But apparently there will be an interpretive reading of “A Tale of Two Bureaucracies” (which appeared in the April 2009 issue of Crossed Genres) on Sunday. I get nothing out of this aside from some free, if local, publicity. But if you want to check it out, I’m sure there will be other cool stuff there. Information about the open house can be found here:

Cooper’s Open House December 5th & 6th

Pimpage: Addendum 1

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In my pre-coffee haste this morning, I failed to mention that there are other authors worth noting involved in Cobalt City Christmas. While I don’t know much about Nicole Burns, I can at least dig up a few things about Angel Leigh McCoy (a prolific game designer, author and journalist) and Rosemary Jones (who is most recently known for her recent Forgotten Realms novels, but also has several non-fiction books under her belt).

So if Nate and I are not enough of a draw, Angel and Rosemary may very well be.

Cobalt City Christmas

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Here’s another project that I’d been involved with but was keeping under wraps:

My friend Nathan Crowder has developed his own comic book universe through a series of novels he has put out on Lulu. When he decided to put together an anthology of stories written by other writer friends, I jump on the opportunity. The story I turned out was absurdly fun to write.

The anthology is Cobalt City Christmas.

Diving into it is probably something like diving into a comic book series you aren’t familiar with. If you are interested in this but would like some context, my favorite book in this universe is Greetings from Buena Rosa.

Award Season

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A couple writer friends of mine did this, and I figured I’d follow suit. I dithered for a few weeks before deciding to post this. I generally hate tooting my own horn, so it was an effort to overcome my reluctance.

As originally posted by Angel Leigh McCoy:

“Members of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America (SFWA) vote for the Nebulas.

Members of the Horror Writers Association (HWA) vote for the Bram Stokers.

These awards are among the most coveted by writers because they’re awarded by their peers.

If the org’s members don’t know that you have a piece that is eligible, they’re less than likely to read it, much less nominate it or vote for it.”

So, in the interest of disclosure, I have two fantasy shorts that I think are eligible to be nominated. In the off chance, you know, that a card-carrying member of the SFWA happens to read one of my shorts and swoon with delight over it. I don’t think either of my eligible pieces count as “horror,” and they lean pretty heavy overall towards “fantasy” rather than “sci fi.”

“A Crazy Kind of Love,” my tale of inter-species star-crossed “romance,” appeared in the February 2009 issue of Crossed Genres and has been picked up to represent the Romance genre in the first anthology collection.

“A Tale of Two Bureaucracies,” my tongue-in-cheek tale contrasted a mortal government agency responsible for the protection of a sealed portal into Hell and an infernal government agency responsible for regulating attempts to break out. It appeared in the April 2009 issue of Crossed Genres.

As best I can tell, my story from the December 2008 issue is not eligible for nomination.