Category Archives: Writing

Win, Lose or Write

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Not the most productive of weeks. The girlfriend and I both came down with the plague, leaving both of us less interested in writing. We spent the weekend sucking on cough drops and catching up on Lost. (We’re now only a season behind.) Monday and Tuesday were both shot between tripping on my cold medicine and discovering the horrible, horrible crack that is Plants vs. Zombies.

Also sapping enthusiasm is just… I don’t know, not feeling the writing love. Something just isn’t clicking. What I really need to do is just hit the keyboard
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Hip deep in evil.

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I’ve gotten two pieces off my check list submitted. I already heard back from K.C. Ball regarding my submission to 10 Flash. She hasn’t accepted it, but she asked for me to resubmit with some changes. So that’s promising. I’ve got until mid-May to do that. I’ve got my submission in to Crossed Genres. It closes doors tonight at midnight (Eastern time). Probably sometime within the next week I’ll get word. I feel really good about this piece, but that’s never been a promising sign in the past. =P

It would be nice to have something new on the airwaves. It’s been six months since I’ve gotten something picked up and a couple months since anything new has appeared, in part because I haven’t been as productive with class and all.

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Putting on my pimping pants.

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How can you tell they are pimping pants? Because of the leopard print and purple marabou trim on the the legs.

But I digress.

In the mail today I got my pre-ordered copy of Close Encounters of the Urban Kind, edited by the lovely and talented Jennifer Brozek. It features some stories by Pacific Northwest writers that I have the distinction of knowing and loving: Nathan Crowder and Rosemary Jones.

I also see that there are contributions by other writers that I got to see at Norwescon that seemed pretty nifty, such as Alma Alexander, Erik Scott de Bie and Joshua Palmatier.

I haven’t read the stories yet, but I have enough faith in the people involved to say it’s gonna be good. I’ve missed the first two readings they’ve done, but I’m hoping to make their next one. If I recollect properly, it will be June 12th at Third Place Books.

Interesting. As in, “Oh god, oh god, we’re all going to die.”

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It’s been almost two weeks since I last updated. Yowzers. My usual venues for screwing around have dwindled up, so I haven’t had much time to update this. If I’ve had time for writing, I’ve tried to use it for writing. So I got that going for me.

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Lines That Do Death

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So, in reviewing my schedule, we determined the easiest spot for me to free up more time would be if I got up at my normal weekday time on the weekend. So I got up at, dear gods, 4:30 this morning to work on my writing. It’s been a slow morning. I’m glad I didn’t go out gaming last night.

Unfortunately, I’m not sure what I’m supposed to work on next. So this is me talking out loud as I dig through all the stuff I want to submit to and determine the deadlines I’m looking at, while sitting on the couch with a fat and sassy orange cat.

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Brushing the dust off, getting back on the horse.

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Well, I got word last night that Crossed Genres is not going to pick up “Thus Have I Heard.” They didn’t cite any problems with the story, which they are usually kind enough to do when I fumble something. And I don’t mean that sarcastically. The fact that they usually take the time to point out weaknesses means a lot to me, and influences my desire to continue submitting to them. So that may mean the story is fine, despite my self-critical frustrations with my execution. Or it may mean they were just crazy busy this month. ;)
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NorWesCon 2010 After Action Report

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So, I had my first real exposure to Norwescon. I’d had limited visits in the past. Several years ago I attended on Thursday only and sat in on, like, one or two panels. (I remember one with Mike Pondsmith, whose words encouraged me to pursue game design. Hm.) Another time I dropped in to have drinks with friends who were attending. And one year I lucked into having a table in the dealer room.

But this was my first year buying a full membership, staying in the hotel and attending a crap ton of panels. So, here is my general commentary on the experience.

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Mapping out the road ahead.

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I got my short story, which I decided to title “Thus Have I Heard,” sent off to Crossed Genres a couple days ago. My class is basically over. I just need to cull the critiques I got for my story from the boards so that I can refer to them later. I have Norwescon this weekend.

So now, I look to… the future!
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Another Day in the Word Mines

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Class is starting to wind down. We’re in the work-shopping phase, which is sort of a mixed blessing. On the upside hand, I’m getting really rigorous and relentless feedback. On the downside, I’m getting really rigorous and relentless feedback. It’s hard to face the prospect that I’m not the sparkling princess of awesome writing I hoped I was. =P I’ve gotten past the initial jolt and am feeling better, but it took me a little bit to get my feet under me.
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Newsily bits.

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The main news is not about me, but rather about my special lady friend. She has had her first piece of fiction published by Crossed Genres. I encourage you to take a moment and check out her steampunk story, The Recondite Riddle of the Rose Rogue.

Wily Writers has a story up by Jeff Grub. I guess they’re kind of a big deal now or something. =)

I have pretty much finished my short for my class workshop. It has patches I’m not certain about, but I don’t know how to fix them. I figure I’ll offer it up to the workshopping gods, and see what happens. I had intended to submit this to Crossed Genres, but it was based off of the assumption that their genre “Gadgets & Artifacts” also had “Toys” in the name. But either I misremembered or they changed it. I’ll see what their more robust description says in a month. =P

The check is apparently in the mail for the game I wrote some five years ago. The pitches by the game company for other stuff they’d like me to work on haven’t tickled my fancy as yet.

I spent Saturday not doing a lick of writing. Instead, I played some video games I hadn’t gotten to in a while. It was GLORIOUS.