So there's something to be said for this writing by numbers game, though sometimes I wish it was easier to make cooperate. Let's talk muses, those silly parts of ourself that define which aspects of our minds are actually in use.
Sunday Writing Stats
WRITTEN
We spent the last so long adapting some of my fanfiction to original fiction, in addition to wrapping up some stories I had previously begun and doing a ficlet writing session to music. Adaptations:
- Goddess of Computers
- Dorm Daddy Driver's Ed
- Square Root
- Tech Support
- At Your Altar
This last week, I wrote 6900+ words. My goal was 5000+. My retained words didn't beat the 5000+ goal, but there's always next week.
POSTED
So, not that I expect a lot of people over here at this point, but I have consolidated my worldbuilding locale at Wikia. For my own sanity, I need a central location to dump story notes. It'll take a while to get all the ones I already have on there, but it's worth the effort.
SOLD
"A Dream of Spring" sold to Every Day Poets. Will link when it goes online.
PUBLISHED
Got quite a few things up since the last time we talked, so here goes.
"Baker of Souls," about a woman who is defeated by her own failure; "A Pretty Word," an exploration of the operation of the uncommon Writers among the powerful of Breath; and "The Rule of Prayer," a short that had been hiding in the bottom of my inbox for forever. See Bibliography
Also published some under my other name, but that gets tracked elsewhere.
Posted in Publishing, Writing
Tagged fiction announcement, poetry sale, wiki
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Full Up: The Small Idea
This happens every so often. I've been out filling my well today, working and writing, and I'm full up with things to say and sort out and realize. Continue reading
Posted in Fiction, Writing
Tagged michele lang, rabia gale, storyworld: vardin, the big idea
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Updates, Spider Silk, and Awards
Finished the first draft of The Intentional Writer today. It's a whopping 8,667 words long ( :headdesk: I still write short), but it's done and off to the editor. :grins:
Edited 3 short stories and shipped 2 off to editors. Will be publishing the other 2 promptly (after haranguing covers out of my imagination).
Another one from Rabia, this one on spider silk. What surprises me so much about this fascinating topic is that
- the numbers data scattered over the web is so very conflicting. It's almost impossible to conjecture accurately from the many different variations.
- farming spiders is impossible. From what I can tell, these spiders do not require a lot of personal space if you feed them (30 spiders will share a single tree), and thus there is no reason you cannot cage them separately so they don't eat each other. I feel a spider-silk mercantile center brewing in the world of Breath, and its name is Parphos.[The one I really love though is Theophopes, the white temple spider who talks and considers himself to be a "professor of philosophy and mercantile" and doesn't find it the least disturbing to discuss why he abstains from killing his fellow spiders, even when they are most annoying, or why it is perfectly natural to trust him despite his fatal venom. He's way too fun.]
Last, but not least, I've been awarded! It goes like this:
- Post this happy little icon at right, naming me a Versatile Blogger.
- Link to the person who nominated me. Thank you, Rabia Gale!
- Tell people 7 things about myself (see below).
- Pass on the award to others (see further below).
Seven Things About Myself
- I have not succeeded at finishing the Primary Sources meme, which gives some of the most influential books, films, music, etc. on my life; however, I do know that the movie Hoosiers is on it. The film was released a year before I was even born, but I can wholly attribute my first well-written novel to it and a huge part of all the things I love about intimate character studies and small town stories. The only recent movie I think even comes close is Believe in Me, which I love, but was not particularly influential on my thought processes.
- I am a youngest child. Despite this fact, I'm the only one of us that prefers to be off by myself and doing my own thing.
- My personal favorite nickname for myself is Madame Eclectica. Not because I'm approaching middle-aged (I'm not), but because I have waaaaaaaay too many different interests.
- If it weren't for my unceasing tongue or pen, I think I would be a rather boring person to be around. My idea of fun is to evaluate a language no one but myself will ever speak to identify the exact phonological sounds it includes. (I usually lose my sister around the word "glottal."
- When I was five years old, I broke my wrist—by falling off the bed. Seriously, don't ask.
- I still don't know the purpose of this blog other than to provide a window into my writing and otherwise uninspiring life.
- The best thing I learned from fandom was how to build logical bridges between canonical errors without unwriting those errors. (Though there was that one that simply cannot be reconciled. :glares at Marvel: )
As for Versatile Bloggers, hmm...
Owl and Sparrow: Kayla Olson and her general loveliness blogs at http://owlandsparrow.wordpress.com. I love to read her posts; they're just so refreshing, though at the moment, she's spending more time with baby than internet. (Can't say I blame her.)
Must Use Bigger Elephants: Patty Jansen in her concise scientificness at http://pattyjansen.wordpress.com. I like stopping in for odds and ends and sciency bits.
Character Therapist: Jeannie Campbell and her delightful analyticalness at http://charactertherapist.blogspot.com. So many of my favorite blogs are extremely focused, but she manages to vary things up while remaining ever interesting.
Posted in Nonfiction, Writing
Tagged blog award, character therapist, interesting facts, jeannie campbell, kayla olson, out to editor, patty jansen, rabia gale, research
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Three Happinesses and a Request
1. So on a whim, I decided to see if I had any paying sales for "The Alchemist" yet, a short story written under a pen name, and I did! One.
2. Also, reviewed! Four stars for "The Alchemist" at Amazon.
"I was pleasantly surprised by this story..."
3. I found myself on iTunes. I don't use Apple myself, but it felt awesome just seeing it there.
4. I would be grateful for any unbiased reviews of any of the pieces I have available. Barnes and Noble only has "Portrait of a Butterfly." Amazon has everything but "Portrait of a Butterfly." Everything but "The Alchemist" is available for free on the Downloads page.
Will write you a ficlet if you link your review on B&N or Amazon in the comments. Or iTunes, if that's your cuppa.
Accountability: How Goes the Work?
In the interests of my January resolutions to produce enough words to actually reach a livable amount of earnings, I am throwing out an accountibility posting.
I Hereby Resolve...
Resolutions! I finally made some—today. In order to make a living at writing, I have to sell 1600 words a day, five days a week, at five cents a word. So:
Around the Web
So am now on Scribd, Amazon, and Smashwords.
Stats Post: Fiction Worlds and Names Beginning with K
The Peninsula
• "Crossing the Barrier" is on submission. I haven't heard back about the art yet, so everything's still pending.
• Summerlight, "Prelude to Dance," just got an edit and an update. On the PDF. I've decided when making major updates that unless I think the original needs serious help, I won't be editing the blog posts, simply because it's harder and there are more of them. In short, I moved the second part to the front to simplify.
I have not posted a new update on Summerlight yet because it's a structural book and I just saw the big picture last week, which means I've been spending this week sketching out the ending and some key points throughout. I do hope to settle back soon into a chronological groove with the writing, but I won't be posting anything until the next part is written and betaed.
• I have a few other shorts on the back burner and a couple of I'm-not-sure-how-longs. I'm not focusing on drafting them at this time. I figure the novel is quite suffiicient to keep me.
The Mirror
So this universe has given me its overall arc a whole lot better than any other storyworld to date. It has a pretty complex history and power system, with the powers themselves being rooted in another dimension and with a rather different set of possiblities being accepted and/or used at different times in history.
What makes this storyworld so particularly interesting to me is that it's the first time where I have a clearly fantasy premise rooted in an intensely "Christian" worldview. By "Christian," I mean that this is a rather secular empire that uses the Bible and its carefully manufactured interpretation thereof to control a worldwide populace, as well as several outlying space colonies.
• Several shorts are in progress, though I'm not completely happy with any of them yet, thus the slow work. Getting the voice right is tricky. We have "Eye of the Mirror," "The Silver," and Sacred Mirror, all of which are tentative titles.
Breath
• I'm certainly learning quite a bit about worldbuilding with this one. This is a world that did not arrive fully formed and refused to shape itself. Nope. It's making me do all the heavy lifting (which is kind of fun, if I'm being honest). I'm developing a Series Bible for it and counting this as writing time because I will be putting in a PDF format and keeping it for personal use.
• I have four stories completely drafted, on paper or on the computer: "Baker of Souls," "A Pretty Word," "Lost Heart," and "The Great Cat and His Soul." I'm planning on rewriting the first three with my updated worldbuilding information and better character building on the first and the third. The fourth will be heading over to my beta once it's typed.
• I have a fistful of stories I want to write in this universe: about the Fell, a girl who brought the destruction of the Old King's regime; about Shinet, the soulless, and her reluctant comrade, Covall; about the immortal empress; about the Mavren, the Collector and former enforcer; about the old doctor out in the hills with the water estate. We'll see.
The Alliance
• This is a world from a long time ago and a different pen name, but an unplaceable drabble has inspired me to continue it. The drabble was "City of Glass," and the next piece will be entitled the same. It's a short series of drabbles set in the Alliance universe and can now be downloaded in PDF.
Unrelated Side Note
Apparently, I have an inordinate love for names beginning with the letter K.
Writing anything new? Any new world sparking your interest?
Posted in Fiction, Writing
Tagged on submission, plans, storyworld: alliance, storyworld: breath, storyworld: mirror, storyworld: vardin
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Story Planning and Finishing
Have a few stories out on submission and a boatload in the oven. A new storyworld presented itself with some seriously finishable shorts attached, so it behooved me to consider it. I did and I hired it. In the process, I'm learning how to put together a coherent series bible for a world whose premise did not make itself immediately obvious. I'm utilizing mostly articles from Juliette Wade and my own natural worldbuilding process to flesh it out.
Then today, I read this: "A Look Back At The Book and The Rewriting Issue" by Camille LaGuire. I have been mulling over whether I wanted to rewrite "Crossing the Barrier" for a while now. My first rejection on the story was a personal one and stated that while interesting, it didn't make the editor want to reread it. I thought about that. I dug into the ideas behind the story and the stakes involved and realized that with a lot of work, I could make this story awesome. But I chose not to.
The story is what it is. It's meant to be a small window into Casal's life when she first gains hunter status that is hers and not her parents'. It's interesting; it introduces the world; it doesn't explain the intensity of how important that hunter title is to Casal or what it means to be a hunter. I would have to explain the latter in order to explain the former and some things are simply outside of the scope of a short story without adding a lot of explanation or ancillary material. So for reasons very similar to what Camille talks about, I chose to let it go and let the story be what it is, a hopefully entertaining read that is understandable within its world, if not a deep analysis of the meaning of that world.
If the story comes back again from where I've submitted it, I'll self-publish it. The illustration isn't done yet, and I figured while I was waiting, I might as well keep it circulating, but I'm ready to let this one go and find its own legs. It will never be my best short story in the world. But it isn't meant to be.
Anything new in your world, writing or otherwise? Hope you have a wonderful new year.
Posted in Fiction, Writing
Tagged camille leguire, juliette wade, recommended, revision, series bible
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