Short Stories, pt. IV & Beta Critique

I woke up this morning and finished the next draft of one of the two short stories I've been working on for the last month. The one I'm going to be submitting to Writers of the Future. I was finally able to power through my hesitation and although I'm not 100% sold on it, I have time for another pass through before submitting it for critique and getting a final draft out of it.

The other short story is still in outline form. I've got to do another pass through of the plot points, scene list, and characters before sitting down and pumping that one out. With the deadline for Writers of the Future looming (March 31) and my beta critique tomorrow, time is going to be messy.

See how I transitioned there?

Tomorrow, I am meeting with my writing group to get critique notes for my novel. It's been a few months in the making and it's finally here.

Holy shit, I'm anxious.

I've gotten some notes back already, but reading written notes and sitting for an hour while people give you notes are two very differently colored horses. I'm trying not to panic too much. I don't know if the anxiety of getting live notes is better or worse than all the work I'm going to have to do in the coming weeks to get a final draft of the novel done.

I'm pretty sure I'm going to focus on my short story until I submit it, after which I'll dive into the final revision of my novel. That means the second short story is going to be put on the back burner, unfortunately. I'll pull it up when I need a break from my novel, I guess, but I really want to power through the next few weeks and have a final draft of my novel finished by April 30. I think at that point I'm going to do another round of beta readers and by the end of June, I'll be ready to start querying.

Ha, right. We'll see.

Short Stories, pt. III & Murder Park After Dark

I've got two short stories I'm working on, now.

One, a dreary tale of hopelessness, addiction, and enslavement, where the only freedom comes from death.

The other, a story about a fairy who steals socks.

I definitely have a favorite.

I've stalled on the first one. After several rewrites, I had to step away. I was at the point of wanting to delete the whole thing. Not that you can actually delete something in this day and age. Still, I'm glad I stepped away. I've calmed down and I'm going to tackle it again next week.

Then I outlined the sock fairy story and got way happier.

So, like everything, the more you practice, it easier it gets. I'm looking to submit one or the other to Writers of the Future before March 31st. I'll let you know how it goes.

In other news, I am now a published author!

My short story can be found in the pages of Murder Park After Dark, an anthology my writing group has put together. It's been edited, illustrated, and printed (Thanks again, Karter!). Pretty soon, it will be on Amazon, too! When it's for sale on Amazon, I'll post a link.

For now, I must get my, as my friend Anton calls it, "Gentleman's 500" in for the day.

Short Stories, pt. II

Told you I'd be back...

And the reason I'm back is because I'm procrastinating on my latest rewrite of this goddamn short story. How do... why... ARGH!

As you can tell, this short story process is kicking my ass. Writing a novel was easier. Even cutting 60k words on the first rewrite of the novel was easier than this. Why? I have no idea. What is it about short stories that is so... enigmatic? Novel? Sure, here are your plot points, here are your characters, here are some sub-plots... go nuts! Short story? Uhh...

Okay, I'm exaggerating a little. Obviously, short stories aren't some great mystery to be unlocked via guided meditation, tantric chanting, and candle-lit altars. Short stories get published all the time. People write tons of short stories.

So what am I missing?

I'll let you know once I figure it out. For now, I just have to keep applying elbow grease. Or typing grease. Some form of grease.

Short Stories, pt. I

Let's just put aside the fact that it's been six weeks since my last blog entry. Just sweep it under the rug. Never happened.

Don't worry. The panic and anxiety I felt at the realization was terrifying and shocking. I believe that's the longest I've gone without writing a blog since I started.

Not good.

Let's not wallow, though! There are things I would like to share with you.

So, in the midst of my critique group having the latest draft of my WIP and their notes beginning to come in, I found myself in a weird place. I needed a break from writing, true, but I also needed to keep writing. Know what I'm saying?

I didn't want to dive into the sequel to my first book because, well, that would be silly. The first one isn't finished, why would I start working on the second one? Right? Who would do that?

If you get that I'm calling someone out, I am.

Anyway, I wasn't going to work on book two of this series.

I dillied. I dallied. I wrote a little for other standalone novels in the same world. It was okay.

Then, my friend, fellow writer, and critique partner suggested two things to me:

1) Get out of your world.

2) Write a short story.

Perfect.

Only it wasn't. Short stories are god damned nightmares. The format, the style, the tone. They were a complete mystery to me. Even now, weeks after heading down the short story path, I feel like short stories are an enigma.

That being said, I am editing a short story and getting ready to begin submitting it. This will be my first experience with short story submissions, but I'm really pushing myself so I can get the experience of both writing a short story and trying to get it published.

It's late and I'm a little out of sorts now, but I will blog again soon for more details on that whole process.

Stay tuned.

Beginnings and Ends

The end of 2017 was a blur. Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year's all blended together into a kaleidoscope of celebration, culminating with a New Year's Eve blow out. Still recovering from that particular fun time.

Which, unfortunately, has left me with a laundry list of things I need to wrap up for 2017 and get started for 2018. Four days into the new year, I'm finally ready to tackle some of them.

First off, we have my quarterly goals of 2017 Q4 to go over. I suppose it's best to deal with bad news first, right?

This was, far and away, my least successful quarter, at least, in terms of accomplishing the goals I had set out for myself. I manage four out of 12 goals. 33% ain't great. That being said, two of the goals I accomplished were major ones.

Numero uno, I completed NaNoWriMo. This was huge for me. I managed to stay ahead of my word count for most of the month and had no problem hitting the final goal, even after a few days in week 4 of no writing.

Numero dos, I got my WIP ready for beta readers. Draft 3 of my novel is ready and it currently in the hand of my first round of beta readers: my critique group.

Now, 2018 is here, and my quarterly goals need to be updated. I have given myself 14 goals to accomplish by March 30th, 2018, ranging from writing goals to reading goals to health goals and professional goals and everything in between. Again, some of these are private, so I won't share them, but included among them is a whole slew of outlining, writing a short story, and a weight goal.

Let's see how I'm going to start 2018!