Just a friendly reminder: an adaptation of my story “My Heart is a Quadratic Equation” will be featured as part of the Pulp Stage’s upcoming Sci Fi Night show next Thursday, April 24th.
More details are available here, but if you happen to be out Portland way, be sure to stop in at the Jack London Bar and check it out. Tickets are only $5 if you buy them online!
I am very excited to announce that one of my stories has been selected for Art on the Boulevard’s Art & Words Show.
This is *such* a cool project! Let me explain:
13 stories and poems have been selected, along with 13 works of art, for display at the show. Now that the selections have been made, the writers and artists will swap. My story will be given to an artist who will make a painting, picture, or sculpture to represent that story. Meanwhile, I will receive a work of art and I will write a new story to accompany it. All of the resulting art and stories will be displayed in the gallery, including a reception and reading of the written works on Saturday, September 27.
So many shades of awesome. My stories will be hanging in an art gallery. Someone is going to use my story to inspire them to make art. Who ever thought I would have an opportunity like that?
The whole thing is just an amazing creative explosion, with art and music and stories building off of each other and artists from different disciplines and communities inspiring each other. It’s very humbling to be a part of it all.
Unfortunately the show is down in Texas, so I won’t be able to attend the actual reception, but if anybody happens to be down that way, I hope you check it out!
My pen ran out of ink on my flight home the other day. I mean *the* pen. The gold Cross pen with my name engraved on it that I’ve used to write the first draft of every story I’ve ever written (yes, I write every first draft long hand).
I quickly moved through the 7 stages of grief while searching through my bag for a new pen. A regular, mundane NON-MAGICAL pen. As I wrote for the rest of the flight, I tried to decide if I really cared. On one hand, I’m not one to put a lot of stock in the power of “things” and the words were flowing just fine with this other pen. On the other hand OMG MY SPECIAL MAGIC PEN.
I had all but decided that I didn’t care and I’d just use regular pens from now on, but when I got home I found some spare ink cartridges in the back of the drawer.
Pen, you’re back! I love you! I never meant those horrible things I said! I’ll never leave you. Never! ::smooch smooch smooch::
ARG THE INK CARTRIDGE DOESN’T WORK!!
There was one more ink cartridge that does, in fact, work, except it’s blue ink. Hideous, ugly, blue ink.
I’m really trying to decide which is worse: writing in the horrible abomination known as blue ink, or just grabbing another pen. I don’t really think my special pen has special powers (and my acceptance list sort of proves THAT little assumption), but the main upsides are 1) it fits perfectly in my notebook and 2) everybody in the house knows better than to touch my sacred pen. Most pens disappear almost as fast as you can find them, but not this one.
Sara can testify to how stingy I am with the use of this pen.
“Hey, give me that pen, I need to write this down really quick.”
“Uh…this pen?”
“Yeah, really quick, I just need to write something down.”
::Me sloooooowly taking the pen out and reluctantly handing it to her while she looks at me funny::
“Okay, are you done? Give it back.”
I actually don’t even remember where this pen came from. I think it was maybe a graduation present or something? I asked on Facebook, but nobody remembered. Dad, maybe? Well, whoever you are out there that gave me this pen, know that I’ve become irrationally attached to it.
So, yeah, I’m writing in blue ink now.
Not more than 3 or 4 days later, I lost my pen at work. It wasn’t a special pen, just one I grabbed from the supply cabinet, but it was fat (despite my skinny little writing pen, I really prefer fat pens) and wrote well and I liked it. I actually searched around for it but, not finding it, grabbed a new one from my desk drawer.
Oh, the horrible abomination of this pen. Ohhh, the torture. I cannot even begin to describe how awful this pen was. I shudder to even recall how uneven the ink was, drawn across the page in letters that faded in and out. AHHHHH!
No big deal, we’ve got a whole supply cabinet full of pens. There weren’t any that matched my previous one, but surely one of the 6 or 7 varieties in there would suffice?
NO.
I ended up test-driving all of them, and only one was tolerable. They were all either super cheap ballpoints that couldn’t draw a smooth line to save their lives, or fancy-schmancy gel pens, which I cannot suffer for even a minute. Yes, this took a significant amount of time and NO I couldn’t work until this was resolved!
Luckily, a co-worker found my pen, so it is once again in my possession (it’s a BiC ReAction 1.0 in case you’re wondering).
So apparently I’ve become a pen snob. Like, the worst-of-the-worst, super duper snobby pen snob. I knew such people existed, but I never thought I would be one. In my defense, I’ve written a lot of words in pen over the past few years, so I do perhaps have a bit more use for a good pen than the average Joe.
Well, I yam what I yam, and what I apparently yam is a pen snob.
My writing anniversary is March 1st. Every year on March 1st, I write a post about how the previous year went in terms of writing.
This year:
Stories Written: 8
Number of [Submission-Ready] Words: 18,600
Number of Story Submissions: 93
Number of Rejections: 79
Number of Acceptances: 3
Postage Costs: $4.24
Revenue: $127.82
Total:
Stories Written: 26
Number of [Submission-Ready] Words: 104,600
Number of Story Submissions: 268
Number of Rejections: 252
Number of Acceptances: 5
Postage Costs: $120.83
Revenue: $272.70
First off, let me say that it’s a pain in the rear to calculate all of these things in March instead of January. All the tracking tools are set up for calendar year. I do kind of like the tradition of my “writing anniversary”, but I don’t know if the hassle is worth it. On the other hand, everybody does “year end review” posts about their writing in December or January, but *nobody* does them in March. Market, cornered.
Same caveats as usual. I actually have 2 stories finished, but not quite yet ready to submit, so I’ll take credit for those next year.
First and foremost, I helped adapt a story for the Pulp Stage. That’s not registered under the “acceptances” above, but it’s pretty dang cool and I’m extra proud of that. More acceptances this year than last year too, even though it totalled less money. Lets hope that trend continues to grow.
Got an Amazon author page this year too, which was awesome, and a Goodreads author account. I feel like a real author more and more every day (it’s all about the external validation I tell ya!)
Lots more stories and words than last year, which feels good. I’m excited about almost hitting 100 subs this year! I had no idea it was that high. Obviously more inventory makes more subs easier, so hopefully I will cross the 100 barrier this year. It seems like only yesterday I was celebrating my 100th rejection, and now I’m almost to the point of getting 100 per year.
I will say that in some ways, after a few acceptances, rejections can be harder to swallow. I’m getting acceptances at a rate that, two years ago, I would have killed for (as in, any at all). But now, especially when I get a lot closer, I sometimes feel the sting more keenly. First world problems I guess.
I’ve also (Internet) met so many amazing authors this year. (Especially on twitter. My goodness are you people prolific tweeters! I can do almost nothing except monitor my twitter stream. I’m almost to the point where I’m overwhelmed again.) Many people I aspire to write like, to be like. It seems like any issue of any magazine, any anthology, any random shelf of books has people whom I (Internet) know. That’s kind of crazy. There’s really something to be said for commiserating with people who are in the same boat as you. For so long I did this in solitude, it’s really been a wonderful, eye-opening experience to discover I have this shared experience with other people. I feel like I’ve soaked up so much knowledge just by being around other writers.
I would say that in general I feel like my writing improves quite a bit all the time. Even though I’m still not selling a high percentage of stories (one day I’ll crack a 2% acceptance ratio, mark my words!), I feel like, on the whole, they’re just exponentially better. On the other hand, I was on the verge of trunking a few stories that I went back and re-read, and I still like them quite a bit. So, trunked they were not (others, not so much).
It’s kind of like learning to play guitar. In the beginning, you’re worried about strum and finger positioning and whatnot. It takes all of your concentration to do those things. However, eventually you get to the point where you don’t have to think about those things at all. At that point, you can start to concentrate on other things, maybe trying a more challenging chord or playing a little something extra in between notes. You can’t tackle everything at once; you have to master one skill before you can even think about trying the next one. The good news, however, is that you eventually master things to the point where you feel foolish for ever having struggled with them.
Early on, I had a real problem with endings. I think that I’ve got that down now. I think my beginnings have improved quite a bit, though of course this is something that I think you can always continue to work on. I’ve got planning and outlining down, I think I’m pretty good at pacing and plot, and I think I’ve improved a lot at titles. I can usually pretty reliably guess at the length of an idea, which is something that I really thought was an amazing, if not impossible, skill when I was just starting out.
I think the main thing to focus on in the next year is emotion and characters. This is something I’ve really been thinking a lot about lately. I think I also go very light on description, which might be a weakness, or might just be part of my style, I’m not sure yet. Still, I think I can improve on that as well.
I really do feel a lot more optimism than usual right now about my writing. Perhaps the acceptances have just boosted my confidence more, but I feel optimistic about my chances much more often. Each story I write seems so much better. I really feel like I’m going to have a breakthrough soon as far as getting certain dream markets.
Here’s to hoping!
As it happens, I am in my second, and final, year of eligibility for the John W. Campbell “Best New Writer” award. The chances of me being nominated are essentially nil, but that’s not why I’m writing this post. No, I’m writing to tell you about the 2014 Cambellian Anthology.
Mr. Blake has been kind enough to once again compile a list of works from eligible writers, including myself, and provide it free of charge. This a MASSIVE tome of FREE FICTION from the best and brightest new writers speculative fiction has to offer.
As a final tally of what can be found within, this year’s volume includes contributions from 111 Writers, who supplied over 860,000 words of fiction. On a practical level, that breaks down to 29 novel excerpts, 15 novelettes, 113 short stories, 26 pieces of flash, and a poem…
I assume most of you reading this have read my contribution, “My Heart is a Quadratic Equation”, but here is your chance to read a metric ton of amazing stories from amazing writers, for free (limited time though, download now!). I know many of these writers, and they are all so incredibly talented. Even if you can’t read all 860,000 words, just jump around and pick a few at random. Maybe you’ll find a new favorite author, just before they break out.
The book is available in .mobi (kindle) and .epub (nook and everything else) format. If you don’t know how to open those files, there is additional information here, about halfway down. (DRM free, for those who care about such things.) I was able to open the .epub directly on my computer, without downloading any additional software.
Shane Halbach 