Back to the Writing Board...

Today I re-organized myself, and my stories. Once you have a certain amount, they start to go missing. I did, in fact, completely lose two stories - very good ones - and I'm not sure rewriting them will bring their wonder back for me.

We had a training about OneNote at work the other day, and our trainer listed all sorts of possibilities - keeping all your training documents in one place, lists of cleanup activities, meeting notes - all worthy and very nice uses for OneNote.

None of those uses were on my mind. I was already creating a notebook filled with stories at different levels of completion, lists of my editing and writing processes, character sketches, web stories of interesting and quirky things I could write into my stories...

It was a thing of beauty.

When I put my existing stories in OneNote, all my ducks in a row, I was dismayed.

Here I'd thought I had a good 17 stories on my way to my first 52 stories.

I had a total of 10 stories, not all of them even finished.

So I'm turning myself about, hokey-pokey style, and getting back to work.

Did an autopsy on a new story today, and ready to rework story #1, but for what market? It won't fit either of the last two markets I've checked out, but maybe Fantasy&Science Fiction? They like funny character-oriented stories, and this one's a lightly amusing fantasy. Beef up the characters, and it could work. Basically, they take anything that's science fiction or fantasy, up to 25,000 words, which is a nice, open amount most of my stories fit into. They could become a regular place for submitting.

I'm a finisher. Keep telling myself that. A finisher. So easy to think I'm writing, when I'm really not. Don't fall into that trap (note to self).

I'm aiming to finish this rewrite by next Friday, May 5th, and have it ready to go, in whatever condition it's in. It might need more editing, but I'm not hanging onto it longer than that. Whatever condition it's in, out it goes.

Out they all go. Too many baby birds in the nest.

When the Story Dies...

Feeling a little reflective today. Got a project that might be on the verge of expiring, despite my best efforts.

I could feel sad about it, but I've gotten better at telling when it's just no use, and it's not going to get better. So I can let it go, and be grateful for the lessons learned.


This one taught me a lot of important lessons...they all do really...so I'm glad it came into my life, even for the short time it was there.

And if somehow I do detect a heartbeat still there, I'll keep trying. But there's so many other stories calling to me...

A Little Help From My Friends, and My Undying Love for Ratings Systems

Finding places to submit to is a challenge. As a young neophyte, I bought the Writer's Digest Bible of all magazines possible to submit to (what I thought at the time), and then spent the year I should have been writing getting analysis paralysis instead, never coming to a decision, and ultimately wasting my $50 I spent on a very large pile of paper to recycle.

This time, I'm not doing that. Starting now with free resources scrounged on the Internet, and working my way up.

My fellow forum members pointed out a couple of new sources to check out in future: www.ralan.com and Submissions Grinder and also DuoTrope, should I ever make enough money to spend some back.

Thanks, guys.

The SFF Chronicles website has been terrific in helping me find my way back to writing again, and feel much less lonely in my chosen obsessions.

Anyway, now that the housekeeping's done, I'm reviewing Escape Pod, and figuring out which story to send. If it's read, it'll have to sound good out loud. Hmmmm...

The staff bios are cool...always a good sign.

The stories have ratings on them...also a good sign in my book. Call it a quirk, but I hate being shocked by something I wasn't prepared to stumble across. I get enough of that in life; don't need it from my entertainment.

The first story on their Best of page, "Imperial", their very first podcast, has an R-rating for "profanity, sexual content, politics, and sarcasm".

Not sarcasm! Oh nooooooo! And I did appreciate them screening for 'politics' - bleah!

Episode 105, called "Impossible Dreams", actually appeared in Asimov's Science Fiction before getting pod-casted here, and is rated G, for 'excessive movie trivia, some of it true'.

Love!

If you'll excuse me, I have a little more research to do...now where's my headphones? :-)

Editing with Theme, and Clearing Remaining Public School Pain

The best thing that can happen is for the theme to be nice and clear from the beginning..." - Paddy Chayefsky

I'm back in public school again, in English class.

My teacher, Ms. Whateverhernamewas, is standing over me.

"What is the theme of the story we're reading?"

Who knows? What's a theme? If it's not a theme park, I don't know. I don't really care. All I care about is where the cute boys are at, and how can I stare at them for the next 30 minutes without being noticed.

But now, back to today, my hormone-induced lack of foresight is coming back to bite me.

Because now, as an adult, I need to know about themes. Because I'm writing them.

My first-draft writing is something of an unconscious process. Pulling out what I see in my mind and putting it down on paper or screen so it doesn't get away from me.

Now it's time to edit the thing. I look at it, and think, "What is the theme?

Heck, I don't even know. And I'm the one who wrote it!!!

Aesop on my Shoulder Makes Me Happy...

If we travel back to Aesop's fables, the theme is easy to find. He gives it to you, at the end of each fable. He's like an obliging teacher, who feels sorry for our struggles, and hands it right to us so we don't have to think too hard. And sad to say, it made me lazy.

So what would Aesop say is the theme of this story I'm writing? I want Aesop whispering in my ear, so I don't have to figure this out on my own. Where is he when I need him?

The Moral of the Story

Authors don't just tell a story. They transmit a message. From the most brilliant to the most inane story, there's something theme-y in every one of them.

I want to know my theme, so I can shape my lump of words into something unified that makes sense, that echoes and reverberates with Truth, like the stories I love reading.

So I've got to find what I 'think' is the theme (with my inner teenager groaning the whole way - I hate English class!) and then make sure nothing goes in my story that doesn't hang somehow on some aspect of that same idea.

And then, suddenly, it changes...which I hope doesn't happen. Hopefully I've planned the story far enough ahead that I've got it, and it's set and planted and growing as it should...

But the subconscious has its own mystic workings, doesn't it? So anything could happen mid-way.

So, to any future students who have to figure out the theme of my story for some essay or paper due way too soon, you have my sympathies. I was right in there with you, but the theme is good to know. You get better grades, and I get better editing capabilities.

If it makes you feel any better, I didn't know the theme either, so whatever you think it is, you're probably right.

Another one bites the dust...and another one gone and another one gone...

While I'm waiting to hear back on my first submission, I'm charging on.

Checking out new markets and mostly striking out.

The free list I found on the Internet has a lot of old and broken links. Lots of dead magazines. Lots and lots of other magazines that are either choking on too many stories, or out on hiatus, too out-there for me, or otherwise not accepting new stories.

But I've found another one that's viable - Escape Pod.

Actually, it's more a podcast than a magazine, so I'll have to read it aloud before submitting. If I can't read it, no one else could. It's an SFWA-qualifying market, but if they don't pay at least 3 cents a word, I can't get in. The Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America, that is...for anyone not familiar with that illustrious group.


It's my ambition to join them one day.One day, when people actually pay money for my work.

And what a wonderful day that will be...

First Submission (Gulp!) Away!

I sent off my first submission today, with only a touch of hyperventilation. A new story I wrote specifically for AntipodeanSF's guidelines. Time for a celebration dance! Bigbang! :-)

I hadn't really wanted to do that (write something specifically for a market - feels 'hack-y'), but truthfully I don't know yet what's the best way to get stuff published. When I don't know, I go into battering-ram mode, and hit at it until something works.

What else am I gonna do?

My other story was too long, and the story I'm editing is also too long for their consideration. Why send a story I know they'll reject? That doesn't seem like it really counts for my purposes here.

Is that being a hack? Making an effort to fit the material to the market?

I don't know. That's what this whole experiment is about - to gain the experience I lack.

And so, for submitting, I am a success!

And I got a polite response from the editor to 'wait and see'. Get this -

Hi Dianna,
Just a short note to say that your submission arrived here at AntipodeanSF safely and has been added to my reading queue. I will get back to you about it as soon as I can.
Ooroo for now,
Ion.

I had to look up 'ooroo', which sort of means 'goodbye' in Australian. And I Googled Ion the editor, who looks like a hippie version of Gandalf.

So my baby's in good, polite, nerdy hands. :-)

I've already decided that, when the rejections come in, I'll celebrate those with some sort of power blog or quote here, to keep my spirits up. I'm also NOT to rewrite anything unless an editor asks me to, otherwise I'll second-guess myself and rewrite the poor thing to pieces.

Also, if and when I get accepted, that's a serious celebration - like, a badge of honor. So I have this sweater that I'm going to sew a button on for every story accepted, and wear it like a general dresses up in all his or her stripes and medals. I need something substantial to look at and remind myself that I did accomplish something special.

Looking forward to it!

Short Story Review of "A Chip in Time" by Gary Dean, and Micro-Movie Review of "Passengers"

By some strange serendipitous chance, hubby and I just saw the movie, "Passengers" last weekend, a movie about long-distance time travel.

And then I read, "A Chip in Time", also a story about long-distance time travel at Antipodean SF, and I couldn't help but draw the parallel between the two stories.

If you watch the movie, you may find yourself disappointed. While they did a great job with characters and story, there were scientific story holes big enough to drive a train through, not to mention some sticky icky moral issues, that unfortunately did tend to knock you out of the 'dream' from time to time. Family viewers take note - there's some stray nudity and an uncomfortable sex scene or two, but the sex at least is easily skipped if you prefer.

I did like it overall though - the actors did very well, in particular Michael Sheen as Andrew, the android bartender. You Twilight fans should recognize him at once, or turn in your very old and worn Twilight cards and Team Volturi T-shirts.

"A Chip in Time", a short story by Gary Dean, was, in comparison, much shorter, and even manages to close a hole or two left open by the movie, with a laugh-out-loud twist at the end. Very worth the quick read.

If you like the one, you'll probably like the other, I think.

Marketing Short Stories in the Great Unknowable

So I'm choosing a market to go and sell my baby at, and I'm unsure.

I can't just fling my work at just anyone, you know. Is it a good home for my story? Will it reflect well on me to have it posted there? Will she eat right? Will she wear clean underwear? Will she make friends with the other stories?

And the big one...do I want to read the other stories there? Cause I'm pretty sure now I'll have to in order to have any hope of submitting, and that gives me pause.

I'm somewhat picky these days about what I read. In order to do marketing for my work, I have to know whether or not my story fits with the other stories they publish, which means I have to read the stories.

And what if they're utter crapola? What if I end up writing utter crapola from having been exposed to it?

Believe it or not, I anguish over first-world stuff like this.

And I think I've found a solution.

If I start it, and it's poo, I don't have to finish it. Unless they throw poo at me at the end, which is unfortunate, but sometimes happens.

I can find another story...or another magazine, in fact. And then I can wallow in good short stories for awhile until I recover, and then try again.

Freedom! (And just as freedom does, it comes right along hand in hand with a lot of extra work and personal responsibility - sigh)

But it's a good guideline to start with, at least.

My first stab in the dark seems to be with AntipodeanSF, who seems willing to overlook the fact that I don't live in Australia, and has sample stories available. Just what I need. :-)

Learning to Love Mistakes

There's a lot of fear around making mistakes. Rejection.

For me, anyway. And it's held me back for a long, long time. Too long.

It's embarrassing. They don't like me. I'm not as good as I thought I was. I want to shrink back in my hole and never come out.

That's part of what this blog was about in the first place...getting seen, and getting used to that feeling of walking around in public half-naked that results in sharing the fruit of my daydreams.

It's a very vulnerable feeling, but now I'm over that, and it's time to plunge again.

I mean publication this time, from real people other than myself, or at least the attempt thereof.

So these stories I'm sharing with you, they're going out to real, live publishing professionals now.

And I'll share all my rejection notices with you, but don't let me off the hook.  You're my accountability partners now.

There's bound to be lots of rejection, as it's just part of the process, and I need a little thicker skin to handle it. I'm aiming for 52 stories written and edited, so I'm also aiming for 100 rejections for each story. If I can find that many markets.

That should keep me busy awhile, I think. And keep me from going mad.

Excited for this new step. Editing the first of 52 now. It's actually a story I haven't yet shared here, and I haven't looked at it in a good long time, so I'm wondering how it looks now.

And where to send it first...?

Five Things Every Day

I have some pretty far-off targets as far as my writing is concerned.


And a lot of them. My bucket list is currently 67 items long - large and small projects.

I can't read and write fast enough. Hope I live long enough to see these in their full form.

But every day counts, and dreaming won't write by itself.

So I take five steps a day...or four, or three, on really busy days.

Jack Canfield (the 'Chicken Soup for the Soul' guy) writes about this in his process. He and his business partner would make sure they took five steps a day, in writing, and in marketing, to keep the momentum moving forward. It's a decision to commit to a daily process that leads to a final result.

It's a great thought, when I'm staring at a mountain far-off in the distance, and it feels like I'll never get there. The project is too big. My resources are too scarce. Time is getting away from me.

No it isn't. Anyone can take five steps. A baby can take five steps.

Just five small, doable things. And then five more tomorrow. And five more the day after that.

And I'm writing...and a writer...and a published writer. And it wasn't too big after all.

I spent a lot of years, running away from the decision to write. It wasn't practical. You can't make a living at it (or very few do, which is true). There's trolls out there, waiting to rip me into little pieces and laugh at the shreds. People who would tell me it's evil, or cliche, or can't you change it to include more women/better African-American characters/less Asian characters/more uplifting themes?

None of that matters anymore. I've made the decision (mostly by being backed into one corner or another and realizing that there wasn't anything else I wanted to commit my life to doing - it was always 'I'll do this until I'm well-off, and then I can write...wait a minute')

The process is hard, but super-satisfying every day, and that's the best part of all this. Every day on the path feels good, feels right to me. There's no part of me holding back anymore. It's a great feeling. Took a long time to get here, but glad I found my way.


Today I have legal stuff to do, and then I'm building character, and working on rough draft for a long piece and a short piece, and editing another short to post here soon.

To Aubrey on her High School Graduation

My baby girl graduates from high school in a few weeks. Someday she'll be a great filmmaker, which is what she wants to do. (Her father and I hope for a son-in-law and some grandbabies as well...somewhere in-between all that amazing filmmaking...but that's us.)

She's already got her own presence on YouTube.

She made a little trailer for my book, Sanctuary, by nabbing all her non-actor friends at school and saying, "Let's do this, guys!" and off they went. Guerilla filmmaking at its finest. I loved it.

This video above is all the advice I would give to her on her graduation, wherever her life takes her afterwards...and there's no telling where that will go at this point.

No matter where it goes, she's my girl forever, and I'm so stinkin' proud of her.

Suffocated in a Tiny World of Non-Reading

I sometimes run across people who don't read. Quite a few, in fact. The Internet moved a lot of readers almost entirely online, or people who think they're readers. I usually pat them on the head with pity, in my mind, and wonder what they do with all that wasted imagination, even though it's not a very nice thing to admit. I don't envy them, for sure.

Sometimes, I even run across writers...who don't read.

Those are the ones I really struggle to understand, and I don't do very well, truth be told.

How do you write without reading? Where does that desire even come from? Without reading in the genre you're writing from? Where do you get the language, the conventions, the cliches?

My family taught me to read before I ever went to school - my grandmother and my brother did.  Read myself bedtime stories with no one else would.

I never read for school - I read around school.

I procrastinated homework in elementary school through high school by reading. I haunted my local public libraries...would have slept there if they'd let me. When I got to college, I procrastinated doing my biology and math homework by writing my own novel on the side.

When I had the option to write a report based on a new book, or to rework and turn in a previous book report done last year, there was no question.

I read a new book.

Once, I read the same book three years in a row, and wrote a brand new report about each one. (In case you're wondering, that particular book was A Separate Peace - a novel that echoed my own adolescence.)

If a movie based on a book comes out that I want to see, there was no question. I read the book first. Or later, and then think to myself, "I would have enjoyed that movie so much more if only..."

Call me a masochist, but there it is. And I'm not alone either.

C.S. Lewis took the words right outta me mouth when he said...

More to Learn

I'm a writer in training really. Have been for many years.

Writing one story can make you a writer, but writing lots of stories makes you great, and that's my goal...to one day feel like a great writer.

Am I there yet?

I don't really think so.

One of my writing mentors, Ray Bradbury, said once that a writer-in-training needs to write a story every week for a year - 52 stories - in order to find something real inside of themselves.

So far, I'm up to story #16, with last week's offering.

I wasn't supposed to write a novel as well, but I did, when one of my earliest stories captured me in a big way.

So, if you consider each of those 33 chapters a short story of sorts, then I might be getting close to Bradbury's guideline.

Or not. I'm sticking to the 52 actual short stories myself. No excuses, I say.

I'm in the middle of editing #17, and coming up with a good concept for #18, so today's blog is for me, really. If you're interested, you can peek over my shoulder...

I'm a huge Pixar fan (and a medium-sized fan of TED talks), so the both of them together is convenient.

The Motel - Alonzo's Story Part Four

Here's the last installment of this story - a chapter from my novel, Sanctuary, told through the eyes of a second character. Second, but by no means secondary.

Alonzo is a very pivotal character in my novel, in a lot of ways. He shapes (and is shaped by) events that occur in the story.

Is it possible to have a crush on a fictional character? I'll admit, I have a little bit of a crush on him, for eight years now. Still doesn't keep me from pounding the heck out of him, though, and Crystal. I love watching what roadblocks of various kinds does to them.

So enjoy Part One, Part Two, and Part Three, if you need a refresher. Then enjoy

The Motel
Alonzo's Story - Part Four

Alonzo’s eyes fell on her upper arm as her shirt came down, and he stopped mid-thought.  A bullet wound sat on Crystal’s left arm, crusted with dried blood.  Near the hole lay the familiar outlines of a shadowy picture of a lizard.

He glanced in shock at his own left arm.

The skin lay perfect and smooth.  His hated tattoo…completely gone.

“What? A woman’s what?”

He couldn’t speak; couldn’t understand the primal ache he felt at seeing that mark on her. Alonzo reached his left hand up to touch the outlines of the tattoo as it now sat on her arm. 

His mind registered Crystal’s voice, as she lay still beneath him, her face turned towards the door.  “Oh…yeah. I couldn’t…I couldn’t save it. Sorry.”

This had been his bullet hole.

He held his hand over Crystal’s arm in awe and wonder.  What would this cost her? 

“Will it be permanent on you?”

“No.”

Relief flooded through him.  He couldn’t make her understand what it meant to him to be free of that tattoo…his skin free and clear as though all the past never happened.  Gone.

“Thank you…for healing me.” 

For a moment, no one spoke. And he felt her skin beneath him, soft and yielding.  His eyes dropped to her lowered jeans, the blisters looking hot and angry over her buttocks.

His skin looked dark, and felt rough over hers.  She relaxed to his touch, looking much more at ease, while his discomfort and tension increased.

He grabbed the habanero sauce and continued applying it to her skin, looking up to see the lesions on her shoulders disappearing. 

“Bet I’d be good on a…taco now.” Crystal snorted a little, as if she wanted to laugh, her eyes drooping. 

Alonzo stopped. 

What?

A flood of suggestive ideas flowed into his mind, arms and legs and skin and lips.  He felt so grateful to her for saving him, and…so soft.  His fingers kneaded more deeply into her skin, enjoying the feel of her, leaning down….

He stood and walked away to the other end of the room, his mind dragging his body.  The thought of it…completely unethical and crazy.  She was just a girl…almost still a child.  He leaned on the wall, head hanging, his burning hands dripping red.

A shadow crossed the small break in the curtains, falling across the wall.  Alonzo felt his gun in his hand in an instant, and he moved to the window, lifting the edges back with his back side of his free hand.

No one there.

He lowered his weapon, breathing heavily and slouching against the door, sliding to the floor. 

He heard a noise near the bed and scrambled to his feet again. Just Crystal this time.  She had pulled up her jeans but left them unbuttoned in the front, while she snored.

What could he do?  Lay down? With her?  The way he felt right now, looking at her open jeans and exposed abdomen…

Had to get away from her; from what all this close contact did to him.  

But where?  Back to John, who just tried to have him killed?  Not arrested. Assassinated. 

Why?  He still didn’t know.

Alonzo walked over to the bathroom, washing his red hands clean in the sink, and wiping down his firearm. Then he came back out to put the folding chair behind the door against the wall, his energy gone.

No.  Somewhere in his gut, he knew the only way to get down to the real answers was to stay with this girl.  Help her find her father, or at least get as far as possible, as much for his own sake as for hers.  Something felt wrong, and he needed answers. 

The trail ended tomorrow, whether they found him or not. They could not possibly get any further. John would see to that.

I can hold out one more day.

Her snoring broke through his concentration.  A stray patch of hair lay across her cheek.  His hand gripped the chair as he fought the magnetic desire to stand, to walk over to her, to brush it away from her face.

To get closer. Ever closer.

He closed his eyes, but the image of her peaceful, sleeping form remained in his mind. His heart pouring out of his chest, his own hands clenching against a different pain.

No sleep tonight…

*

I wonder if they'll find her father...

Thanks for reading, and remember, there's more of Crystal and Alonzo in my novel, Sanctuary, for Kindle at Amazon.