Friday, January 30, 2009

INK meeting.

INK meeting tonight, the last one before RadCon5 A! Panel reviews, upcoming workshops, treasury audit, new name, info packet progress, perhaps even time for Writers Round Table. If not, Scrabble is always good for the wordiness of a writer's soul.

Sunday, January 25, 2009

Year's Firsts.

WooHoo! First rejection of the year! But it was a nice, personalized one from F&SF. So wrong to call this 'rejection." Off to send that story elsewhere.

Are your stories out looking for a home? If so, congrats to you! If not, why not??

Wednesday, January 14, 2009

INK Makes John W. Campbell Pin donation.

We are proud to announce that an INK donation to the John W. Campbell Pin has been made. More information on the John W. Campbell Awards can be found here.

"As regular convention attendees will know, nominees for the Hugo Awards, World Fantasy Awards and Nebula Awards have long been given lapel pins to recognize their nominations. No such pin existed for the John W Campbell Award for Best New Writer. Jay Lake, a past winner for the award, has been working with Dell Magazines, the Campbell Award’s sponsor, to produce such a pin, and the design was unveiled today [editor note: August 8, 2008] at a panel at Worldcon (also attended by Stan Schmidt on behalf of Dell Magazines). The pin takes the form of a star made of five pen nibs pointing outwards. Pins are being presented to this year’s nominees, and to all past nominees and winners."

Saturday, January 10, 2009

INK meeting a success

We had a lot of bureaucratic stuff to do, and we got most of it completed.  Yay!  Dues are back in force after a short hiatus, we have some updates, some goals, some definitions, and we're exploring a change in web presence.  We'll keep y'all posted.

We've decided to donate part of our funds to a literary charitable cause.  Hopefully we didn't miss some sort of deadline.  Even if we did, I like the idea of paying our dues back into the writing community, so we'll find another one we're excited about if the one we chose doesn't pan out.

I paid a penalty for not making one of my December goals.  D'oh!  I knew that skimping out on editing Masks would bite me on the butt.  That'll learn me.

Good observations at Flights of Fantasy on some of the strange attitudes that appear with the sense of entitlement some authors have in regard to being published.  It got me thinking, so I blogged about an additional thought on that subject.

Friday, January 9, 2009

Free Financial Book

Yay! It's free it's free it's free it's free it's free!  I've enjoyed Suze Orman's books and radio shows and all that over the years.  Don't miss this chance to get a free .pdf of Suze Orman's 2009 Action Plan, available on Oprah's website.  It won't be available forever, though.  I believe it's only going to be available there until the 15th.  Don't wait!

Because we don't want to be starving artists.  That's just so cliche'!

See some of you at the INK meeting tonight.  I hope the Friends of INK have gotten a great start to the writing year, and wish you the best luck, focus and skill for 2009.

Thursday, January 8, 2009

INK meeting tomorrow!

There's an INK meeting tomorrow at the sekrit cat cave!  I can't wait!  There's lots to talk about.  Conventions, regress reports, dues, goals, events, and the ever-popular socializing and yammering about our projects.

Also, don't forget the Washougal writing meeting is on the 24rth, and Radcon is coming up fast.

See y'all soon!


Monday, January 5, 2009

And a writing goal in a pear tree

I am so looking forward to the New Year.  Yeah, yeah, live all year round, don't wait until January to make goals.  Gotcha.  Me and teh INKers have been making goals all year, thank you very much, and even meeting some.  But there is something special about January, besides it's ability to make me grind my teeth each time I write 2008, have to change it to 2009 and initial it.  Laugh if you want, but I do get caught up in the energy of all those resolutions being made at once, and it's fun to ride the energy wave, even if it washes out for most folks in February.

I was inspired enough even to make a deadline at the last minute, the WotF deadline Dec. 31st.  I made it extra hard for them to give me squat, since it was the wrong length, wrong voice, wrong everything for this particular contest, but you know, the dumbest thing that writers do is reject their own material.  It's genre.  It's within the listed word count.  It qualifies in every way.  I may not be playing the contest smart, but I'm playing, and I'll let the judges decide how ridiculous I was to try with this one.

In the meantime I'm working on yet another short, a non-fiction project, and a novel in a pear tree.  Oops, wrong season for that sort of thing.  Sorry!  My goal this year--let not my publishing credit be a fluke!  Into the breach once more, my friends!  A writing career awaits!