Steve's Straggler Writing Exercise

Prompt: Protagonist challenges aspiring history
Personal note: This was a royal pain in the ass, but ultimately I got a kick out of the result.

Buster was my protagonist. The story was an alternate history piece in which an aspiring commoner challenges the system in an epic battle to defend the rights of the downtrodden. The only problem was that Buster was a lazy bastard.

His desires were for his bag of Fritos and a Double Gulp. His passion for the nap that followed. I tried to kill him off, but Buster was crafty. He'd hide behind his sexy and compelling lover or inside the priceless antique armoire I'd added to the story in a loving tribute to the memory of my father. He even managed to inadvertently kill one of my assassins when he - ah, shit [time's up].

WotF Honorable Mention for Carole!

A little after 8:30 tonight we got a voicemail message from Joni Labaqui with Writers of the Future. She was trying to reach Carole. Of course, I had to rapidly call Carole in care of Kami at Radcon and leave her the specifics. After a brief time, Carole called me back with an update on the purpose of the call...

If I had been keeping up with the WotF blog, I probably would have put it together before I called Carole, but this was better as she got to hear it straight from Joni. That's right, Joni was looking for permission to post Carole's name in the Honorable Mention announcements that are currently being posted at the WotF blog!

Carole was told the update was going to be made tonight and I've been watching like a hawk, but it's not there yet. However, I will drop a link here and we can watch for the official news together.
http://wotfblog.galaxypress.com/

So, CONGRATULATIONS CAROLE!

I hope this reinforces, in a major way, the comments you've gotten on most of your other submissions that you are DEFINITELY on the right track. It's just a matter of time before that first contract follows!

And to all of the rest of us, may this be a reinforcement to keep it up. There are still notifications going out, so there is yet a chance that there will be further celebration in store for INK!

Decision to Defer WotF Entry

After long consideration, I have decided to defer my entry for Writers of the Future to the first quarter of 2008 (March deadline).

Basically, this boiled down to number of hours available to complete the work. I had pretty extensive rework to do to get the NaNoWriMo novel-length piece down to short story size and complete the story arc and had been working on it extensively - to the detriment of balance in other activities. Ultimately, keeping up my 1000 word a day habit and delivering on my objective to submit for INK took priority and bumped the later objective.

This schedule modification will allow me to finish the changes to the story and have it reviewed by INK before submitting to WotF.

I'm a bit disappointed in myself, but that is tempered by the submission for the January 4th INK meeting and I'm focusing on looking forward to that feedback. I'm also pleased by having the time to submit the new story to INK and update for feedback before submitting to WotF.

See you all on the 4th!