No future for me

Looks like I didn't make it into the finalists with my Writers of the Future sub.  There's still a small chance I'll get an honorable mention.  One more box.  I hope!  It would be my very first one!  If not, I guess I'll get the form answer in my mailbox shortly.  I wonder if I made it pretty far or if I was just at the bottom of the stack.  I'll probably never find out.

The good news (kind of  stretch, I know) is that I can start sending this story out.  I've been eager to do that for quite a while now.  And I can send in my next WotF submission.  I probably could have done that all along, but I was hoping.  Ugh.

Budgeting for writing time

It's Tuesday again.  That means I'm going to be cranking out the words, enjoying some (mostly silent save the keyboard tappety tap) writerly companionship and drinking weird combinations of tea.  My favorite mix is mint and chamomile.  I have to grab an extra lid and not steep the mint as long or it completely overpowers the chamomile.

When I first started going to these writing meetings it was to get my writing out of my office.  Then I thought it would be good to get out of the house and socialize in general.  Now I'm having to actually budget my week to make sure I can attend.  I never, ever thought I'd be this busy.  I thought quitting my day job would vastly open up my schedule.  Ha!  That'll learn me.  More free time = more work time.  And my list is growing daily, so it makes writing time that much more precious.

I really have to get the mulch out of the back of the pickup truck soon, though.  There's huge dandelions growing out of it now.

On the good news front, I haven't heard anything yet from Writers of the Future.  Wish me luck!  And congrats yet again to C.S. for her Honorable Mention!  Woot!

Huzzah!

I'm being bad and jumping the gun to congratulate C.S. on her amazing honorable mention in the Writers of the Future contest.  Awesome work, C.S.!  

It's nice to have my opinion of how great a writer she is reinforced by some very high level judges.

Results are still coming in, so for those of us who are potentially still potential honorable mentions, semi-finalists or (gasp!) finalists, good luck!

Happy Day

I found this in my inbox this morning:

Dear Carissa,
Congratulations, you made Honorable Mention for your story The Spirits of Iceholm for the second quarter.

Join me in a Snoopy Dance?

And thank you, INK members, for helping me make this my best story yet.

Disappointment in little self-addressed envelopes

I finally got my rejection from Writers of the Future in the mail.  Guess I'll just have to keep writing, and keep sending out stories.

Oh, wait, I'm doing that anyway.  Hey, I'm ahead of the game.  Whoodathunk?

Still no word from Flash Fiction Online.  They've got the May edition up on the web, btw.  No excuse not to read it.  It's all flash, all the time, so don't pretend you don't have a spare nanosecond, especially since I know you're peeking at blog sites right now.  That's right, you!

I'm looking forward to the May INK meeting.  The esteemed and unnaturally friendly David Levine will be our guest.  Read his blog.  Say nice things about his writing.  We like him.  Also, send good thoughts in the direction of Jay Lake.  We like him too.

Another One Away

Mailed off my submission to the WotF contest, with 20 minutes to spare. Whew. I didn't spend the weekend working on the edit, as I had imagined, but spent it considering the edit. When I sat down with it today, I thought I'd only go through to clean up the truly confusing parts and leave the character changes for later. Once I got going, though, I didn't stop. So it was truly the completed manuscript that I sent, the best story I could tell.

I hope I proofed it enough. I was a little rushed by the end. I wanted to give myself enough time to fiddle with printing, since there always seems to be some issue with printing. I have the added hoop to jump, too, of emailing the ms from Abba to Phoenix, since Abba and the printer aren't on speaking terms.

But the ms downloaded without issue, and the printing ran like a dream. Amazing!

I didn't mess up the envelope, either, like I did last time (forgot to include the SASE). I did have to run out earlier for more envelopes, though. But I checked on that before I got started today, so I had plenty of time for that, rather than last minute panic.

I'm amazed how smoothly this went, considering I was down to the wire! Yay! Another submission for our tally.

Next week, I'm going to submit AFE for publication. Just have to figure out where.

And tomorrow--Script Frenzy!

I'm so not ready.

Yet Another Query

I'm sending Masks off to Ethan Ellenberg tomorrow. There's an email option, but I really wanted to have those first 50 pages in hard copy, proper format and all that. I have to say, after sending off three email queries, there's something more satisfying about sending a manila envelope with some heft to it to New York. I guess I'm old-fashioned. I'd rather have that weight and substance in my hands, the trip to the post office, a more traditional wait and the perk of added interest when I check the mailbox. This is the kind of submission I'm used to. I've missed it. It's been way too long. I think with my WotF sub I got it edited and shipped off so fast I hardly felt it. With Masks it's been a more involved process, with more time to agonize.

Speaking of sparkly mailbox syndrome, did anyone else get a WotF heads-up email? I got one today. Yay! Normally I'd be all gee, up to ten weeks before final results, but today everything writerly seems to be happening very fast.

Dear Contestant,

Your story has arrived and been logged in the 1st quarter of the 2008 contest. We will have final results in 8 to 10 weeks. If you have any questions feel free to let me know. Otherwise, you can also check out the blog as I do post the winners there. (Content deleted by Kami to defy evil spam bots from assaulting the nice director.) Best, Joni Labaqui - Director

Good luck to us all!

Close Enough for a Banana

Well, I've mucked as far as I want to muck on my WotF story without further feedback from the INKers. It's down to 3300 words from, what was it, 4500? Anyway, with the deadline up this close, it may be time to just move on to the submission package part of all this. I wish that part took zero time, but it always takes me hours, if not days or, in the case of my agent queries, weeks.

Speaking of agent queries, mine is sitting in limbo. Time to add my web page address and ship the puppy off, I think. It's doing no good sitting in my email draft box. So unless anyone up and screams "No, Kami, don't do it!" I'll be sending that off tonight or tomorrow.

The new printer works fabulous so far. It'll be fun to print out my story and cover letter on it.

Good luck everyone! Let's do this thing.