Honorable Mention for Writers of the Future

Yay!  I got an honorable mention for a story I sent to Writers of the Future.  

Keep sending those stories in to the contest, people!  You can't win if you don't play.

We've got a winner! Friend of INK Ken Scholes' 200-word Writing Contest.

Cross-posted from CSCole's LiveJournal page:

Today, after battling with our broken washer yet again (it's a goner for certain now), I discovered something that has put definite Squee! back into my step.

I did well in Ken Scholes' 200 word "The Tim Machine" contest. The contest was judged by three distinguished writers: maryrobinette, princessalethea, and jaylake.

I was just mentioning, reminding, Steve that Ken's latest book, CANTICLE" was getting ready to make it's debut and it was the one book purchase budgeted for this fall/winter. One guess as to what one of the contest prizes was.

OMG with Raspberry sauce on the side! An ARC copy of CANTICLE! THANK YOU, KEN! THANK YOU JUDGES!

Trust me, much dancing will occur throughout the rest of the week. MUCH dancing.

Please stop by Ken's LJ post here to read most of the other stories entered. All are incredible. All made me wish I were a better writer. To be included in this group is every bit as exciting as winning. Bravo to all!

Ken asked on his LiveJournal page if I might post my story. You can read it HERE. Naturally, after rereading it for the first time in months, I see so many flaws in it, I want to tear my hair out. I guess I just might be starting to understand the point of rewrites after all.

(P.S. The opening line from my story was a prompt used during a writing exercise at a late spring INK meeting. Kami and Steve might recognize it from then. I'm never going to pass up using prompts for exercise again.)

Fever Blabber

The bombs bursting in the air must have inspired a dark streak in me.  I wrote and shipped off a flash tonight.  Again, it's another one of those will or won't work situations that I don't think I ought to be wasting critique group time with.  Yea or nay can come from an editor.

I'm feverish and snurky.  Stupid cold.  My kids are all better, but I'm just starting to get really sick with the being tired all the time and cough and sneezing and ongoing drainage.  I fell asleep on top of my covers in my clothes last night, woke up at 5am feeling like hash browns that had fallen onto a burner that had just been switched off.  I ended up going back to bed a few hours later, and didn't wake up until 2pm.  Feels like my whole day was wasted, and yet, writing happened.

In marketing news, Brain Harvest is putting on a little contest.  Check out the specs at the Brain Harvest Mega Challenge page.  Jeff VanderMeer will be the guest judge.  It doesn't get much more awesome than that, and yet, there's the possibility of winning a hand-knitted mustache in addition to the cash and accolades.  I'd like to see some INKers and Friends of INK use this contest as an excuse for writing a story based on a prompt (or several prompts.)  Who will take the challenge?  Kami wants to know.  The contest runs from July 15-August 31, so there's plenty of time and therefore no excuses.  Embrace (or eat) the Nike ad.

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.

How Flashy are you feeling?

Apex Book Company is having its annual Halloween flash fiction contest.  Scare them with Election Horror in a thousand words or less if you dare!  Former INK guest and writer extraordinaire Jay Lake is the celebrity judge.  

And if you can include housework, you'll kill two birds with one stone, meeting C.S.'s latest challenge.  

The winner and second place get SFWA-qualifying pro rate payment and publication in Apex Digest online.  The deadline is Oct. 15.  Spooked by close deadlines?  Face your fears and embrace the terror!  After all, it's for Halloween, er, elections, er ... just write the darned story already!

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!

A Zoo of Factets

I had a great time both with David's talk at the INK meeting and also David's reading at Powell's.  It helped yank me out of a brief but unpleasant writing slump.  I didn't so much have writer's block as a writer's anxiety attack.  Step away from the manuscript, Kami, and keep your hands where I can see them.

I submitted (TBA) to the Writers of the Future contest, so that's another short story submission.  Also need to add on another rejection, this time from the Swivet.  Courting agents is hard.  Can I get back to writing now?  Oh, wait, have to market.  Poop!

I have one more short story submission to make before the end of the month to make my goal.  I think I'll try to find a home for Calling In, but I'm really not sure where to send it next.  Harumph.  I'll make that my project on Friday.

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.

Late but Done

I finally sent out a new query to an agent.  Here she is in all her glory.  Wish me luck!  Also, I've been fiddling around with (it's a secret until WotF is done with it.)  I'm hoping to get a few more comments, but if everyone is commented out I'll ship that baby off to Writers of the Future within the next couple of days.  I said it here, so now I must do it.

Can I go back to writing now?  This whole marketing thing is eating my writing time!

Behind Door Two

It's good to have focus again. I've gotten two scenes edited on Trinket Box and I'm well on my way to reaching 100 pages on The Trunk (which was Mummy Case). My brilliant plan is to have the first 50 pages of Trinket Box ready for the group for the first March meeting and to have all 75 pages for February written for The Trunk.

If I can do the same in March, I'll feel ahead enough on both to be able to work on Script Frenzy in April. I might even be able to keep editing Trinket Box along with writing my script, but I'm not going to hold myself to that quite yet.

After all, there is Reven to consider as well. And I still have a chapter to finish revising for it. I'm hoping to get a little work done on that today.

I can't believe I'm already thinking about Script Frenzy. Actually, I've been thinking about Nanowrimo already, and contemplated putting off The Trunk until then, but reconsidered. That's just too long to wait and I'd rather have the pages now. I'll find something else to write by then. Something new and fresh, because I think I'll need it about then.

As for Script Frenzy, I'm still toying around with the haunted house idea TC and I came up with last June (longer, really, but that was when we fleshed it out--was that a pun?). I'm keeping my option open, though, but nothing else has yet to materialize. In March, I'll add another 5 or 10 pages to my monthly goal to be closer to what I'll need to write in April (100 pages).

Honestly, though, Trinket Box is eating up most of my enthusiasm. I love working on this story. I'm amazed how much of it clings to me, even now. Scenes I was planning on ditching I'm now finding too compelling and so I'm trying to find a way to work them into the flow of the plot. And thank god for Creepy Frenchman! He's going to be my failsafe for plotting when all else fails.

Focusing on these novels is going to destroy my chances of having another short story ready for WotF, though. I need to look up the next submission deadline if I'm going to make it. I'll need all the time I can to work in another revision.

UPDATE: The deadline is April 1st. Whew. Won't have to worry about it during Script Frenzy. But that only leaves me about a month and a half! Gotta start working on something for it.

Openers

I've spent a huge number of hours reading openings, and critiquing some of them, at the now infamous Nathan Bransford's Surprisingly Essential First Page Challenge.  (The contest is closed to submissions and they're sorting through the entries now.)  I've read various rules and suggestions for how to open a novel, but I have to say at this point that reading about it and/or thinking about it is no substitute for reading about a gizillion openings and picking apart as many as you can stand to critique.  

Go forth and read the entries.  Find the flaws in the best ones.  May your eyes be opened.  And then read Shock and Awe.   Although we always hear that a novel should open with a hook, in the middle of it all, preferably with action, that doesn't mean that the action has to be physical.  Suddenly I'm okay with how Masks opens again.  Yay!

Taking Advantage

I couldn't help myself.  I had to join in Nathan Bransford's "The Surprisingly Essential First Page Challenge."  I hate to take advantage such a clearly nice guy.  He even posted my submission for me because (I'm guessing) the dial-up load times were interfering with my ability to comment on that particular post.  I was able to comment on other posts so I believe I was timing out or some such.  Anyway, I looked over my stuff and decided, weirdly, to try with the opening to Mayhem, I think because it stands out most of all my openings.  This makes me want to rewrite the opening to Masks yet again.  Gawd, I just want to smash my head through the wall every time I think about changing the opening to Masks.  Anyway:

As a small child I once lost my balance and touched my hand on a red hot stove.  Before the pain stabbed into my fingers and struck my mind I remember feeling foolish and frightened.  I cried out a not-very-small-child curse and put my fingers in my mouth just as the pain hit me.  My mother hurled herself across the kitchen and pulled me up into her arms.  That scent of our tribe's plush wool, the softness of homespun cloth against my face, the red hair of a Kilhells woman and green eyes staring into mine had always brought me comfort.

I know I'm dreaming, but that same hot pain I remember feels real, and there's no comfort this time.  I'm trapped in that room again, the desert heat doubled by infernal fire in a hearth.  I'm tied with bark rope on top of a camel hair rug.  Instead of hot pokers, carving instruments are heating to white brilliance three feet from my face.  There's a helefrit straddling me.  Nearby, the blood of an infant has dried to black flakes.  I want to wake up, but just like when it was actually happening, I'm helpless.

Something wooden cracks nearby and all at once I'm awake, gasping, my heart pounding so hard it hurts.  My body tingles from the memory of my flesh burning and I'm sticky and smelly with sweat.  I'm back in the present, cradled in a hammock in the belly of a sailing ship.  Sailors stand around a barrel they've dropped.  One sailor glances my way from under the brim of his dirty white hat with an apologetic look.  The others don't meet my gaze.  I'm not sure if they know something's wrong with me, or if it's just me.  My name is famous.  I'm famous, though hardly anyone has met me.  It's always a surprise when people take my word for it that I am who I say I am.  I'm plenty tall for a woman, but I don't think I'm tall enough for a myth.  I don't wear armor, I've lost my sword, and not only did I fail to do anything to aid the war, I think I might be on my way to assassinate the only man who can save the world.

I think people believe that no one would dare claim they were me.  I don't feel up to defending my name or my honor, though, as I awkwardly climb out of the hammock and go to ease the pressure in my bladder.  I don't stagger as the massive ships rocks from one side to the other.  My sea legs come back faster each time I sail, and take longer to go away when I'm on dry land again.  For hours after a long voyage, sometimes overnight, it feels like the land rolls under me, and I often dream of storms at sea.

We Have Contest

Nathan Bransford, a literary agent who keeps a rather nice blog of the industry, is hosting a contest. It's the Surprisingly Essential First Page Challenge. He's inviting writers to post the first 500 words of their ms and the winner gets a snazzy choice in prizes (such as a query critique or partial critique).

The contest is only open until 5:00 pm PST Wednesday, so spruce up this first 500 and head over to his blog. Warning, lots of entries already, so load time is a bit laggy.

Going . . . Gone

Done and done.

[Name withheld to protect the foolish] is sitting in the envelope next to me, ready to zip off into the mail as soon as I leave the house. Off to the Writers of the Future contest! My first short story submission since college, my first contest entry since those hapless poems two years ago.

"Another Day in Purgatory" is as close as I can get it and is now sitting in the inboxes of members of INK, ready for dismemberment at our next meeting.

And that concludes the deadlines for today. Until our next deadline, which is fast approaching on Monday to have all my pages written for the month, Good Day and Good Writing!

It's in the Envelope

My sub for WotF is in the envelope and ready to get mailed off to WotF.

I just emailed my first agent query for Masks.

Why does the world feel like it's spinning too fast?

If I'm rejected, I'll feel a small let down.

If I'm accepted, I'll be terrified. And thrilled. And terrified. But also thrilled.

I'm working tomorrow from 9-6. Hopefully I'll get the part that needs to be mailed in during lunch. Good luck to all of us.

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.

Deading the Line

Thanks to a snow warning tomorrow, I have a slight reprieve on my encroaching deadline.

My brother and all four of his girls were going to visit tomorrow, meaning I'd have very little time free to finish editing [Sorry, can't tell you] for the WotF contest. But he's not going to want to drive the hour or so through snow to reach us and chance getting stuck here, so instead of refereeing the girls I'll have more time to finish [Still can't tell you!]. Kate will miss playing with her cousins, but I'll make up for it by spending time out in the snow.

If it really does snow. One can never be too certain, afterall.

I have spent time on [Shh, it's a secret] today working on the transition from new opening to pre-existing story. I have one more transition to write, based on exposition I had already written so that part of the scene is fleshed out, and then I'll just be tweaking and correcting the rest of the piece. I'm glad to be near the end of bluescreen writing. While I struggle with rough draft writing in general, bluescreen writing scenes to inject into a pre-existing story is like facing undergoing a root canal. I just dread it. It isn't as relaxing as tweaking what's there and it isn't as creative as cutting loose in a rough draft. I'm bound to a text that I have to try to match in tone and structure and plot. I find it tedious to contemplate, though once I'm into the actual writing, the tedium usually falls away as I get back into the story and the characters. Thankfully, or I'd never get it finished.

So I'm looking forward to being finished with the last bit of bluescreen so I can go back to editing. Much looking forward to the plain old editing.

Purgatory is, I think, ready to send out to INK. I'm at the stage where when I read through it I don't find errors but find that the whole piece stinks and should be trashed. That's usually a sign that I need a reader, stat! I don't think it's short enough, but I can't find the obvious places that I know exist that can be deleted. Definitely time for readers. I'll do a line edit tomorrow and spend it off.

With all this gnashing of teeth about bluescreen writing for edits and doubting the veracity of a story, I'm ready to sit down to some nice, non-judgmental rough draft writing. And luckily I have my new short story primed for more words.

Which One

I have a lot of stories to choose from.  They all have flaws.  I'm having a hard time committing.  I thought I'd go with Comes in Colors, aka Colorized, but now I'm having doubts.  So I've decided to throw this list online, basically thinking aloud, to see what happens.  (In other words, I'm inflicting my thoughts on the universe, not asking that everyone vote, although if you have suggestions I am so, so willing to hear them!)  

It's really hard to judge my own stuff.  I have the same trouble painting.  The ones people gravitate to are not my faves, generally speaking.  I'm only looking at fairly recent stories.  I don't want to dredge up really old ones for WotF.

[Secret WotF sub]:  People remember it.  It's pretty clean (though Ris is right, it could use trimming.)  It has some good visuals.  Overall, though, I'm afraid the idea is not very creative, and it certainly doesn't have much punch.  Even after editing I don't think it'll be a vivid story.

Calling In:  I think it's funny, and it recently got funnier thanks to some tightening and a plot adjustment.  I like that it's very short, the shortest thing I've written.  But, it's humor.  Humor is hard, and humor pieces deserve recognition, but I don't know if this humor piece does.  

Flight:  This is the oldest of the stories I'm considering.  It's also a shorter story.  The tale of the engineered child whose first flight is recorded in JonBenet Ramsey style has some moments that I still think about, but I think I missed the mark with it.  I dunno.

Invaders:  Although this idea of robots being engineered to imitate alien invaders is nothing new, I think having the pov from the robot is unique.  The critique I got from Strange Horizons when I offered it for publication was that it was a near miss but it felt 'slight.'  I guess I didn't go deep enough, or the situation was too cliche'.  I don't know if I'll be able to get out from under that response to submit it to a contest.

Walking the Earth:  This rambling story about an alien born on Earth after his ancestors crash landed here has some fun moments, but plot-wise it verges on a mini-novel.  It's a classic Kami short story in the sense that I had a novel plot and tidied it up enough to fit into a short story.  I've had cleaner ideas but I really like the characters in this one.

[Secret Future WotF entry]:  A story about a general who switches to the losing side of a war.  I like that she dies at the end, and how that happens, but the opening starts on one of Diedre's nits--with a bloody fight.  I suppose I could change the opening.  It wouldn't even be that hard.  Despite being last on my list, this is the one I'm closest to considering submitting to WotF instead of [The Current Actual Entry.]

I just realized that I could submit Comes in Colors one quarter, and Causes another.

And I really need to start writing more short stories if I'm going to be submitting to contests.  Sheesh, you guys, I'm a novelist!  I'm not even supposed to be here!

Progressing

Not only have I condensed my impressive 8-page synopsis for Faith of the Four and One to only 3 pages, but today I made a screen. As in a window screen. My very first. And it even fits in the window with only a slight gap along the side and top. I can now throw open my kitchen window as wide as it can go. Huzzah!

Still digging out the front yard, though I'm down to only a three by five strip of gravel that is only about an 1 1/2 deep and fairly loose. It was too hot today to do any more than two barrows full, rather than the whole lot as I'd have liked. I've started laying out fill and when I have all the fill laid and the top soil amendment raked in, I'll plant the bag of crocus bulbs Mom gave me and then lay sod over the rest. And tada! Lawn!

And this weekend I get to buy my tree for it. And then begin work on the other, shorter half of the front yard. Whew. It sure would be awesome to have the entire front yard done by Fall. Gee, maybe I'll go ahead and get the other tree for that side to goad me on.

And back to writing news, tomorrow I'll edit down my three pages to two pages and start toning it towards the main character so it reads like her. Maybe I can then coax my fellow INKers to have a look at it for any suggestions. And then editing the MS excerpt. And I still have to do the final edit on my poems and get them in the mail, preferably by tomorrow.

The big wheel keeps on turning and I'm rolling, rolling, rolling . . .

Shout Out

Heya, Carole! I've been trying to leave you comments on your wordpress site, but for some reason it won't let me sign on, or it thinks I have logged in already but won't let me comment, so anyway, here it is:

I think it's awesome how much you are sending out there! Cheers cheers cheers! And way to go with the deletions! I totally encourage deleting when it serves the purpose of clarity. Clarity is good a think.

I think I'm going to join your parade of submissions and finally get the poems I edited out to the regional poetry contest. I've been sitting on them for too long.