monthly writing progress, March

Words for month: 12,351. Daily average for the month is 398 words, for the year is 356 words. Wrote 24 of 31 days. Most of the words were on January's new idea, but 3,132 were on last year's NaNo. The page a day thing seems to be working reasonably well.

New cozy mystery series idea attacked me, so I've been making some notes on it.

Short stories: No writing on any.

Submissions: 12 short stories, 1 poetry, 2 flash. Only one story is new -- "Creeping White," sent to PARSEC.

Rejections: 10 short stories, 1 poem, 2 flash.

Acceptances: Short accepted by Space & Time (though I'm still waiting for the e-mail from the editor-in-chief).

Crits: Epilogue done on one crit; no progress on other (ack!).

Read Daikaijuzine slush.

Attended GSHW meeting this month -- good talk by Ty Drago, followed by lunch at the diner. Very enjoyable.

Did Holly Lisle's Crash Revision workshop on Savvy Authors. It's a variant on her one-pass revision, and it prompted me to start typing in edits from Sabra's redlined manuscript.

Reading: 7 books completed this month. Solomon Kane, by Robert E. Howard; Mean Streets (UF anthology); The Icebound Land, by John Flanagan; The Mote in God's Eye, by Larry Niven & Jerry Pournelle; The Unnatural Inquirer, by Simon R. Green; Alcatraz versus the Evil Librarians, by Brandon Sanderson; Just Another Judgement Day, by Simon R. Green

Other reading of note -- read a good chunk of The Nimble Man by Christopher Golden and Thomas Sniegoski.

Editing/submitting: Finished polishing the remaining chapters of mystery and sent it off in response to request for full.

Writing Prompt: All-Nighter

Your character has just pulled an all-nighter. Why? Did he have a work deadline to meet? Did she just met the new love of her life? Were they plotting revenge against the cook who refused third helpings on desserts, even though they're royalty?

And what effect is this having on the character? Sleepy, barely able to keep his eyes open? In a towering rage if someone looks at her sideways? Smearing paint in art lessons? Accidentally gutting the fisherman instead of the fish?

Think about how it all plays out, beginning to end, and write it.

gathering the links, March 19

Did I really forget about this completely last week? Ay-yi! I'm not doing so well with that "regular posting" thing. Will keep trying. Did not visit as many blogs this week, so there are fewer links. Sorry.

Jon Gibbs, an Englishman in New Jersey:
Interesting posts about writing – w/e March 19 2010
A lot on pitches and queries this time, but some other interesting links as well.

Margaret McGaffey Fisk:
Friday's Interesting Links
Everything from writing to grammar to being published.

SFSignal:
SF Tidbits for 3/19/10
SF Tidbits for 3/18/10
SF Tidbits for 3/17/10
SF Tidbits for 3/16/10
SF Tidbits for 3/15/10
20 free speculative fiction stories by 17 authors
Everything from links on making time to read to African science-fiction to content mills.

Time: 50 best inventions of 2009

Writers Digest: Best Tweets for Writers

If you know of another site that does great collections of links, let me know in the comments! And if there's one of these sites that you enjoy, please let them know.

writing progress, March 7-13

I see I forgot to post my writing progress last week. I'm not going to do it now.

Another week with a fair bit of freelance work, but I did manage to write at least a page on M 6 days out of 7 (1,947 words for the week) and a small bit on Jim Bob 3 days of the week (347 words). Thinking of perhaps setting Jim Bob aside while I'm focusing on getting other novels edited and out the door.

Heard back on the partial mystery submission. They want to see the full. In an ideal world, I would have sent it out the next day, but I'm doing another pass through to polish and catch the little errors that I haven't yet. It'll go out either Monday or Tuesday of this week.

One short story rejection this week. I'm starting to have inventory again that should go back out, but I need to focus on the novel and the freelancing (and a long overdue crit!), so that may not happen this week.

Went to the GSHW meeting. Learned a lot, had fun talking with other writers.

Overall, a decent week, though I do need to attend to that crit and the subs.

Writing Prompt: Do You See the Strings?

Many times in history, one country has invaded another, taken over -- and left the previous head of government in place as a puppet.

If your character is such a puppet, how does she feel about it? Do the common people know that he's a figurehead? Is she blamed for what happened? Resented? Are there plots to take back control, and if so, do they involve your character -- actively, as a target, or as part of the new new regime?

Or maybe your character has helped to conquer another country and is putting a puppet on the throne. Does he stay there to keep tabs on what the nominal ruler is doing? Is she sympathetic to the country's people? Does he just want to wash his hands of all the politics and get back to the battlefield?

Who is pulling the strings and why? And how are others reacting?

gathering the links, March 6

Running a day behind here. Oops!

Jon Gibbs, an Englishman in New Jersey:
Interesting posts about writing – w/e March 5 2010

Margaret McGaffey Fisk:
Friday's Interesting Links

SFSignal:
SF Tidbits for 3/05/10
SF Tidbits for 3/04/10
SF Tidbits for 3/03/10
SF Tidbits for 3/02/10
SF Tidbits for 3/01/10

Jay Lake:
Link salad under the mossy giants
Link salad loiters by Lake Quinalt in the Olympics
Link salad is watching the detectives
Link salad becomes necessary
Link salad knows there’s a sign on the wall
Love the moon bases he linked to!

Author Scoop:
Friday Morning LitLinks
Thursday Morning LitLinks
Wednesday Morning LitLinks
Tuesday Morning LitLinks
Monday Morning LitLinks

Mike Brotherton:
Hubble Space Telescope Starlinks
Super Late Sunday Starlinks on Tuesday

Nathan Bransford:
This week in publishing

If you know of another site that does great collections of links, let me know in the comments! And if there's one of these sites that you enjoy, please let them know.