retiring a blog

I know I haven't been posting here much lately, so it's not going to be a huge change. However, I'm working on creating an author Website for myself, and in the process, I'm creating a new blog, with the intention to post regularly, three times a week. We'll see how it goes.

I'll keep this site here, for anyone who might visit the old posts, but I'm not planning on any new ones.

monthly writing progress, June

Words for month: 16,858. Daily average for the month is 562 words, for the year is 448 words. Wrote 13 of 30 days. Words were split between SF novel, a short story, a book review, and novellas.

No outline work this month, though I did start typing in the SF novel (which I've been writing longhand) so I can figure out what plot holes I've left in what's written so far.

Short stories: Wrote book review for Vision. Also wrote fanfic for the Scalzi/Wheaton Unicorn Pegasus Kitten contest.
Fifth World went up at flashquake.
When Pigs Fly went up at Daikaijuzine.

Submissions: 16 short stories, 1 review. (This is more than the number of rejections because I subbed to an anthology that accepts sim-subs -- the market it's been out at is on indefinite hiatus. And I'm counting the reprint sale here, too, because I entered it on my tracking spreadsheet.)

Acceptances: Daily Science Fiction accepted "Essence of Truth." Book review for Vision accepted. "Snake in the Grass," my first sale, will be reprinted when Assassins: Clash of Steel goes to press for Rogue Blades Entertainment.

Rejections: 14 short stories, 1 poem.

No crits this month.

GSHW meeting: Did not attend this month.

Reading: 5 books and a novella. The Gettysburg Approach to Writing & Speaking like a Professional, by Philip Yaffe; The Sorcerer of the North, by John Flanagan; Changes, by Jim Butcher; Silver Borne, by Patricia Briggs; From Hell With Love, by Simon R. Green; The God Engines, by John Scalzi.

Got an AussieCon voting membership so I could get the Hugo nominees in electronic form. Read one novella, the short stories, started a novel (Boneshaker by Cherie Priest).

Book-in-a-Week: Started to participate, realized it wasn't working for me, and opted out of BIW.

Joined the SF Poetry Association.

Paying work: Proofread books on San Diego and Linux. (891 pages proofread.)

Exercise: Did walk/jog intervals 4 days. Worked in garden 7 days. It wasn't all aerobic work, but it's progress.

Other than being good at keeping the subs out, the focus really hasn't been there this month. Since I'm heading on vacation for the end of July and the beginning of August, we'll see if I do any better this coming month!

monthly writing progress, May

Words for month: 27,064. Daily average for the month is 873 words, for the year is 425 words. Wrote 27 of 31 days. Words were split between SF novel (6,703 words), fantasy novel (4,406 words), and short stories and articles.

Outlines: Made limited progress on novella outline.

Short stories: Wrote 6 stories for SAD, plus the first 621 words of another. Oh, and an article plus a book review for Vision (though I still owe another review).

Submissions: 18 short stories (including all 6 new ones), 1 poem, 1 article, 1 review.

Rejections: 13 short stories, 1 poem. (One of these stories didn't get resubmitted because I was waiting for a market that was re-opening June 1.)

Acceptances: "Banded Jade" by Aoife's Kiss, "Being Green" for Aurora Wolf print anthology, "Writing Comfortably" for Vision, and "Fifth World" by flashquake.

Read Daikaijuzine slush.

GSHW meeting: Went. Did not enjoy the speaker much -- he believes that all fantasy should be subversive, so if you're writing in an establish subgenre, you are by definition NOT writing fantasy. No, I didn't talk to him about my work. I did enjoy getting to spend time talking to other writers face-to-face, though.

Reading: 9 books completed this month. Vanished, by Kat Richardson; Bone Crossed, by Patricia Briggs; Vane Pursuit, by Charlotte MacLeod; The New Year's Quilt, by Jennifer Chiaverini; Battle for Skandia, by John Flanagan; Alcatraz vs. the Knights of Crystallia, by Brandon Sanderson; The Lover's Knot, by Clare O'Donohue; How to Write a Damn Good Mystery, by James N. Frey; Outliers, by Malcolm Gladwell

Book-in-a-Week: Did not participate this month.

Writing Prompt: Remembering

This weekend marks Memorial Day in the United States, a day to remember the men and women who fought and died in the armed forces. If your story is set in a different world, do they have a similar custom? How do they remember those who died for their land? If it's set in our world (or some near variant thereof), does Memorial Day mean anything for your characters besides an excuse to go shopping or the day they can start wearing white again?

gathering the links, May 29

Enjoy!

Jon Gibbs, an Englishman in New Jersey:
Interesting posts about writing – w/e May 28 2010
Rejection, fan fiction, e-books, and piracy.

Margaret McGaffey Fisk:
Friday's Interesting Links
Posted while she's off at BayCon: life, science, publishing, writing.

SFSignal:
SF Tidbits for 5/28/10
SF Tidbits for 5/27/10
SF Tidbits for 5/26/10
SF Tidbits for 5/25/10
SF Tidbits for 5/24/10
The usual wonderful assortment of interviews, news, and articles.

gathering the links, May 21

Trying to get back into regular posting.

Jon Gibbs, an Englishman in New Jersey:
Interesting posts about writing – w/e May 21 2010
A market list, time management, why some people stop reading, and more.

Margaret McGaffey Fisk:
Friday's Interesting Links
Submissions, rejections, and whether you can make a living at writing.

SFSignal:
SF Tidbits for 5/21/10
SF Tidbits for 5/20/10
SF Tidbits for 5/19/10
SF Tidbits for 5/18/10
SF Tidbits for 5/17/10
The usual wonderful assortment of interviews, news, and articles.

Several hours' worth of time could be spent if you follow all these links! Don't forget to balance browsing with actual writing.

rainy day reading

Everyone knows there's a lot of information on the Web about writing -- both craft and business. Lately (well, okay, starting at the end of last year -- I can be slow to post), I've noticed that there are a few different books being blogged that are well worth following.

Dean Wesley Smith: Killing the Sacred Cows of Publishing --- DWS is a lot of the inspiration for me to actually get moving on my submissions this year. If I hadn't been reading his blog (including his set of posts on motivations at the end of last year*), I probably wouldn't have submitted the two books I have this year.

Kristine Kathryn Rusch: Freelancer's Survival Guide --- Very long (almost 60 entries right now), covering everything from negotiating to networks to vacations.

Tobias Buckell: It's All Just a Draft --- Basics, short stories, workshops . . . each installment available as a downloadable RTF.

###

Not a book, but a series of posts that might be worth your time to look at are Stroppy Writer's looks at a publishing contract (Anne Rooney, in the U.K.). Currently, a dozen posts: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, and 12. Note that not all of these posts have the tag "publishing contract" on them, so you can't just click the tag to get the entire group.

An older set of posts on reading a contract were posted back in 2004 by Michelle Sagara West. I found them well worth reading at the time. Although I haven't gone back to them recently, I can't imagine that that has changed.

###

So, there you are. Lots of reading for a rainy day. Have fun!


* Motivation posts: 1 (motivation and year end goals), 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9 (fear), and 10 (extra help). The early posts talk a lot about Heinlein's rules and how DWS has implemented them. Later, he gets into five-year plans and how to set your goals based on your dreams.

Writing Prompt: Super, Super

There are many stories of changes that bring powers to the world -- comets, genetic shifts, artifacts, magic. One day, people wake up and everything has changed.

Suppose that in your world, something happened to create people who could do things beyond the merely human -- but only those who had never dreamed of such a thing happening, who had never wished to be superheroes or gods or genetic supermen, benefited. What do your characters do?

(Sorry about the lack of attention lately. Trying to get back to the blog again.)

monthly writing progress, April

Words for month: 5,080. Daily average for the month is 169 words, for the year is 309 words. Wrote 12 of 30 days. Words were split between an SF and a fantasy. Still trying for a page a day, but didn't do well on it this month.

Editing/submitting: Typed in edits, wrote a synopsis and cover letter, did an audio pass, and sent off a partial.

Outlines: Made progress on novella outline and near-future-SF novel outline. Played with ideas for new cozy mystery series, but did no actual outlining work.

Short stories: Got the first line of a new one. Think it should be fun.

Submissions: 4 short stories, 1 poetry, 1 flash, 1 novel.

Rejections: 4 short stories, 1 poem, 1 flash.

Acceptances: None this month.

Crits: Short story for a friend. For the one I haven't made progress on, I sent what I've gotten done so far to him, and I'll look at his next draft.

Did not attend GSHW meeting this month, as family was here. Would've been a good one, too.

Reading: 8 books completed this month. The Nimble Man, by Christopher Golden and Thomas Sniegoski; Small Favors, by Jim Butcher; The Quilter's Legacy, by Jennifer Chiaverini; Alcatraz versus the Scrivener's Bones, by Brandon Sanderson; On Writing, by Stephen King; Hunting Ground, by Patricia Briggs; The Life-Eaters, by David Brin and Scott Hampton; Something from the Nightside, by Simon R. Green

Other reading of note -- read over half of How to Write a Damn Good Mystery, by James N. Frey.

Book-in-a-Week participation was okay, as I set my goal low (10 pages). Did almost all of the writing on the final 2 days.

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.

Writing Prompt: The End of the World as We Snow It

Okay, the pun was probably unnecessary. They usually are.

Your characters have been trapped somewhere by a winter storm -- a cabin, a car stranded on a freeway, the convenience store downtown, or whatever location is appropriate. What do they have with them that will help them survive? What do they wish they had? Can they last until help arrives or the snow and ice melt?

monthly writing progress, February

I was just going to do the weekly progress, plus the week before that, since I remembered not posting last week. Imagine my surprise to realize I haven't posted my progress since February 6! At this point, rather than posting three weeks' worth of progress and then posting the monthly progress, it made more sense to do a single post.

Words for month: 9,195, mostly a page a day on a single novel, but also some short work, including a synopsis. Daily average for the month is 328 words, for the month is 334 words. Wrote 23 of 28 days.

Continued outline for the next novel I want to write (Sundered Sword). Also did a fair bit of background reading.

Short stories: Completed one I've been working on since December. Wrote one article (Website review). Did 9 short story submissions this month.

Other submissions: 2 poetry, 1 flash, 1 novella.

Rejections: 9 short stories, 1 novella (market doesn't favor that length). Only 1 of the short stories wasn't sent back out again; 1 was sent out more than once.

Acceptances: 2 articles for Vision.

Crits: Finished one novel, epilogue left on a second, some progress on a third. Also, one short story crit.

Did not attend GSHW meeting this month -- was in Boston for Boskone. Truly fun.

Reading: 3 books completed this month. Leviathan, by Scott Westerfeld; Metatropolis, edited by John Scalzi; and Norse Code, by Greg van Eekhout.

Other reading of note -- read a good chunk of Windup Girl by Paolo Bacigalupi, did some blog reading, and discovered some lovely books on stellar mechanics available free on-line at Harvard.

Editing/submitting: Finished polishing the first 3 chapters of the mystery novel and sent it off into submission-land.

Also signed up with Book-in-a-Week. First time for participation starts tomorrow. Looking forward to bingeing on writing.

Writing Prompt: You are dead

Or are you? This one comes directly from my spam folder. I received an e-mail with the subject line "Is it true you are dead?" Write a story around such an e-mail. Bonus points for not making it a variation of the Nigerian inheritance scam.

gathering the links, February 19

Hope everyone had a great week and weekend. Time for another link round-up.

Jon Gibbs, an Englishman in New Jersey:
Interesting posts about writing – w/e February 19 2010

Margaret McGaffey Fisk:
Friday's Interesting Links
(These are last week's links, as this week's aren't up yet. I love the research section!)

SFSignal:
SF Tidbits for 2/19/10
SF Tidbits for 2/18/10
SF Tidbits for 2/17/10
SF Tidbits for 2/16/10
SF Tidbits for 2/15/10

Jay Lake:
Link salad hopes for an easy day of chemo
Link salad tries to go lite, fails
Link salad says it’s just desserts
Link salad, at first just ghostly, turns a whiter shade of pale

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

Mike Brotherton:
More Starlinks…
Super Late Sunday Starlinks on Tuesday

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.

back from Boskone

I posted con reports on my other blog: Friday, Saturday, Sunday Enjoy!

short break

I should have mentioned this earlier in the week -- I won't be doing the links or writing prompt today, and the writing progress post will be delayed until Tuesday.

I'm going to be at Boskone! Which is clearly still writing related.

writing progress, January 31-February 6

The week focused on my freelance work, but I did consistently write at least one page (250 words) per day, for a total of 1,957 words on the new project (M) over the week, and 37 words on a short story.

Again, background reading for Sundered Sword.

Squeezed in a quick crit for a friend on a short story and discussed cues for POV.

Only one submission sent out. That put me, for 24 very sweet hours, in the position of having all of my short stories out to market at once. Two short stories and two poems rejected.

More freelancing to start this coming week, and Boskone's at the end of the week, but I'm hoping to maintain at least the page a day on M.

Writing Prompt: Missing Time

Several times in history, the calendar has changed. For example, in 1752 in England, September skipped from the 2nd to the 14th as they finally moved to the Gregorian calendar. The beginning of the year was changed from March 25 to January 1. At other points, new months have been added.

What does such a change mean to your characters if they live through it? Do they notice? Do they rail against it? Or maybe you have a character pushing for a new way of tracking time. If so, why, and who doesn't like it?

gathering the links, February 5

Time to see what links everyone has posted this week!

Jon Gibbs, an Englishman in New Jersey:
Interesting posts about writing – w/e February 05 2010

Margaret McGaffey Fisk:
Friday's Interesting Links

SFSignal:
SF Tidbits for 2/05/10
SF Tidbits for 2/04/10
SF Tidbits for 2/03/10
SF Tidbits for 2/02/10
SF Tidbits for 2/01/10
Amazon vs. Macmillan
SF Tidbits for 1/31/10

Jay Lake:
Link salad gets ready to head for the infusion center
Link salad, mostly weird science edition
A summation of my posts on Amazon vs Macmillan
Jay is headed in for another infusion of chemo. My thoughts are with him.

Author Scoop:
Friday Morning LitLinks
Thursday Morning LitLinks
Wednesday Morning LitLinks
Tuesday Morning LitLinks
Monday Morning LitLinks
Author Scoop also does nice author quotes and book reviews. Check them out.

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.

monthly writing progress, January

Words for month: 10,513. Split between new scenes to old work, new ideas, and short stories. I wrote 16 of 31 days, and averaged 339 words per day (counting all the days of the month).

Started outline for the next novel I want to write. Also did a fair bit of background reading, though no complete books yet. Organized notes for two other ideas so the background material is all in one place for me to outline from.

Short stories: Progress on several. Completed one. Wrote one article (book review). Did 27 submissions this month.

Crits: Made some progress on all three that I'm juggling.

Did not attend GSHW meeting this month. Won't be able to attend next month. Hoping for March.

Reading: 5 books completed this month. The Career Novelist, by Donald Maass; Destroyer of Worlds, by Larry Niven and Edward Lerner; The Burning Bridge, by John Flanagan; Diamond Dogs, Turquoise Days, by Alastair Reynolds; Pushing Ice, by Alastair Reynolds

Other reading of note -- refreshed my brain on Getting Things Done and read bits of Making It All Work by David Allen, read more of Fire in Fiction by Maass, started Heirs of the Fisherman, read the first half of Leviathan by Scott Westerfeld, and read both the Motivation and Killing the Sacred Cows of Publishing blog series by Dean Wesley Smith (which got me rethinking having dropped my mystery story rather than submitting it).

Editing/submitting: Well, in addition to work on adding subplots to the urban fantasy, I have been working on brush edits of the cozy mystery. I've also written a query letter, started a synopsis, and winnowed down a list of markets (not agents) to submit to, as a test of Smith's ideas.

This coming month will mostly be more of the same, but I want to write every day, even if it's just a single page. Also, I'm going to Boskone mid-month.

writing progress, January 24-30

Less juggling and more dropping of balls this week.

No critting got done at all.

Didn't make any further progress on the new short story -- which means, clearly, that it didn't get submitted for the deadline yesterday.

Did write 791 words on the longer idea. (Hey, that's almost consistent progress!) Still not sure whether it's a novella or a novel.

No progress on Sundered Sword's outline, but I did get more research and background notes.

Made some good progress on a short story I started back in December. If I can squeeze in a couple of word wars on it this week, I should have a complete draft.

Wrote down two new ideas for high fantasy novels.

No other writing.

Very good on the submission front: ten subs sent out, including one story that's never been out before. One's been rejected already, but if I can get it back out the door, I will have my entire inventory of short stories out to market.

As I mentioned before, lots of freelancing this coming week (started the first project yesterday, actually), so not expecting a lot on the writing front this coming week -- maybe another 790 words on that longer idea? ;-)

Writing Prompt: Dwarf in Time

Somewhat more whimsical this week.

Take a dwarf -- a Tolkien dwarf, a D&D dwarf, a fairy-tale dwarf, whatever your favorite type of dwarf is -- and plop him (or her) down into a modern metropolis. What does the dwarf do for a living? What thoughts does she have about the world around her? Is he making any plans to go back?

gathering the links, January 29

As promised, here are some good gatherings of links:

Jon Gibbs, an Englishman in New Jersey:
Interesting posts about writing – w/e January 29 2010 -- Be sure to check out the comments to check for other recommendations, such as mine to Crossing Genres, a post by Michael A. Burstein on Apex's blog.

Margaret McGaffey Fisk:
Friday's Interesting Links -- The writing and research links are especially good; I loved the semicolon comic.

SFSignal:
Free Fiction for 1/29/10
SF Tidbits for 1/29/10
SF Tidbits for 1/28/10
SF Tidbits for 1/27/10
SF Tidbits for 1/26/10
SF Tidbits for 1/25/10
SF Tidbits for 1/24/10
Free Fiction for 1/23/10
But you should be reading SFSignal for the many other posts they have as well -- Mind Melds, TOC, updates on what's going on in the world.

Jay Lake:
Link salad wishes it spoke every language
Link salad flows down the river of night's dreaming
Link salad stumbles into town, just like a sacred cow
Link salad has tire tracks all across its back

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.

Bonus: Advice to Writers Great quotes about writing.

writing progress, January 17-23

Still trying to juggle, and this week the writing fell by the wayside.

I critted 3 chapters for one friend, 2 for another.

Started a new short story, as well as a longer one that I'm not sure whether it'll be a novella or a novel. This is highly unusual for me, as I always plan and outline, so it'll be a learning experience. I'm managing a page a day on the long idea, so I got 794 words on it this week, and about 200 on the new short story. That's it for the week.

I got a good start on the next novel's outline (Sundered Sword), and did some more background reading and research, too.

Did pretty well on the submission front this past week, too, with five sent out, including the one review (which counts as a "new" submission in my database as it's never been out before).

Hoping to do better on the writing front this week; next week I know will be a wash, as I have a few overlapping freelance projects booked. Also, since that newest short story is for a market that closes this coming Saturday, I need to get it done if I'm going to make the deadline!

gathering the links, January 22

As promised, here are some good gatherings of links:

Jon Gibbs, an Englishman in New Jersey:
Interesting posts about writing – w/e January 22 2010

Margaret McGaffey Fisk:
Friday's Interesting Links

SFSignal:
SF Tidbits for 1/22/10
SF Tidbits for 1/21/10
SF Tidbits for 1/20/10
SF Tidbits for 1/19/10
SF Tidbits for 1/18/10

Jay Lake:
Link salad heads for another day of chemotherapy
Link salad is a desperado under the eaves
Link salad hears the captains tell they pay you well

Writing Prompt: Childhood Memories

Think about your earliest memory. Now rewrite it as though it happened to you yesterday, at the age you currently are. Now try writing it as though it happened to a child fifty years from now. Now to a child fifty years before you were born.

What details changed? What stayed the same?

writing progress, January 10-16

I'm currently juggling completing my NaNoWriMo novel (Jim Bob), editing a previous novel (Pepper), planning my next novel (Sundered Sword), working on several short stories, and doing crits for 3 different friends. This is, perhaps, inefficient, as I'm not getting a lot done on any one thing at a time, but I am making good progress.

In the last week, I completed one short story and a book review, which will be submitted to Vision magazine. I also submitted six stories, including my novella that was short-listed for the Science-Fiction at the UPC award last year.

I added 3,516 words to Pepper in new scenes and 2,250 words to Jim Bob.

No progress on planning. Some work on the crits.

My plan for this week is more of the same, starting with getting a couple more submissions out today. Stay tuned next Sunday for the progress report. ;-)

starting off the new year a little late

New year, new goals, all that. Right? I'm going back to an earlier one -- trying to be more regular about updating my blog. I've got friends who, if nothing else, manage to post a link round-up on Friday so they're posting. Which is nice, and I might decide to do a link round-up. Or maybe I'll just post a round-up of link round-ups.

I want to aim for monthly consistency, and I'm going to be trying to do certain kinds of posts to do so. Some of my posts will be weekly, some bi-weekly, and some monthly.

• Where am I with my writing this week?


• Writing prompts (weekly)


• Every couple of weeks, a post of upcoming contests and anthologies


• Review series for writing books (monthly, most likely)


• A series I'm going to call "Digging Deep," about planning, organizing, control, and other things that might have an impact on where we plan to go as writers -- because those can't be things we do just once a year (monthly)

I'll also be writing posts as other topics occur to me, and I'll continue doing the occasional podcast review. (Watch for my review of "I Should Be Writing" -- I finally caught up with *all* of the back episodes!)