I’m lucky enough to be starting my new year with a bit of flash and a poem at Shine — yay! Coffee, my rictameter about, you guessed it, coffee and Not So Smart are both online now in the January 2008 issue of The Shine Journal.
This time of year people all around me are making New Year’s Resolutions…which is something I don’t do. However, I do often set goals for myself and then work toward them, so I thought I’d share my current list of writing-related goals. In a few months I’ll look back and see how I’m doing LOL
My goals for the next little while include:
1. Finishing the rough draft of my untitled Circus Story
2. Revising Blood and Stone and sending it out into the world
3. Attend World Fantasy
4. Begin writing the sequel to Blood and Stone tentatively titled Secrets and Shadows
5. Increase traffic to and readership of Niteblade
The breeze I can feel brushing across my knuckles as I try to write tells me two things. First, that I need to seal my windows and move my desk away from them and second that the year is drawing to a close. With the latter in mind I’ve done a little bit of housekeeping. My Publications page now lists upcoming publications only and it will contain my publishing credits for 2008 as they occur. I’ve created a sub-page to list all my publications for 2006 and 2007 that’s also easily accessible. I think this may be a much neater way of handling things than having everything on one page.
I’ve also decided to stop posting notices about my acceptances as well as the subsequent publications, I will, however, post occasional updates on my WIPs, especially my novels. I’ll try not to make them simple word count updates 🙂
I really want a tee shirt from the Giant Squid at Poor Mojo’s Almanac(k) and to get one I need to have five pieces accepted by them. I’m getting closer to my goal — They Found the Dog First makes the fourth story I’ve had published at PMjA.
Unfortunately, They Found the Dog First is a true story, which certainly taints any joy I may have at its publication and prevents me from saying I hope you ‘enjoy’ it. I do, however, hope you read it.
My kinky rictameter, The Whip, has been published at Oysters and Chocolate. As the adjective ‘kinky’ might imply, neither Oysters and Chocolate or my poem are suitable for anyone under 18 or easily offended, so please click with caution. The Whip is my second poem to appear in O and C, and a third, Tapestry, is due to appear sometime in the new year 🙂
I got my first cover today 🙂 “Sister Margaret” was published in the December 2007 issue of Pantechnicon and as if that weren’t wonderful enough, it was chosen as the cover story. I am over the moon with happiness! See that? I’m so happy I don’t even mind that I’m using cliches 🙂
If you click on the image above it will take you to a larger version of itself. Yay! I’m so happy. Best of all, Pantechnicon is free so if you’d like to check out my story, or any of the other awesome works of fiction in it, you can do it easily by clicking any of the links to it. Like this one –> Pantechnicon!
W00t! Not very professional, I know, but I really needed this day to end on a high note and it has courtesy of an acceptance notice from NewMyths for my poem, Inspiration. Yay! The release of the issue with Inspiration is TBA, but I’m just happy to be accepted again and looking forward to seeing my poem grace the pages of NewMyths once again.
I was checking the stats for this domain the other day and I noticed that a lot of the search engine hits I get are people looking for Christmas Scripts. I show up in the results because of the entries I made last year regarding my short kids play, Aurora The Littlest Reindeer.
With that in mind I’ve decided to put “Aurora” up for any teachers or non-profit groups who may be looking for a secular Christmas play. Please remember to give me credit where it’s due and enjoy.
Aurora The Littlest Reindeer
The play is a short piece about the littlest reindeer at the North Pole. Most days she doesn’t mind being the littlest so much, but on Christmas Eve, when everyone is busy with an important job but her, being little makes her very sad. By the end of the play, however, after her differences save Christmas, she realizes that maybe being different isn’t so bad after all.
I just got an email from the wonderful editors of “Oysters and Chocolate” accepting another of my poems for thier site. “Tapestry”, yet another BDSM flavored poem is due to grace their pages in February of 2008. I really love this market, as you may have noticed. It’s professional, paying and they respond to submissions in a reasonable amount of time. Tapestry is my third poem to be accepted there and I hope it won’t be the last.
I am incredibly proud to have my poem, The Sepultress, in the inaugural issue of New Myths. I think the editor, Scott Barnes, described it incredibly well when he called it “cute and grotesque”.
I started writing it when I was at the coast this summer. I was actually trying to write a sci-fi sonnet for the SFPA sonnet contest but I re-discovered that I really have a profound dislike for iambic pentameter so I reverted to my favorite — iambic tetrameter. Oh, so comfortable 🙂
One of my favorite short stories, that I’ve written anyway, has been accepted at Pantechnicon for their December issue. I’ll be sure and post a link when it goes live. I’m incredibly flattered to have my story reprinted at Pantechnicon as there is no disputing the quality of the fiction they publish.
Yay!
Also yay is that so far I have continued to resist the urge to revise Blood and Stone. So far. That’s related because Sister Margaret is one of the short stories I’m considering including. 🙂
I finished my NaNoWriMo novel yesterday, and simultaneously finished the rough copy of Blood and Stone. I’m very excited and sorely tempted to start revising it right away — I know, “they” say you should let it sit for a little while, but I don’t know if “they” are as impatient as I am.
My current plan is to go through and integrate the notes for changes I’ve got stuck on post-its all around my computer before I lose them, then I’ll put it away until it’s my turn to submit to my writing group again (two weeks from now). That’s when I’ll start revising.
In the meantime I’m starting a new erotic novel. It will be a nice break from Aphanasia, and as much as I love Aphanasia, I really need that break.
