First, Samuel Montgomery-Blinn, editor of Bull Spec, was nice enough to mention me in a list of, well, authors I don’t belong in a list with, but hey, here it is.  He’s really doing a stand up job of promoting local authors (if you’re in want of some good reading, I recommend picking up a copy of Bull Spec).

My other mention comes from the Writer’s of the Future contest… and it’s a mention of the honorable sort.  Seems I made the Q4 Honorable Mention list for From Alexandra to Amberglow. It’s both an honor and an indication that I’ve still got a lot of ground to cover if I want to play with the big boys.  It also means that Amberglow should find a good home, hopefully sometime soon.

Well, there goes 2010.  I hit 30 (complete with trip to Vegas!), my daughter turned 2, and I got to cruise around Europe for a week.  That alone makes for a pretty solid year.

Writing wise, I started the year with a simple goal:  Get some story published somehow somewhere.  Well, my first story was scooped up in a relative hurry (Passerby), so, of course, I decided to alter my goal:  Get published in one of those fancy magazines that seems to get nominated for stuff (be it Fanzine, Semi-Pro, or Pro).  Well, that didn’t happen.  So, while I should be happy that I hit my goal… I’m not quite happy because I didn’t hit my goal (right?).

All in all, my writing output was actually down a bit this year.  Most of what I sold or completed were things I began in 2009.  I really plan to step up my writing a bit this coming year, but its another one of those ‘if I find the time’ items.  In fact, 2011 is supposed to be the start of a new (and final) revision of my novel… but I’m still not sure I’m ready for it.  I have two short stories that must be finished, and another two that are really begging to be started.

The most important thing is that I need to keep improving.  Which, unfortunately, seems to be a slow crawl as of late.  I think it’s pretty similar to a ‘workout plateau’ – I saw tremendous gains in the first year or so, but, as I’ve gotten a few basics down, those leaps and bounds have been replaced with a few shuffling steps.  I’m not sure if there’s a writing workshop or the like in my future, but if there needs be, then there needs be.

Here we go 2011, be… productive…

Interested in what I’m working on?  Well, be interested no longer!

(…wait, that came out wrong…)

What I’m working on:

First, the stories in my ‘active’ pile.  The Newly Sighted, my, let’s say, ‘blind monk’ fantasy story is before my writers group.   Very positive feedback thus far, though I’m not happy with the ending, so that is something I plan to revisit before submitting it anywhere.

The other is We Oddlings, a Sci-Fi galaxy colonization story that’s still in the rough draft phase.  It’s based on a flash fiction piece I wrote earlier in the year.  The original story has the narrator jumping all over the place in time as he tells the tale (first person):  I’m still debating if I want to keep it this way or go a little more ‘straight-thru’ with it.

To be Reviewed:

The Pale Farmer, Stranded (with Porkchop), and The Watchmaker’s Gift could all stand to go before a review group.  The Pale Farmer, a (hopefully) humorous flash fiction piece, has been well received in submissions (making it to the final steps in Flash Fiction Online and Andromeda Spaceways Inflight Magazine), but just hasn’t found a home.  I have thoughts of turning this into a longer story, and actually began a second scene to it a long while back.

Stranded (with Porchop) and The Watchmaker’s Gift were both winners in the SFFWorld flash fiction contests (not to cause confusion, the contest is really just a feedback venture – it’s not a contest to get published or anything).  Stranded, as you can imagine, is another humor piece.  It was received very well (more votes than I’ve ever seen in the flash contests).  Yet, it’s compiled the most rejections for any of my stories (eight) over the past year.  I really don’t understand that one.  Is it because humor is a hard sell?  Is it its awkward length (1,100 words:  not quite flash, but not quite short story)?  Or is it just not good enough?  I’m going to hold off submitting it again until it goes through a writing group review.

Finally, The Watchmaker’s Gift, a steam punk turtle story (wow these things are hard to describe in a few words), has not been submitted anywhere yet.  I’m still undecided if it should remain a flash fiction story, and there is a section in the middle that needs a major overhaul.  However, it is definitely a story that I will finish before the year is out.

Rough Drafts I Plan on Completing at Some Point in Time:

Oasis, Other Sister, and Sunchasers all exist as a half complete rough draft.  I would love to complete all three, but, the fact is, I plan to (finally) work on my novel the start of next year.  Which means, given the pace of my current writing (slow), I likely have enough time for only one of the three (if that).

Oasis is my post-apocalypse story, which started off as the flash fiction story Full Circle (recently published in Every Day Fiction).  Oddly, the scene and concept (electronically animated corpses) from the flash fiction story has been completely cut from Oasis.  The main character (and a few minor details) are all that has survived from the original.

Oasis currently sits at 6,000 words, and, I would guess is only about half complete.  I really enjoy where this story is going.  However, given the amount of work still to go, coupled with the fact that I would have an extremely hard time getting the story published due to length, this is really starting to feel like something I’ll pick up again at a much later date.

Other Sister is a horror story that has a particularly creepy opening, but then seems to fall flat afterwards.  I’ve come to the conclusion that the following scenes need to go even darker, but I’m not quite sure I’m up to the task.  It would be a fun challenge though, and I’d really love that opening…

Finally, Sunchasers, a story about a nomadic tribe living on a planet that rotates extremely slow.  The rough draft on this one is pretty well complete, it just needs a lot of clean up.  I’ve also written it two different ways:  one on a slowed Earth with human protagonists, and another on a different planet with alien protagonists.  And I’m not sure which idea I like better.  That’s currently the only thing preventing this story from being the obvious choice of the three to complete.

To the Trunk:

I have a few stories that I’ve realized just don’t work in their current form (be that length, tone, what have you).  They go to ‘the trunk’:  That folder where they will sit for a long while, maybe rearing their head at a future time, maybe to have chunks stolen for another story, or maybe to never be heard from again.

Patchwork Melody, the first flash fiction story I ever wrote, is one such.  It’s got a cool concept (I think), in that each memory requires knowledge from a prior memory in order for it to exist.  I’m not sure this story will ever see the light of day again, but I think the concept will live on someday, somehow.

Anomaly is another flash fiction story, this one utilizing a ‘telephone conversation’ style: it’s all dialogue, but you can only see one side of the conversation.  The other side of the conversation is represented by binary code – a computer program talking.    I knew this story’s issues even before I began to submit it:  it’s too short.  The telephone conversation works, but not as a whole, stand alone piece.  The dilemma I have is how to extend this story.  I can’t make the conversation bit any longer, or, I feel, it would really start to become slow, and, well, annoying for the reader.  Which means I need to follow the character on the human side of the conversation through a few scenes as well.  But, I’m not sure I’d like to follow him, due to his broken childish speech.  Which then leaves open the option of bringing in another character to tell the tale, but I haven’t figured out who that character should be.  So, into the trunk with you.

In Submission:

Finally, we come to the stories currently in submission:  The Arkan Stone, Barren Sky, From Alexandra to Amberglow, and Joe Evolves.  Only four in total, which is much lower than usual.  I had 10-11 stories in submission earlier in the year, but, due to stories accepted, my lack of new finished stories to take up their place, and a few placed in the trunk, this is all that’s out there.

I have high hopes for The Arkan Stone, which seems to have a real chance at a pro-paying ‘zine.  I’m hoping to hear back within the next month, but this one sale would take what I think has been a pretty good year and make it, frankly, amazing.  Barren Sky is actually on hold at that very same ‘zine, but I’d say it is the much less likely of the two to be published.

From Alexandra to Amberglow could be my strongest story thus far.  As such, I’ve really shot for the moon, submitting to the ‘Writers of the Future’ contest.  If I could somehow manage an honorable mention, I’d be floored.

And, to wrap it up, there’s the flash piece Joe Evolves, which is currently in the final selection phase for, what is, unfortunately, the final issue of Flash Me Magazine.  Really bummed to see a flash-dedicated magazine go on hiatus, given that there are so few; not to mention that they seemed to like my stuff (this will be story 3 out of 3 submissions that have made it at least past the initial screening).

May… hmm.  Not too much to add about the past month.  I had one or two more ‘almosts’, but no acceptances to show for the month.  And not too much in the way of new writing either.  My new flash piece turned out pretty well, but I spent the majority of the month buttoning up a bunch of half finished or otherwise in-need-of-editing stories.  All in all, I suppose that means it was productive, but it doesn’t quite feel that way.

I have, however, found two beta readers for my book (working title “Mind’s Eye”).  If everything goes according to plan, I’ll spend the latter half of this year putting the thing in some sort of a publishable state.  In the meantime, I plan to keep at the short story game.  I’m having a bit of trouble keeping up with my ideas at the moment, and have abandoned some half-completed stories along the way.  I think it means that I need to be more selective about the ideas I choose to fully flesh out. 

Also, one piece of recommended reading for you:
“The Freedom” by K M Lawrence

Also, also:  My site shall be in some state of disrepair over the next week or so as I attempt to spiff it up a bit.

Well, the last rewrite request didn’t go so well – it seems I managed to take my existing story and… crapificate it.  Maybe I tried to change too much?  Maybe I should have used a scapel instead of hitting the thing over the head with a shovel?  Maybe I shouldn’t use words like “crapificate”?

In any event, I just received a rewrite request for another flash piece of mine.  I’m really hoping to capitalize on this one.  Actually, that’s not what I wanted to mention about the rewrite request.  It’s this, the last line from the personal rewrite request – ‘In any case, I’d like to see more from you.’  Perhaps its just a standard line (well, certainly I would think that the two ‘zines that have picked up my other stories would also ‘like to see more.’).  But I feel so… solicited.  And I like it.

Before I go, one final bit of ‘Recommended Reading’ (yes, a whopping one story… but its a good one, I swear…):
“The Spaces Between Things” by Matthew Kressel – Electric Velocipede

Now to finally fill out that ‘About Me’ page that I’ve been avoiding like the plague.

Well, it appears I let a month slip by with no updates.  Not that there has been much to update:  I had one rewrite request for a flash story, and have another on hold (at a pro-’zine no less)… but as to the other stories?  They’re still floating.  They’re in the lovely ‘pending’ zone, but are all at or near their respective magazines’ average response times.  Which, I think, tends to be a good thing.  If you get a response in less than a week… well, those never seem to be the sort of responses you’re looking for…

So, while I can’t update on any new acceptances of mine, how about a few choice stories from my reading over the past week?
“The Times That Bleed Together” by Paige  Gardner – Flash Fiction Online
“She’s a Biter” by Stephanie Kincaid – Everyday Fiction
“Galatea’s Stepchildren” by Sam S. Kepfield – The Future Fire

Check ‘em out, check out others on that site, or check out others still from the ‘zines I have listed on my links page.  These are just a few that piqued my interest – I plan (plan) to add a few more to the list each month.