The Dreaming Space
As I said, I wrapped up my evening at a reasonable hour last night, feeling satisfied about a productive coffeehouse writing session and relaxed after treating myself to a little bedtime reading. I never spend enough time with BOOKS. I felt myself ready to go to sleep, but decided to try something. I had just [...]
Words Update
This new short story is threatening to become not-so-short. Judging by the short stories I have completed so far, I apparently like to hang in the 2-3,000-word range for a piece, but I’m past 2,000 words on this one and things haven’t even started getting strange; and they are supposed to get strange. I discovered [...]
Feeding data into the targeting computer
What I do with this Duotrope thing now depends entirely on my goals. Since it compiles statistics for both acceptance rates and response times, it would be relatively simple for me to blast my stories out to some on-line lit mags with a quick turnaround and near-non-existent standards, and thus bolster my publishing resume. More [...]
I have joined a cult
You know you have dizzyingly given yourself over to something or someone when you want to talk about it or them for an unusual portion of your time. And I am turning utterly into a lit. mag groupie. I don’t know if this is just a particularly-giddy phase of a brief fling – but considering [...]
Shameless, but well-earned, plug
Although I strive to do creative work, I tend to approach my goals regarding that work in an extremely methodical fashion. Sooner or later, some voice in my head will suggest: “You know what would help you break this down? A SPREADSHEET“. Oooh, yummy spreadsheets. Call it the whole-brained approach to the writing life. My [...]
Whatever tricks the words out
Last night I wrote on my notepad “YOU MUST WRITE TODAY. A LOT.” And I left it on top of my phone on my bedside table, so it would be the first thing I saw when I woke up today. Now I’ve written about 1,300 words of a new short story. I don’t know if [...]
Everyone needs reminding once in awhile
Tonight I was brainstorming new short story ideas, when suddenly I wrote on my legal pad in all-capital letters: “STOP LOOKING FOR A GIMMICK OR A ONE-LINER, TELL A GODDAMN STORY ALREADY”. Nice to know that will still come kicking out of my brain when needed. After I wrote that, a real idea emerged.
Campaign ’11
I have begun my new round of lit magazine submissions. My initial goal was to select 30 targets, and I ended up with 27, which feels fine. Eight submissions are done, but this is going to take a couple of evenings to finish. Four stories to spread amongst those 27, so each will get six [...]
Good for business
I’m starting to map out the next submission blitz in the lit. mag. world. It’s been about six months since my last one, and I’m going to have a stronger set of material this time around. I’ve done productive edits on Bubbles, How to Be Depressed in the Sunshine, and The Frog Boogie and I’m [...]
Maybe I should eat at his restaurant when I’m in SF next week
Today I decided to revive my membership at Zoetrope.com, Francis Ford Coppola’s website with its many subdivided writing communities and affiliated Coppola business like movies and restaurants and the winery. Since I am investing more hours in this prose fiction thing this year, it seemed like their “Short Story” wing would be a good place [...]