Milehicon and Other News

Milehicon- We just got notice that our payment has been recieved and we are offically registered to go to Milehicon in Denver at the end of October. This is out first convention and we are excited.

Work- I got the promotion at work and we have finally filled the open jobs. I have Saturdays off again, yay! Today I went through submissons for Shadows and Light but I should be able to start writing again next weekend.

Shadows and Light- We are offically 5/8 of the way full, and I can't beleive the quality of the submissons we are getting. I am baised but I think every story we have accepted is amazing. I can't wait to get it to the printers.

Novel- I really need to come up with a title for the novel I am currently working on. I just broke 60,000 words and I think I have another 30,000 or so left to write.

The Lion of Solkara- My first novel has been through a major rewrite and the query has been sent, crossing my fingers.

An Acceptance

I got an acceptance into the End of Days anthology from Living Dead Press. I hope things at work calm down soon so that I can get back to writing. So far this month I have only written one short story.

Dead Worlds 3

Dead worlds 3 is available from living dead press. My short story Daybreak will appear in it. It was a fun story to write and my first horror story, and it lead to a stint of other horror stories. A slight warning, the publisher asked for action and gore, and I did my best to give him what he wanted.

I am back to writing fantasy and have just sent a sub into Through Blood and Iron, an anthology from ricasso press.

Yesterday was my day off and I pushed my way through it. I hope I did enough editing, when I try to write fast I tend to make mistakes with punctuation and grammar. I had the 2,500 word sub ready in just over two hours. That includes writing and editing, I have no idea how I finished that fast, I even had my wife look it over to see if she could find any mistakes.

The Life of a Part Time Writer

Two people at work quit this week, so I am now schedule to work six days a week until the end of August. Not necessarily a bad thing, I do have an interview for a higher paying position. But it does mean I won’t be writing any short fiction this month.

I will still work on my novel, I set myself a very manageable goal of 2500 words a week. I can’t help but fell a little disappointed, I was starting to see a lot of improvement in my writing. Writing for all the anthologies was fun, I was stretching myself to write in genres I am not usually interested in.

I still have about ten subs out, so I may still have some acceptances to write about later in the month.

As for Shadows & Light the anthology I am editing for Pill Hill Press, there should not be a problem. I don’t mind reading for a few hours every night, I usually do anyway to help put myself to sleep. I am going to have to make slight change to the guidelines.

I like reading Sci-fi but it is not what we are looking for in this anthology. So far about a third of the subs have been Sci-fi. A sci-fi element in a fantasy story would be fine but an interstellar battle between humans and aliens doesn’t really fit.

Welcome

Welcome to The Guy Who Wrote That Thing, the blog of Alva J. Roberts.

I have been writing on and off (mostly off) for a long time. I kept writing a novel. Not more than one, the same novel over and over. The farthest I ever got was Chapter 3.

But then in the summer of 2008 I decided I would write and just keep writing until it was finished. It was finished in May of 2009, it was horrible. But I hear most first novels are, and I am hoping some major editing down the road might make it a little better. (Notice that I don't say that it will make it good, at this point I think that might be impossible)

I began writing another novel almost immedately. I had set myself a writing schedule (the last 2 hours of the day before bed), and found that I was having trouble sleeping if I didn't write.

I found that some nights I just don't want to write in my novel. It was one of these nights that I found a short story I had written, for the Writer's Digest annual fiction contest. At the time it was the only short story I had. I decided to send it in to a publisher.

That was when I discovered Duotrope's Digest. I sent in that story, Goblin Errant and it was rejected(until I sent it Bards & Sages) , but I also found various themed anthologies.The idea of themed anthologies was great. They were like a writing prompt.

Now just a few months later I have seven stories accepted for publication, ten I am waiting for a response on and 52,000 words of a novel.