Done stalking

In my last post I said I was stalking Duotrope's, watching one market like and eagle. Well, I heard back from them, it was a rejection but it kind of made me more excited than some of my acceptances.

It was a professional paying market that usually sends form rejections but I got a personal rejection. The rejection said the editor liked my story and gave few very specific helpful hints, and said that story had some problems with pacing. It also went on to state that I came very close to being accepted and the editor asked that I please consider sending them a story in the future.

It was actually kind of cool.

Half way there...

The weather is starting to change here, fall in Nebraska is always such an interesting time. The leaves are changing, and there is a chill in the air. It gets down into the 30s and 40s at night and during the day it warms up into the 70s and 80s. You can feel the change coming, I bet sometime within the next month we will have the first snow.

I have always loved fall, I hate being hot and once winter arrives it will get too cold to leave the house but for a few months the weather will be perfect. Of course I don't spend much time out in the weather, because fall is my favorite time to write.

I have never been able to figure out why the ideas seem to flow so smoothly around this time of year, but I love it and take advantage of it. Last year I wrote the end of of one novel and an entirely new novel between the months of September and December.

Fall is also a time for looking back, and as I stalked Doutrope's today (I have a story in at a pro paying market that has been waiting for 53 days, and when I click the new link on Doutrope's I see that they are sending out a bunch of 15-25 day rejections, I am hoping this is a good sign) I looked back at my writing career via the online database.

In three months I will have been writing for two years. In that time I have written 45 short stories and 3 novels. I have subbed these stories and novels 239 times and, including reprints, I have had 39 acceptances. I still have 12 stories and all three novels subbed out right now. I have put about 500,000 words to paper. I wonder how many words a day I have been writing on average?

Hmmm... That sounds like a project for next time I am super bored and have a hankerin' to do some math. (More than likely never)

But my point is that I had no idea I had written so many stories or that I had sent them to so many places. I just focus on the current project and forget about the rest. I have heard that you aren't ready to write a really good novel until you have written 1 million words, well it looks like I am half way there.

A Few Updates

The Pill Hill Press shoot-out is over, I ended up with a score of 29.57 which put me in second place to William Wood who had a score of 29.94. I was very excited to come in second place with such a great group of writers.

It was a confidence boost I needed, I have gotten seven short story rejections in the past week. ~sigh~

But I started using the pyramid form of sending stories out. It is where you send your stories to the highest paying markets first and then send them in to smaller markets afterward. It sounds like common sense, but before I was just sending my stories to what ever publication caught my eye rather than worry about payment.

I decided that I really want to be a member of SFWA, it is my new goal with short fiction. I really didn't expect a pro paying market to nab up one of my stories, but it would have been nice.

As I wait for the next inevitable round of rejections I started working on Godswar again. I figured out where I went wrong, and had to cut nearly 20,000 words to get back to the point where I took the wrong path, but I am writing steadily again and have gotten almost 8,000 words written in the last two weeks, a far cry from the 2,000 words I got done in the entire month of June and July.

I know where the novel is going and I have clear path set in my mind. The words are just flowing, I love that feeling.

I think the problem that I could only write once a week, and I wasn't going back to review what I had already done. So I would just read the chapter before and say "hmmm, looks like its a chase scene, and then start writing. Well, that one chase scene lasted for the entire 20,000 words I cut. It was very...um...exciting...yeah thats what I'll call it.

I started writing brief synopsis of my novel as I go. After I finish each chapter I write the synopsis of the chapter. Should make it easier when its time to edit anyway, and then if I take a break from the novel I can know what is going on.

Another Reprint

My story from Pill Hill Press' Fourhorsemen anthology has been reprinted online at Static Movement. It is a story of a family torn apart by civil war in a fantasy world. I know that sounds very dramatic but don't worry the entire thing takes place on a battle field, so there is a lot of action.

Read It Here!

Story Online

Hey all, I just had my story from Pandora's Nightmare reprinted online at Mirror Dance. So if you didn't get a chance to read it, why not check it out?

The story is called,Epimetheus' Palace. This story is about Pandora and a couple of soldiers who must return to Epimetheus' Palace years later to close Pandora's Box.

Read It Here

What's goin' on

I have been a little negligent in posting here. So what has been happening lately?

I have written three short stories for the Pink Elephant shoot-out and scored three rounds. My first story (for the bloody carnival theme) was about a possessed carnival ride, my second (for the aliens on earth theme) was a story of a group of super-heroes after the aliens have taken over the earth.

I am still waiting for the scores on round 3 before I can post about my story but eight now my average score is 14.67 which puts me in second place, first place has a score of 15.53 and there are two others who have more than 14 points. The last prompt is spell-casters which is right up my alley, but I need to come up with a story that has wide spread appeal.

My story from Pandora’s Nightmare was accept as a reprint online at Mirror Dance. This continues my goal of getting my print stories online, so that more people can read them.

Other things going on?

Well are house, for the most part, is back together. The windows are all bordered up, the glass is cleaned up and new windows are scheduled to go in. Jessy and I are planning a week long vacation so that we don’t have to be there when they are working on the house. We found a pet friendly cabin near Deadwood South Dakota, about an hour and half from home. This will be the first time we have ever taken our dogs with us on vacation, and it should eliminate a lot of the worries.

Plus, Deadwood is just a fun place. A couple dozen casinos, museums, little shops, all in a town of about 10,000 people. Our cabin also has a hot tub, playstation, tv, etc. So even if we stay in, we should have a good time.

Last week we went to see a Bob Dylan concert. My wife and my father in law LOVE Dylan so this is the the third concert I have been to. Bob Dylan's music is good so I don't mind and concerts are fun anyway. The difference with this one is that it was during the Sturgis Biker Rally.

It was standing room only and there were just too many people for me to feel comfortable. There were people touching me on all sides. People who were drinking and needed a shower.

And there were too many half dressed women for me to feel comfortable having my wife there. No matter which direction I looked there were topless women, so I spent the whole time trying not to look in any one direction too long. I knew that if I did I would hear about it later.

Jessy and I wandered off from the crowd and found a little hill we could sit on by ourselves and still see the stage. So we both ended up having fun. In the end, the music was good, but I don't want to go back to Sturgis during the biker rally.

Zero Gravity Available!

The sci-fi anthology I edited is now available: Here

This thrilling collection features thirteen fantastic adventures set in the cold vacuum of space. Read about rogues, scoundrels, aliens, robots, heroes, junkers and priests as you explore the rich and creative diversity of the following stories:

Junker’s Fancy By Rosemary Jones, Leech Run By Scott W. Baker, A Space Romance By Paul A. Freeman, Hawking’s Caution By Mark Rivett, Parhelion By David Schembri, To Stand Among Kings By Kenneth Mark Hoover, The Unicorn Tree By Alethea Kontis, The Beacon of Hope By Gregory L Norris, Tangwen’s Last Heist By C.B. Calsing, The Stand-Ins By Gef Fox, Glacier Castle By Will Morton, Rescue By Margaret Karmazin, At One Stride Comes the Dark By Murray Leeder

Some of the more well known writers include:

Rosemary Jones author of City of the Dead (Forgotten Realms), Murray Leeder author of Sons of Thunder (Forgotten Realms), Alethea Kontis New York Times bestselling children’s book author, Gregory L Norris author of The Q Guide to Buffy the Vampire Slayer and episodes of Star Trek Voyager, Paul A. Freeman author of Robin Hood and Friar Tuck: Zombie Killers(Coscom Entertainment), Kenneth Mark Hoover author of Fereblau(Five Star), Margaret Karmazin author of the novel Replacing Fiona(etreasures) and David Schembri a respected member of the Australian Horror Writers Association.