An Acceptance

I just got an acceptance letter from Bards & Sages Quarterly.

WHOOP! WHOOP!

Is it still cool to whoop, whoop? I don't know anymore, at 34 I am starting to find I am past the age of knowing what is cool.

Hmmm…

Better question. Was it ever cool to whoop, whoop?

I'll have to look into that…anyway, its time for a short story update.

First, I will have a story in the January 2014 issue of Bards & Sages. The last couple of years it would have been kind of depressing to get my first story accepted in August. But this year I did not write my first short story until July so an acceptance letter a month later is actually pretty good.

With my limited writing time this year with the babies and school I have been working on novels whenever I get a chance to write. But we were on vacation for the 4^th of July and the urge struck me one night in the hotel room and by the time we got home I had two short stories in need of editing (which took me another few weeks). The story still in submission was over 8,000 words long, by far my longest short story.

I tried to approach the idea for that one like I would a novel, which was something new for me. The last year or so I have been using a loose outline for novels and discovery writing short stories. We'll see how this works. For me, short stories are always more about experimenting with different styles and techniques than the actually story. It was nice to play around a little with a couple of different styles.

Finally, for those of you wondering, yes; I still have a story I wrote for the last PHP shoot out in submissions somewhere too. I just received a 249 day rejection, did an edit and found a new place. I have to admit I was getting a little antsy for a reply on that one.

I started this blog to give updates on my writing, both shorts and novels, and it is nice to actually have something to report other than "I wrote another chapter this week" or "I am still working on my novel". Maybe I should write more short stories.

 

An Acceptance and a New Writing Style

I got an acceptance to Bards & Sages Quarterly. The Last Dragon will be appearing in their December issue. Off the top of my head I think this is my fifth story accepted by them. If you are a fantasy writer looking for a place to send a short story I can’t recommend them enough, the editors are great to work with and they put out a professional looking product that you can be proud of.

My current novel is coming along nicely. I just hit the 20,000 word mark. Everything seems to be flowing a lot easier this time. So I am asking myself what is different about my process this time. The only thing I can think of is the outline/plotting process. I wrote my first couple of novels with no outline, these were fun stories but lacked structure. The plot ambled along, going this way and that, until the end came out of nowhere (a lot like most of my blogs).

I wrote my next novel with a very rigid outline. The novel plugged along but writing it just wasn’t any fun. It took me about twice as long to finish the novel. And I really think you can tell that I didn’t even like the story or the characters by the time I got to the end. And to be honest I can’t remember how the thing ended. I can tell you all kinds of details about the novel I finished in 2009 but the one I finished a few months ago is a mystery. I think that really says something about me and rigidly structured writing.

This time I have an outline, but I am allowing the story to go where it wants and then I write a new outline whenever I need to. It is much more organic, providing structure without hampering my creativity. I think I may have finally found a way to write that really suits me and what I need as a writer. Of course I won’t know for sure until I finish novel but I can say that this writing process is making me a lot more productive.

In other news, that is only vaguely writing related, the summer reading program starts on Saturday. This is the busiest time of year for a children’s librarian. Last year we had just over two hundred kids sign up for the program, I am hoping for more this year.

The last day of the program is July 13th. The doctors say that I will be a dad on August 22nd, but there is a very good chance that it will be a month or so earlier than that since we are having twins. So it might be awhile before I can squeeze in any blog posts or writing time to find out if I actually did find “my writing style”.

I'm a Winner!

To quote thier website: Our Annual Readers' Choice Awards highlights the best stories in each issue of The Bards and Sages Quarterly as chosen by our readers.  Upon the release of the October issue, we start polling our readers for their votes. 

My story won the Best Story of the April issue. I am very honored to win, there were some really great stories in this issue. HERE is the offical announcement. A big thank you to everyone who voted!

Bards & Sages April

The April issue of Bards & Sages Quarterly is out. My humorous fantasy story, Thornpicker & Nab appears in this issued. It was a really fun story, that I wrote on the fourth of July while I waited to go see the fireworks. Of course the story has nothing to do with fireworks or the fourth of July with the possible exception of Wizbang, a famous home brewed liquor in my fantasy land. The story is about a reluctant necromancer, the rules of conquering, and a little goblin.

Check it out!

Bards & Sages

The new issue of Bards & Sages Quarterly is out. My story Goblin Errant will appear in this issue. This story has place close to my heart. It is very short only about 700 words, I wrote it on whim as I tried to write a novel. It was the first short story I ever wrote that wasn't for a school assignment. I sent it in to be published without really thinking that it would be. This ended up being my first acceptance that started my short fiction writing career. The story like most of my flash fiction is a fantasy parody.

Buy It Here!

An Acceptance

I got another acceptance to Bards & Sages Quarterly. That makes three of my fantasy stories that will be published in the magazine. I'm super excited!!!

This story The Technician should be appearing in the July 2010 issue, if I make some edits, but there should be plenty of time between now and then.

I didn't realize it but every story I sent them has goblins in it. I'll have to send them some of my other stories so they don't think that the only thing I write about is goblins.