Always quirky, sometimes sweet speculative fiction

Category: All Write! (Page 6 of 8)

Updates on my progess towards getting published

Gala Excitement

redlitzer ticketsThe Gala night for the Redlitzer Competition is this Saturday. To say I’m excited is an understatement. It isn’t just the fancy clothes and a chance to dress up that has me all a titter though. What has me in a tizzy is that this Saturday, for the first time, I will hold a published story in my hands.

History in the making! (For me anyway, I’m sure it won’t be noted in any history books)

Since copies of the anthology are for sale there on the night and I have a bunch of friends and family keen for copies I’ll surely look quite comical on the night as I carry off a giant stack of them to my car. In my fancy dress. Which I need to finish the alterations on. Damn, time to whip out the sewing machine ;p

September Goals Round-Up

The goals again in case you were curious or can’t remember.

I spent most of September trying to edit Written By the Stars (goal 2 in my list) but essentially I’m just tinkering with sentences and getting mad. There’s something wrong with it and I can’t figure out what. I intend to ask a few people I respect from my critique group if they’d be willing to read it for me in the hopes I can find out what’s wrong or learn that I’m just being a typical picky writer.

I’ve been working some more on outlining and world building for my new first draft (goal 4) but haven’t started writing – I intend it to be my NaNoWriMo project. It’s really a fun and for once not set in an ancient world but an off-shoot of our current world – in Brisbane in fact.

Goal 5, entering and submitting more and creating short stories for such endeavours has been a bit lacking this month. I only created Kina’s Climb and I published that here on my site so can’t really submit it (but you can totally go read it 😀 ). I’d be disappointed with myself if I hadn’t already created 13 new stories so far this year and had 2 successes in submitting. Also I’m getting a lot of my submissions to the final stages, which is a sign of improvement as well.

I didn’t touch 1, or 3 or 6 again. For shame me… I really need to kick into gear on 1 and 6.

As for the added goal of learning, one has only to read my review of the Brisbane Writers’ Festival to know I showed that goal who was boss.

Etrian_Odyssey_IVNot a bad month, but not a glimmering paragon of writerly magnificence. I can do better, but I could have done worse. Particularly with Etrian Odyssey IV sitting in my 3DS calling to me(and I’m not going to lie and say I didn’t give in to its call several nights).

August Goals Round-Up

I’ve been busy with a double dose of critiquing – seven stories for my critique group on Sunday and then another twelve for a workshop I did today – so I haven’t kept up-to-date with my round-up sorry.

This last month I wrote another 8,000 words in Keys, Clocks, Quests, wrote a new flash fiction piece, and a new short story ‘The Eighteenth Soldier'(4000 words) and started a first draft for a sequel to Charming – The Glass Witch(8,000 words so far) – so plenty of creation!

Also did some more editing, working over a few different short stories (and one is finally good enough that I’ve started submitting it!) as well as some novel editing.

So I’ve made a little progress on some of the goals I realised I was lacking work on last month, but probably need to get a little less distracted by shiny new ideas and really hammer out some work on editing as that is a big thing in the goals I’ve slacked on.

On the learning side I attended a fiction masterclass with MJ Hyland at the Byron Bay Writers’ Festival which was smashing. I loved the way she interrogated some writers to help them get to the core of their story. It might at first seem brutal to be hammered with the questions, but their look of joy when the realisation dawned negated any fear from the question barrage.

I’m pretty happy with my August results and though most of my September thus far has been critiquing I’m looking forward to getting to work on edits.

Final Proof Excitement

Just a quick post to share with you all how excited I am. Seriously, it’s 6am and I’m bouncing on my toes and I haven’t even had my first tea of the morning. Why? I just sent off final proofs for my first story to be published.

For those unfamiliar with the term final proofs, that’s the very last time I get to change anything before the story is printed. The next time the story will be in my hands figuratively it will be in my hands literally!

Totally the good kind of butterflies in my stomach! Now, to go have my tea.

July Goals Round-Up

I barely escaped the time consuming grasp of this game

I barely escaped the time consuming grasp of this game

My July round-up won’t be looking too shabby. You want to know how I know? Well if I stopped playing Animal Crossing 3DS because there was no time around all this work (and didn’t feel dreadfully tempted to jump back in) then it must have been uber busy! (Oh man, my town is going to be so full of weeds)

This month I created two new short stories (‘Glass Bones’ and ‘Nightfall’ the second of which I’ve polished and am awaiting critique group feedback on (I should get that today)) and also wrote a little over 3,000 new words in Keys, Clocks, Quests finally getting the book to the big twist/game changer (it might seem like an average high fantasy quest to this point and then BAM! I love it, in case my enthusiasm wasn’t a hint). Also, after long talks with my fabulous husband decided to begin early works on a YA trilogy. It’s in the early days of hammering out a decent plot from the loose ideas I sketched a while back, but I figure if it’s interesting to TJ it must be pretty good(the benefits of having a blunt husband). I’ve also kept up strong with submissions and added another finally good enough story to my submittable list.

In learning I critiqued a lot this month in preparation for both my critique group and the MJ Hyland fiction master class (which technically I attended in August so I won’t discuss here) and I attended the ‘Getting Published’ workshop run by Annette Barlow from Allen & Unwin’s Faber Academy(you can learn a little more about that by reading my previous post on Byron Bay Writers’ Festival workshops). If you want to know what all that critiquing taught me you can check my post here.

So it was a good month, but since I’m now past the halfway mark of the year, I’m looking at the actual goals I set myself last year and I’m frowning. I have barely touched #4, only briefly dabbled with #1, every time I try #2 I throw my hands up in the air in frustration (something is wrong but I can’t seem to pinpoint it, the very definition of frustration), work on #3 has come in dribs and drabs since I seem to be blessed with a killer new idea every few thousand words I write – and the idea usually is for a different story – and #6 I really shouldn’t be struggling so much with, but I keep thinking what’s the point of a newsletter when I have so little to report right now?

I need to buckle down on some of those other goals before the time slips right through my fingers. Hopefully, next month I’ll have some good news on a few of them.

I hope your month was just as full of productivity.

Redlitzer Writers’ Day

Yesterday I enjoyed what I think is the best part of the prizes for being a Redlitzer winner – The Redlitzer Writers’ Day.

The morning started with a solid lesson on writing, dealing with structure, voice, POV and great beginnings taught by Angela Slatter. Some was familiar, some was new and some made a lot more sense when explained that way.

The afternoon saw the shortlisted stories(including mine) being critiqued by Louise Cusack, Rowena Cory Daniells, Marriane de Pierres and Angela Slatter. The feedback was amazing. You know feedback is good when you love your story even more with the new changes!

With great advice and some compliments that will keep me smiling for a good few months the day wrapped up with a Q&A panel which I’m going to share some great quotes from with you.

“Do what is says on the can.” (In reference to being a writer, a great rewording of ‘writers write’)

And

“Every author needs a wife” which sucks if you’re a woman ;p

There was plenty more, but I didn’t manage to scribble them all down. I’m fairly certain I’ll expand on those with some more posts shortly.

I want to give a huge thank you to the Redland Libraries (especially Jo-Anne, the co-ordinator) for hosting the day and creating the event, and say thank you to both Angela Slatter and Marriane de Pierres for their coaching. You were both wonderful and so helpful and I look forward to talking again soon.

The Redlitzer 2013 Anthology will be released in October 2013, I’ll keep you updated when more details become available.

June Goals Round-Up

While the temptation of games still loomed (and with a particularly deadly sting thanks to Animal Crossing 3DS) I was slightly more productive this month than last. I also experienced a fantastic success for the first time.

My success came in the form of winning my first competition. I am one of the shortlisted writers for the 2013 Redlitzer writing competition. Quite exciting, and some great prizes(including but not limited to the confidence of having won).

I have been working hard on The Troll’s Toll. After getting feedback on the first part from my writer’s group I rewrote entire chunks and changed the personality of a character (apparently I should give up trying to write demure girls, I just can’t do it without making them dish rags – probably because I’m as far from demure in real life as possible without having large amounts of testosterone coursing through my system).

I purchased a couple of exciting courses to take part in during the Byron Bay Writer’s Festival which will bring me excitingly close to where I grew up as well as improving my writing.

I’ve also been doing some reviewing on Storybook Perfect as a final check before submitting it to a manuscript development competition.

Mostly I’ve been editing, not creating much new, but editing often involves a lot more writing than you might at first expect.

Looking back on the first half of 2013, I’ve made a lot of progress as a writer, but there’s still a few of my goals I’ve barely even touched, so I better kick it up a notch in the second half.

I’m looking forward to July now and the Byron Bay Writer’s Festival and one of the parts of my Redlitzer prize: working with Marianne de Pierres, Rowena Cory Daniells, Louise Cusack and Angela Slatter on my shortlisted piece.

The Funny Thing About Flash Fiction

The announcement in the paper

The announcement in the paper

I’m quite chuffed with myself at the moment because I recently learned one of my stories has been shortlisted in the Redlitzer Writing Competition. The whole awesome name-in-the-local-paper deal and everything. Of course this brings in a tide of friends and family asking about the story that won. This taught me a funny thing about flash fiction.

I sent in a piece of flash fiction called Stolen Hearts, and because I never thought I’d have to do a summary for it (like I do for books and longer short stories) I never created one. This leads to me trying to explain a lot of what happens in the story that is subtext so people will understand what I think is so great about my story (as well as what happens).

Of course, by the time I’m done saying all that I’ve very nearly taken up as much time as I would have if I’d just handed the 1,000 words over to them.

In flash fiction so much is implied and hinted at that a reader will usually glean for themselves, so a thorough description of the story exceeds the length of the piece itself.

I could always just give people the story I suppose, but I’d rather get as many people as possible to check out the anthology when it is released 😀 You can be sure I’ll let you know when it’s available.

May Goals Round-Up

And STILL from a duct-taped together laptop.

I blame YOU sir, for this.

I blame YOU sir, for this.

You know how the last few months my goal round-up posts have been all ‘woe is me, I did nothing’ but then I look at the list and think, you know, actually I did a fair amount really.

This wasn’t one of those months.

I can make excuses like my terror of my laptop simply never switching on again (I am scared every time I close the lid) or the fact that instead of only working a couple of days a week I was working almost full time filling in for my boss while she jetted off to her honeymoon in Bora Bora (geeze, some people, right? ;p ), but really, I know I could have beaten the time out of somewhere because I managed to find some time to play video games.

And don't think you're off the hook, missy, you're partly to blame also.

And don’t think you’re off the hook, missy, you’re partly to blame also.

At least I didn’t do nothing. I took another Holly Lisle course, this time her ‘How To Write Flash Fiction That Doesn’t Suck’ course which reminded me of something I’ve been forgetting to do in my fiction a bit of late. If you’re ever looking for good writing courses I strongly recommend Holly Lisle’s courses, they are comprehensive and brilliant.

I also picked back up an old project I’ve been toying with for almost two years now, a book written in blog form which I still have no idea if I’ll ever get to publishing (it would be free to read online if I ever commit properly to it). I re-read the old work, wrote some more and tinkered with the outline.

Now, to learn from my mistakes and make June a more productive month.

April Goals Round-Up From A Duct-Taped Laptop

all that's keeping my poor baby together :(

all that’s keeping my poor baby together 🙁

You may have noticed a rather long radio silence from me. Normally I have back-up posts so I don’t go more than a week without posting, however, when a wild toddler throws your computer on the ground and it falls to pieces that tends to render any computer based actions impossible without either repair or replacement.

Since there’s no money for replacement, behold, my duct tape repaired laptop.

(yeah, yeah, there’s a desktop in another room, but it’s at the far end of the house closeted away from the family so I can’t keep an eye on Xander while I’m on it. That and it’s a desktop… ewwww)

We also went to Supanova Gold Coast and here's Xander dressed at the eleventh Doctor in front of the Hire a Tardis

We also went to Supanova Gold Coast and here’s Xander dressed at the eleventh Doctor in front of the Hire a Tardis

Anyway, on with my progress report on my goals. This month was definitely my worst so far, but that probably has something to do with the fact that my other months all kicked ass. Plus, one poor month does not a year destroy – I just have to make sure I get back on my game, and by game I mean put down my 3DS and the inserted copy of Fire Emblem which has consumed all my spare time for the later half of the month (damn you awesome video games – you get me every time). I can’t entirely blame Fire Emblem and the sheer awesomeness of that game, manga is to blame too. I re-read three series this month(High School Debut, Fushigi Yugi Genbu Kaiden and Butterflies, Flowers for anyone curious).

So, I did manage to complete my novelette The Troll’s Toll and a sweet little follow-up short Petrified Lips. I also wrote a follow up for Charming which follows Hannah, it has no title yet and is still a little rough – not to mention the fact the computer kept not saving my ending. It is soooooo frustrating to write the same ending five times and always be wondering if one of the other lost ones was perhaps that tiny bit better than this one.

I also did some more tinkering in Storybook Perfect book 2 as I continue trying to wrangle the chopped in half remnants of the old second half into a book two. The start is very stilted, I need to add a good starting chapter and then figure out a smooth order for the following few chapters. There seem to be more rewrites involved than I had at first anticipated. At least the first book is looking good and is out waiting on an agent’s reply right now. So I’m making headway on goal #1 at least.

On goal 5 I haven’t submitted a lot this month because most of it is already out and waiting for responses or still needs work, but I have been told one of my stories is on the shortlist for a very cool magazine – so not a guaranteed in, but definitely a vote of confidence in the quality of that story, particularly since I thought I might have been aiming a little high by submitting it ;p

Also did some research for the Redlitzer (a local writing competition) by buying the anthology of previous winners and reading it. I’ve figured out what the judges seem to like, but I’m just not getting any inspiration. Sadly that’s about all the ‘learning’ I did.

I was still creating plenty, but didn’t do much else. Except for reading manga and playing video games. Oh, and I suppose I still did all that mothery, housewifey stuff too ;p how did you all go?

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