Blog Post No. 515
My first story submission to an open call was rejected. I’m not surprised. I wrote it last minute, it was for a horror collection, and I struggled to make the story any scarier than intense. It would have been nice if it had made the cut, though. I was happy with the idea, if the execution was a bit lacking. Plus, even though it wasn’t a big payday or anything, the little bit of extra cash would have been a tiny boon to my current focus on financial goals.
Blog Post No. 509
Just before I started to get back into editing the Invasion Novel (see last week’s post for details) I finished off a short story that I was writing for the specific purpose of submitting to an open call. Christian has had so many good things to say about Eerie River Publishing (the publisher that released Infested) and he’s been doing so well with selling short stories, that I was inspired to submit to one of Eerie River’s Open Calls. The thing is, it’s a horror publisher and the open call is for a horror story. Which would be great if I wrote horror stories.
Blog Post No. 507
Back when Adventure Worlds was just a blog for some want-to-be writers to post stories as we practiced our writing, the original group was about on the same footing. Christian probably written the most up to that point on a separate blog, but none of us had anything published, self pub or otherwise. That was back in 2013, nearly a decade ago. Continue reading “The Longer Path”
Blog Post No. 469
My main project at the moment is editing the fifth novella in the Synthetic Albatross Series, Snow From a Distant Sky. Like the last two books Broadcast Wasteland and Break/Interrupt, I wrote the first draft in a mad sprint. Broadcast was started in September but seeing as it went long, I bumped Break up to August. (It ran even longer, so it was good that I gave it the extra month). This time, I actually managed to get the first draft of Snow in before the end of August and I somehow kept it from ballooning out of control. Continue reading “Update: Snow From a Distant Sky”
Blog Post No. 455
I’ve been working on the fifth novella, Snow from a Distant Sky, for a couple of weeks now and I have to say, I’ve enjoyed getting back into writing. I’ve been editing since I finished Break/Interrupt last September. I went right from editing the fourth novella into editing the Invasion Novel. I kind of wish I would have forced myself to write a short story or two in between the two big edits. Not just because I need to get back to working on shorts in general, but as a bit of a pallet cleanser. I had all kinds of plans to write some shorts and wasn’t able to get it done. Continue reading “Writing a Book for the Second Time”
Blog Post No. 443
I’ve picked myself up off the floor, dusted my myself off, and gotten back to work. It’s only a start, but I feel like I’m rebuilding the routine with editing the Invasion Novel. I’ve said it many times, but routine is everything to my productivity. With a good routine, I can get a lot of work done with time to spare. I still have to get back into the daily workouts. As little as they were, I felt good getting at least that much done regularly, and having the novel and novella to write helped me keep at it (and vice versa). Getting a little exercising in helps with sitting in front of the computer for hours at a time, too. It’s nice to feel like I’m building some steam again, but I’m not necessarily out of the woods. Continue reading “Morning, Noon, and Night”
Blog Post No. 441
The time has come. No more dragging my feet. It’s the first week of may and I have only three months before I’m planning on starting the fifth novella (and last one for a while). I have to start the second draft of the Invasion Novel. I had intended to spend the time between releasing Break/Interrupt and now working on short stories, but I found myself struggling to do anything productive in the last few weeks. Maybe it was burnout from the final push of getting the novella out. Maybe it was the stress from the inevitable mistakes that I had to scramble to fix at the last minute. Maybe it was distributing the book to folks around the county in the middle of a pandemic, or the cost with no chance of making the money back in the current climate, or the general weight of being isolated. Continue reading “Tackling the Monster”
Blog Post No. 435
With all hands on deck working to finish Break/Interrupt by next week, there it’s anything else going on for me to talk about. Since I’m still hiding at home, I don’t even have the day job to complain about or regular excursions around the city on which to muse. I’m always excited to get to the end of a project, but I seem extra eager for this one. Since time in the pandemic is so weird, it’s felt like I’ve been writing and editing this thing for a year and not the eight months it’s really been. Wow, it’s only been eight months. Also strange to think about. Continue reading “Searching for a Topic”
Blog Post No. 430
If you missed last week’s post, I wouldn’t be surprised because it wasn’t terribly popular. They can’t all be winners. Either way, in that post I mentioned that over the weekend I would be attempting a Virtual Writing Retreat with the Wrecking Writing crew. Starting on the Friday, we had a group chat for about an hour before logging off and getting to work on whatever projects we each had planned for the weekend. We had set a rough goal for 10am to 2pm in the day and 7 to 10pm at night. The general idea was to keep in touch over messenger and be free to take breaks or call the sessions for ourselves when we saw fit. It was as close to a real writers retreat as we could get without being together at a cottage over a weekend. Continue reading “Virtual Writing Retreat”
Blog No. 368
I had to go into work on Monday. I usually get the day off and make up for it sometime over the weekend. The shift started later in the morning, so I went for breakfast at one of the places I wrote about earlier in the year. I enjoy taking my time at meals, and I had plenty. The restaurant was empty when I went in. It was a rainy morning and they had some quiet music playing that matched the mood. The songs were familiar, but nothing I’d heard before. I was served right away and sat with my coffee looking out the window at the wet street. Continue reading “A Little True Story”
Ben Van Dongen 