Final January #writemotivation wrapup

With January basically over, this will be both my final #writemotivation wrapup for the month and also my overall evaluation of my goals for the month.

1) Spend time in the first half of January analyzing my first draft of "Adrift" and time in the second half of January planning the second draft. - As discussed in previous posts, I got nowhere with this goal in January and have deferred it to February.

2) Write 25,000 words of new fiction including at least one new short story. - I crossed 16,000 words of fiction writing on the 29th and I'll probably end up somewhere close to 17,000 by the end of the 31st. This has me at pace for 200,000 words on the year. I feel fairly good about where this ended up even though I was about 33% short of the goal itself.

3) Keep all my writing routines -- Seinfeld Chain, blogging schedule, etc. - As of tonight, this is done. Just a quick reminder, there will be no Wednesday or Friday posts this week as February is starting and I'll be switching to a Monday, Thursday, Sunday routine.

4) On 1/31, have one non-time-sensitive blog post written and ready for future use on a day when I'm not able to post something "new." - This is complete.

5) Submit one or more short stories for the first time this month. - Done. So I've completed the entire "Write 1/Sub 1" goal for the month.

It's been nice getting the support from #writemotivation folks throughout the month. I'm looking forward to seeing what we'll have cooked up for March.

Sunday Links: January 29, 2012 Edition

I was gone most of the day and I'm not feeling well tonight, so this is going to be brief.

"What I've Learned From 2 Days As An Editor" (Chris Bissette) - Chris reflects on first lessons from working as an editor for his university's literary society. A nice look at someone first experiencing the "other side" of the writer/editor relationship.

"On Monsters: An Unnatural History of Our Worst Fears" (Interview with Stephen Asma from All Sides with Ann Fisher) - I heard part of this interview on the radio recently and thought it might be of interest to people writing fantasy and horror fiction.

"10 Writing 'Rules' We Wish More Science Fiction and Fantasy Authors Would Break" (Charlie Jane Anders at io9) - As I've talked about in other blog posts, not all writing rules are hard and fast -- in fact, most of them are not! This article talks about some of the rules that the writer would like to see followed less strictly.

Additionally, here's a recap of the posts from this week on my blog:

"Emily Casey Interview" - I interviewed Emily Casey about her debut novel "The Fairy Tale Trap" and the process of writing it.

"#writemotivation Weekly Wrapup" - As part of the #writemotivation project, I wrote up results on my January goals. I'll do a final wrapup for the month Monday 1/30.

"Bonus Tuesday Post: Other Lists of Favorite Movies" - Since there was some interest on Twitter in seeing additional "favorite movie" lists I had written up in the past but not publicly posted, I went ahead and put those in a blog post.

"Forward to Feburary: Blog Schedule Update and Goals" - I talked about my plans for February, including an adjustment in my weekly blogging schedule

"Writing to Prompts and Themes" - Friday, I talked about the pros and cons of writing stories directed towards prompt/themed issues and contests.

Thanks, as always, for stopping by to check out the links.

Writing to Prompts and Themes

Lots of short fiction publications stick to specific styles or genres of fiction. But there are also some which focus, either typically or occasionally, on prompts or particular themes. Writing for these can be great, especially if you've been feeling stuck recently. But there can be some things you might want to consider before you begin a story geared for one of those markets.

Forward to February - Blog Schedule Changes & Goals

With the (possibly temporary) removal of the Dissecting the Short Story feature from my blogging calendar, I'm going to be making changes to when I post starting in February. My new schedule will be general posts every Monday and Thursday and then my weekly Links post on Sunday.

Also, looking forward to February, I wanted to plan out my goals for the month.

Bonus Tuesday Post - Other Lists of Favorite Movies

I was talking with someone on Twitter earlier today about favorite/top movie lists and mentioned that I had made a list of my favorite dozen movies of 2000-2009 a while back. He asked if it was available to read somewhere, but it's buried in Facebook notes.

Since there was some interest in my 2011 movie lists (part one, #10-6 and part two, #5-1) I figured I'd go ahead and make this available for everyone to read.

A couple of prefatory points:

1. I don't see that many movies. So if you look at these lists and say "Hey, why isn't such-and-such movie on the list?" it may very well be because I never saw it.
2. I'm copying-and-pasting the text straight out of the Facebook notes, as written in late 2009 (films 12-5) and early 2010 (films 4-1).

Now, for the lists...

#writemotivation Weekly Wrapup

In January, as part of the #writemotivation project, I'll be blogging every Monday about how things are going with my writing goals. I'm glad to hear that we're looking at keeping #writemotivation going in future months. Though this hasn't been the best month for me, I know that it's a long year and a long career and a so-so month isn't a disaster.

Emily Casey Interview

Emily Casey recently released her debut novel, The Fairy Tale Trap. It's the first in a projected series featuring Ivy Thorn. Emily's doing a blog tour along with the release of the book and I'm pleased to be able to present an interview with her as part of the tour.

Michael Haynes: From looking at your website, I see that The Fairy Tale Trap is the first novel you've released. You mention some other works including one that's in "a drawer somewhere" -- is this the first novel that you have written to completion?
Emily Casey: The Fairy Tale Trap is the fourth book I've completed. The earlier books were the practice I needed to find my writing voice and style, and learn a few things about the craft. "The drawer somewhere" is a folder on my computer of old fiction. :)

Sunday Links: January 22, 2012 Edition

Most of Sunday has passed already, but there are still links to be shared.

First off, if you're looking for an opportunity to experience the editorial side of short fiction, Shimmer is looking for new slush readers.  Everyone I've talked to who has done slush reading has said that they have learned a lot from it. I was tempted to apply for this myself, but I think I'm going to pass for now because I'm already struggling to meet my current writing goals. The editor estimated this would take about five hours a week of a person's time. So, if this is something you're interested in, I'd urge you to check out the details at the link above.

Without any further ado, here are the other writing-related links which I've come across this week that I wanted to share with you all...

Dissecting the Short Story: "Observations on a Clock" by D. Thomas Minton

As mentioned on Wednesday, this will be the final post for now in my Dissecting the Short Story series. Remember that I won't be shy about including spoiler material in this analysis, so if you have a copy of this magazine, it might be worth your time to read it first before reading the bulk of this post.

Story:
"Observations on a Clock" by D. Thomas Minton
Published in:
February, 2012 Asimov's Science Ficton
Approximate Length:
2200 words
Presentation:
Third Person, Chronological
Summary [WARNING: Spoilers Included!]:

Dissecting the Short Story Preview and Update

First, the update. The Dissecting the Short Story feature will be going away temporarily starting in February.

I'm planning on making some other tweaks to my blogging routine starting in February, but since I was already going to be talking about Dissecting the Short Story today, I figured now was as good a time as any to make this particular announcement.

I'm not sure yet if the removal of Dissecting the Short Story from the routine will be a temporary or permanent change. Another possibility is that I may bring it back later, but in a different form. If you're interested in providing any feedback on the feature, feel free to do so, as I had always hoped it would be a bit more interactive than it has been. Thoughts on how to improve it would be welcome.

Friday I'll write about "Observations on a Clock" by D. Thomas Minton. It's in the February 2012 issue of Asimov's Science Fiction, if you're interested in reading it in advance of the discussion on Friday.

Top 10 Films of 2011 (#1-5) & #writemotivation Weekly Wrapup

Last week I posted the bottom half of my list of my 10 favorite films that I saw for the first time last year. Note that these are films from all years -- I've only seen nine 2011 releases, so I literally couldn't make a Top 10 list for 2011 itself! These are all films that I could recommend with few or no reservations.

5) Murder He Says (1945) - Fred MacMurray stars in a wild comedy about a pollster with the Trotter poll service who stumbles into a mess when he comes across a dangerous rural family while looking for a missing coworker. Nonsense rhymes, missing money, and more.

4) The Uninvited (1944) - Ray Milland and Ruth Hussey star as brother and sister who movie into a seaside house only to discover that there's a reason it was for sale. This is a fantastic haunted house movie with one of my favorite visual effects from all of the movies I watched this year. (It involves a flower sitting on a table.)

3) True Grit (2010) - The Coen Brothers create a new adaptation of Charles Portis' novel starring Jeff Bridges, Hailee Steinfeld and Matt Damon. I've still not seen the John Wayne original, so I can't compare the two adaptations, but this one was a well-made movie with a lot of humor and great performances.

2) Dial M For Murder (1954) - Ray Milland shows up twice in my top five for 2011. In this Alfred Hitchcock thriller, he shares the screen with Grace Kelly. Something I didn't realize until putting together this list was that this film was originally intended to be released in 3-D!

1) Kuroneko (1968) - The film center at OSU showed a double-bill of two Kaneto Shindo movies one night this summer. The first was Onibaba, which I'd heard of before. The second was Kuroneko, based in part on Japanese legends of ghosts of wronged people. And like with the double-bill of Malick movies I mentioned last week, the film I was primarily interested in ended up being my second favorite. I was very glad when a Criterion DVD of this was released late last year. I need to make some time soon to re-watch this, my favorite of the 67 movies I watched for the first time in 2011.

In January, as part of the #writemotivation project, I'll be blogging every Monday about how things are going with my writing goals. Here's how things are looking so far, about 1/2 of the way through the month.

Sunday Links: January 15, 2012 Edition

Somehow I have managed to keep forgetting to share a bit of good news. I've had a poem accepted for publication in an issue later this year of Bete Noire. I was very pleased to get this acceptance as this was a little piece that's gotten good reception in the past but just not found a home. Now, it has!

A new market has opened today for people interested in writing science fiction and fantasy. It's Goldfish Grimm's Spicy Fiction Sushi; it's a token-paying market but a pretty decent "token" at $10 for flash and $25 for longer stories.

I've been struggling a bit with the writing this week. I think it's partly been that a couple of the pieces I'm working on right now are ones that I feel are going to need some rather major revisions after their first drafts and I just haven't really been able to get into a "groove" with them. I know that can happen from time to time, but it would sure be nice to sit down one day soon and crank out a couple thousand easy-feeling words...

I hope that the writing week has been treating everyone well, and that the coming week is even better!

Now, for some links!

The Seinfeld Chain Revisited

This is going to be the 100th post on my blog and I thought it would be a good time to look back at one of my most popular posts "The Seinfeld Chain."

If you're not familiar with the concept, the idea is simple... You set a goal for something that you're going to do every day. In my case, that's write 500 words. Then, each day when you meet that goal, you put an X on a calendar. After a few days, you have a chain. And then, in the words of comedian Jerry Seinfeld, your job is simple. "Don't Break The Chain!"

I officially started my chain on September 1st, 2011. As you can see below, I've been able to keep the chain going on a regular basis. Each box through yesterday has a nice little X in it. (EDITED TO ADD: Someone asked me in the comments where I get the calendar templates. I get them from this site: http://myboatclub.com/2012/avycalendar2012_Month.htm.)

134 days and counting!

More about how I use the Chain past the jump...

There ARE Wrong Ways

So, I had reason to be thinking about parenting this afternoon and how lots of people handle different parenting situations in different ways and that lots of times it's hard to objectively say that there's one right way. But that's not the same as saying that there's no such thing as a wrong way. Reasonable people can differ on something like exactly what age it's OK to let a child walk half a block down a quiet suburban street to a friend's house. (And, in fact, it would be hard to argue that there was an exact age that you could say for this for all kids. Some kids might be ready to do this at age Y, others at age Y+2.)

But, if you're still walking your child down to their friend's house five houses down and they're sixteen years old and there isn't some major mitigating factor, you're probably being overprotective, right? Similarly, if you've got a four year old, letting them go scampering along a busy thoroughfare unprotected is also probably not such a hot idea.

Just because there isn't one right answer does not mean that there are no wrong answers. And -- OK, you probably saw where I was going here -- this applies to writing, too.

There are all sorts of things in writing where there isn't a definitive right way. Some people are fine as "pantsers" (writing without much planning in advance) others are fine as "plotters." Some other people can work either way with ease.

But there are things that you can do as a writer where you really are "doing it wrong" -- ignoring the guidelines for submission to a publisher, for one thing. Blatantly ripping off another story, even if it's not to the level of plagiarism, it might be hard to sell something too much like another novel and might disappoint readers. (And, yes, I know that there are some people who've made quite the career off of treading a fine line there...)

There are other, subtler, things that you can do wrong. Doubting your work to the extent that you don't even try submitting it. Ignoring a pattern of comments in critiques on your work. Etc.

Remembering that there isn't one single correct way to go about writing is important. But don't let that philosophy turn into one that justifies any type of behavior. There may be more than one right way, there often is. But there are also wrong ways.

Top 10 Films of 2011 (#6-10) & #writemotivation Weekly Wrapup

In the first part of 2011, before I got back into writing regularly, I was watching a lot of movies. I was also keeping track of what I had watched and making brief notes about most of them on Facebook and on the forums of a movie review site I like. I saw 67 movies for the first time in 2011, 66 of them between January and August.

For fun, I put together a list of my 10 favorite films that I saw for the first time last year. Note that these are films from all years -- I've only seen nine 2011 releases, so I literally couldn't make a Top 10 list for 2011 itself!

These were all films that I could recommend with few or no reservations. I'll list five of the movies today and five another day soon.

10) Heaven Can Wait (1943) - Don Ameche, Gene Tierney, and Charles Coburn star in this Ernst Lubitsch-directed movie about a man (Ameche) who has died and is expecting to end up in Hell, recounting the experiences of his life.

9) I Married a Witch (1942) - Fredric March, Susan Hayward, and Veronica Lake star in this amusing Rene Clair-directed adaptation of the novel by fantasist Thorne Smith. Two Salem-era witches get loosed in 1940s America and tamper with the life of an young politician.

8) Le Million (1931) - French musical comedy about a lottery ticket in the pocket of a missing jacket. Tons of fun.

7) Source Code (2011) - It may not be great science fiction -- the central premise is borderline-ridiculous -- but it's a great thriller which also has cool science fiction trappings. I rewatched this one with my daughters a couple of weeks ago and was pleased to see that I still enjoyed it on a second viewing.

6) Days of Heaven (1978) - Richard Gere, Brooke Adams, and Sam Shepard star in this Terrence Malick movie. The film center at OSU showed a double-bill of this and Badlands one night this summer. I had expected to be more interested in Badlands, but found Days of Heaven to be the more satisfying of the two. Gorgeous visuals throughout, good sound work, and a good score all helped make this one of my favorite movies of 2011.

In January, as part of the #writemotivation project, I'll be blogging every Monday about how things are going with my writing goals. Here's how things are looking so far, about 1/4 of the way through the month.

1) Spend time in the first half of January analyzing my first draft of "Adrift" and time in the second half of January planning the second draft. - Oof. A big "fail" on this one so far. I haven't even opened up the documents. Ultimately, I'm not going to nipick on the whole "first half"/"second half" of the month thing, but I suspect there's a fair chance at this point that I'm not going to meet this goal unless I radically change my current writing routine.

2) Write 25,000 words of new fiction including at least one new short story. - This is going reasonably well. I'm on my netbook, so don't have my spreadsheet, but I know I'm right around 5000 words as of last night (the 8th). It's close to on-pace for my overall 2012 goal of 250,000 words. And it's really only one good day of writing off page for the monthly goal. But it's also absorbing a lot of my writing time, which is at least part of the problem with meeting goal #1. I've completed two new short stories, so that part of the "Write 1/Sub 1" monthly goal has been met.

3) Keep all my writing routines -- Seinfeld Chain, blogging schedule, etc. - No problems at all here so far. I'm considering making some changes to my blogging schedule, but those will be announced in advance and probably won't appear until February.

4) On 1/31, have one non-time-sensitive blog post written and ready for future use on a day when I'm not able to post something "new." - I've started on this, but don't have a full post sitting aside yet.

5) Submit one or more short stories for the first time this month. - Done. So I've completed the entire "Write 1/Sub 1" goal for the month.

Sunday Links: January 8, 2012 Edition

How's the new year treating everyone so far? It's been unseasonably mild here in Central Ohio but other than that, it's a typical January. Toys everywhere, kids (and parents!) trying to get back to regular routines, etc.

I've been keeping busy with my writing along with everything else. I'll get to my weekly #writemotivation update on Monday, though. So, far now here are this week's links...

Dissecting the Short Story: "Maiden Voyage" by Jack McDevitt

It's been a while, hasn't it? With the Christmas weekend hiatus, I haven't run a post from my Dissecting the Short Story series in nearly a month. For anyone new to the series, the goal here is to look at a story which was sold to a pro-rate fiction market, generally one of the large digest magazines, and see what we -- as writers -- can learn from it.

As always, I won't be shy about including spoiler material in this analysis, so if you have a copy of this magazine and would be planning to read this story, it might be worth your time to read it first before reading the bulk of this post.

Story:
"Maiden Voyage" by Jack McDevitt
Published in:
January, 2012 Asimov's Science Ficton
Approximate Length:
words
Presentation:
Third Person, Chronological
Summary [WARNING: Spoilers Included!]:

Dissecting the Short Story Preview

Typically with these Dissecting the Short Story Preview posts I would be talking about news or goal status or something of that nature. Since I've covered a lot of this material recently, today's post is going to be very brief.

Friday I'll be posting the first Dissecting the Short Story entry of 2012. It will be for "Maiden Voyage" by Jack McDevitt from the January, 2012 issue of Asimov's Science Fiction. As always, if you have that issue of ASF hanging around and you want to read the story before seeing my analysis, now would be the time!

See you Friday for the dissection!

December Goals Wrapup/January Goals Refresher

As part of the #writemotivation project, I'll be blogging every Monday this month about how things are going with my writing goals. It won't usually be the only focus of the blog post but today, with the December goals wrap-up to cover as well, it will be.

First, here were my December goals:

Sunday Links: January 1, 2012 Edition

Well, another end-of-year holiday season has come and gone. And I've survived. Huzzah!

We had a gaggle of teenagers over here last night for New Year's Eve. They were all well-behaved, but typically energetic. It made for an interesting several hours. As always, it's a little funny watching them and thinking "Gosh, I was like that not that long ago." Well, sort of not that long ago...  :)

Before I get to this week's links, I wanted to point you all to my newest publication "Credit Where Credit Is Due." This is the story that was chosen as part of Kazka Press' December "Who the hell is Santa?" flash fiction prompt contest. I hope that you enjoy the story!

Without any further ado (or shilling), here are this week's links...