Sunday, April 1, 2012

Sunday Links & The Week in #storyeachnight: April 1, 2012 Edition

No fooling here, we're all business!

The two links I'm most personally excited about today are the ones to my two short stories on the Kazka Press site: "Vacant Thrones" and "What You Can Change."

In other personal writing news, I received word of a sale to a prestigious semi-pro market earlier this weekend. The contract isn't signed yet but I'll be sure to let everyone know once I can make it public.

My #storyeachnight reading has continued to be sporadic, though I am now explicitly focusing on trying to read stories for my revival of the "Dissecting the Short Story" series.

3/25 - None
3/26 - "In the Unlikely Event" by Ferrett Steinmetz from DAILY SCIENCE FICTION. A fun flash fiction.
3/27 - None
3/28 - "Offering Solace" by Jamie Lackey from DAILY SCIENCE FICTION. I liked the feel of much of it, but I wasn't crazy about the ending. The author notes, indicating the story's origin were interesting to me.
3/29 - "The Day They Came" by Kali Wallace from LIGHTSPEED. Interesting voice. It felt like maybe it went on a bit long, though I can't say I really got bored either.
3/30 - None
3/31 - "Nightfall in the Scent Garden" by Claire Humphrey from STRANGE HORIZONS. Wow! Lyrical and evocative. Childhood, myth, names, love... Easily one of my favorites of stories I've read recently. (* Obviously my favorite for the week.)

And now, here are this week's links:

"Talking About Doing It and a Return of the Hand of Cards Theory" (Jay Lake) - I thought that Hand of Cards theory was very interesting and it got me to thinking about what my strongest ones are. I'd be inclined to say "Narrative Voice" and "Dialog" based on the feedback I've gotten on my work over time. I'm also tempted to include "Gender Authenticity" since I've written a number of stories with female MCs and not (yet) had a female critiquer or reader say "Man, this Haynes fella has no clue!" But I could just not have run into enough readers yet, so I'll reserve judgment on that one.

"Writing, Always Writing" (Lawrence Block) - The first few paragraphs of this post advertise a few of his books, but I thought that the sample column included below the advertisements was interesting enough to pass along all the same. He talks about how writers are influenced by the things that the read and experience and how a lot of contemplation can go into the writing process.

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

"Monday March 26th #writemotivation Goal Status" - Monday, I wrote about my progress towards this month's goals. I will have a final recap tomorrow and also post my April goals.

"Revision Day New Words Waiver" and "Revision Day Goal Met"- Thursday, I sat down to do a bunch of revising and gave myself a waiver on my usual "500 new words" rule for the day. I'm sure I wrote 500 new words, though it was in 25 here and 50 there. Most importantly, I got several stories ready to get out the door. Another story I thought I had ready for beta, but I've since decided it's got some major plot issues which need worked out before I send it anywhere.

Onward to April!

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