Sunday Links & the Week in #storyeachnight: May 6th, 2012 Edition

What an exciting writing week it's been! I've blogged about all this already (and the links are below) but I've got to say that it's a really good week when it includes a publication of a very well-received story, two short story sales, my first time trading guest posts with another writer, and my first-ever review.

I've been reading at least one story each day recently and tweeting about them under the hashtag #storyeachnight. Here are this week's entries:

4/29 - "Possible Monsters" by Will McIntosh from the 6/12 ASIMOV'S. A didn't-quite-make-it ball player gets a jolt when he comes back home & finds out an alien had taken up residence. Maybe a bit long on prelims but very good. Great ending.
4/30 - "Bad Moon Risen" by Eric Del Carlo from SHIMMER #14. A well-done werewolf short story with a small town under siege.
5/1 - "Through Bleached Bone" from by Cate Gardner from GOLDFISH GRIMM'S SPICY FICTION SUSHI Issue 3.
5/2 - "Duck Hunt" by Joe R. Lansdale from 100 HAIR-RAISING LITTLE HORROR STORIES. Didn't go where I was expecting, though I can't say that where it did go left me that impressed. I really enjoyed the imagery of her story, especially the Ghost Beast and the cityscape setting.
5/3 - "Repairmen" by Tim Sullivan from the 3/4-12 F&SF. Didn't really do a lot for me but I could imagine it making a decent one-act play or short film. Almost all dialogue in one room.
5/4 - "The Shadowcrafter" by Ken Liu from NINE Issue #1. I enjoyed this historical fantasy.

5/5 - "Tomorrow's Dictator" by Rahul Kanakia from the 5/12 APEX. Life in a world with personality adjustment.

Now, on to this week's writing-related links:

"Real Life Diagnostics: Girl vs Boy: Writing the Opposite Sex" (Janice Hardy) - Janice's Real Life Diagnostics post last Sunday touched on issues that the submitting writer had where they were concerned about the sex of their main character not feeling authentic.

"The Top 5 Body Language Mistakes in Photos" (Luc Reid) - On the internet, your profile photo is very often going to be the first impression people have of you. Luc talks about what the body language in your photo might say about you and what to avoid.

"Dear Speculative Fiction, I'm Glad We Had This Talk" (Elizabeth Bear at Clarkesworld) - Elizabeth writes about her feeling that speculative fiction has tilted too far into unpleasant territory. "You seem to think that nothing fun can have value; that only grimdark portentousness and dystopia mean anything. You wallow in human suffering and despair, and frankly—it makes me tired." An interesting perspective and a reminder that "serious" is not synonymous with "good."

"Amanda Palmer, Kickstarter, and Everything" (John Scalzi) - John addresses Kickstarter in light of musician Amanda Palmer's current high-profile project on that site. Kickstarter is a very interesting idea; I just recently made my first pledge to a project there and could see myself continuing to occasionally support something which seemed interesting to me.

"First Person POV and Developing Other Characters" (Morgan Dempsey at Inkpunks) - Morgan discussed techniques for making your secondary characters come alive in a first person story.

Finally, here's a recap of the posts from this week on my blog. All the news made for a very busy week:

"DIY: Cover Art, Creating My Own eBook, Part Two" - Monday I talked about the approach I took when creating the cover art for "Gravity's Pull". I went over the tools and other resources which I needed and the process I used in actually assembling the cover.

"New Story Live on Goldfish Grimm and April/May Goals" - Tuesday I reviewed my goal status from April and set new goals for May.

"Short Story Sale: 'Special Ops' to Ray Gun Revival" and  "Short Story Sale: 'Ars Gratia Artis' to Sorcerous Signals" - Wednesday saw not one but two short stories sell and I posted news about each of those sales.

"Guest Post: 'Around and Around the Writer's Carousel: Comparisons are Evil" by Brenda Stokes Barron - Thursday, Brenda Stokes Barron and I took turns on each other's blogs. Brenda wrote about writers needing to keep focused on their own work rather than getting distracted/frustrated by successes they see other writers accomplishing. My post on her blog was "Advice on Advice" where I talk about the subjectivity of so much of the writing advice we read (and write!)

"My First Review: Jeff Chapman on 'Vacant Thrones'" - I was very pleased to find out on Friday that Jeff Chapman had reviewed my story "Vacant Thrones" on his blog. I wrote a short note on my blog about this and linked to his post.

Best of luck to everyone with their writing goals for the week!