It's also been a very good week. I met one of my goals for the month by getting a story into the Codex Halloween contest before the deadline. I'm a bit disappointed that I didn't make time to do a second draft; I think the story has some major flaws as-is. But I wanted to be a part of the contest and I did achieve that.
I also had four stories release this week. I'm particularly pleased by the reactions to "Scraps" (at Daily Science Fiction, will be on the web next week) and "ReFormed" (at Buzzy Mag). I feel like those are among two of my best stories so far and the reaction to them has been in line with those feelings. I was a bit worried that they would show up and vanish without a trace. I'm very pleased that this didn't happen.
"Most Common Writing Mistakes #18 - Are You Skipping the Best Parts?"
(K. M. Weiland at Wordplay) - A discussion of reasons authors might fail (intentionally or by accident) to include the scene(s) that their readers want to see.
"Taking Characters on a Voyage of Self-Discovery" (Elizabeth S. Craig at Mystery Writing is Murder) - Learning can bring change. Change sometimes brings conflict. Having characters learn new things about themselves, Elizabeth points out, presents opportunity to have these characters change and possibly come into conflict.
"Sentence Length Matters: The Anatomy of a Perfect Paragraph" (Susan J. Morris at Omnivoracious) - One of my favorite things to do in writing is to work with the way sentences feel, with their rhythms and the way they build up paragraphs and the story itself. I thought this blog post did a nice job of discussing some of the issues involved in dealing with that aspect of writing.
"Taking Characters on a Voyage of Self-Discovery" (Elizabeth S. Craig at Mystery Writing is Murder) - Learning can bring change. Change sometimes brings conflict. Having characters learn new things about themselves, Elizabeth points out, presents opportunity to have these characters change and possibly come into conflict.
"Sentence Length Matters: The Anatomy of a Perfect Paragraph" (Susan J. Morris at Omnivoracious) - One of my favorite things to do in writing is to work with the way sentences feel, with their rhythms and the way they build up paragraphs and the story itself. I thought this blog post did a nice job of discussing some of the issues involved in dealing with that aspect of writing.
Along with those links, here are the items I posted on my blog this week, skipping over a couple which are already obsolete.
"Kazka Press October Issue is Live" - Monday the October issue of Kakza Press, for which I guest edited the flash fiction portion, selecting six stories with the theme of "Love Beyond Death", went live.
"'Out with the Crowd' Live at Interstellar Fiction" - Monday also saw the release of my baseball science fiction story "Out with the Crowd." I talked a bit about the science behind the story in this blog post.
"October Goals" - And, on Monday, I also posted my October goals. A busy start to the busy week!
"'Scraps' Emailed by Daily Science Fiction Today" - Thursday I posted a short blog entry about "Scraps" being released.
"Being Smart About My Writing Goals" - Thursday I also wrote about how I set my goals and why I don't worry if I don't meet all of them every month.
"Story Publication: 'Other Kinds' in Issue #3 of Nine" - Thursday's final blog post linked to the 3rd issue of Nine, where my crime dark fantasy story "Other Kinds" appears.
"Story Publication: 'ReFormed' at Buzzy Mag" - Friday I linked to the publication of ReFormed at Buzzy Mag and also thanked Brenda Stokes Barron who did a lot during the critique process to help me make the story better than its first draft.
I do have several stories with pending publications but none where I know of a specific release date yet. But I keep writing and submitting more all the time, so I hope I'll have more good news and exciting stories to share before too long.
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