Sunday Links and the Week in #storyeachnight: June 10th, 2012 Edition

Before I get to anything else, here are two short fiction-related links I hope lots of people see.

First, I've got a new gig! I'm one of the associate editors for UFO - Unidentified Funny Objects -- an Anthology of Humorous Science Fiction and Fantasy. Submissions open on July 1st; the guidelines are here. I'm hoping to see a lot of fantastic stories come through for consideration.

Second (and more time critical), there is this Kickstarter for Fireside Magazine. I read the first issue, which had stories by Ken Liu, Tobias Buckell, Chuck Wendig, and Christie Yant. I enjoyed it quite a bit and I'm looking forward to reading the second issue, which is in fact what is being Kickstarted. Fireside is aiming to pay its writers substantially better than the minimum pro rate for short fiction. Conceptually, that should be good for both writers and readers of the magazine since, over time, Fireside should see a very high caliber of stories being submitted if they can pay those rates. I really hope to see this magazine succeed -- again, both as a writer and as a reader.

Along with #storyeachnight, I've started #poemeachnight on Twitter. (This all sprang from Ray Bradbury's advice to writers that they read a story, a poem, and an essay each day. Nicole Cushing got the ball rolling with #storyeachnight and I've added the poems.)

Here are the stories and (starting on Saturday June 9th) poems from this week.  Below the jump will be writing-related links for the week.

6/3 - "The Princess and the Monster" by Ryan Creel from DAILY SCIENCE FICTION (@dailysf). The beginning of the story didn't exactly win me over but the end totally surprised me and brought a grin to my face. Glad I stuck with it.
6/4 - "An Open Letter in Defense of Our Alien Overlords" by Katherine Heath Shaeffer from DAILY SCIENCE FICTION. I had some trouble getting into it, maybe due to not much sense of POV "character." Ending wasn't really satisfying either, to me.
6/5 - "One-Way Ticket" by Nigel Brown from INTERZONE 239. An interesting twist on a familiar trope. Well done.
6/6 - "Kaleidoscope" from THE VINTAGE BRADBURY. Interesting study of characters in a hopeless situation. I was dumbfounded by the similarities to the end of John Carpenter's 1974 movie DARK STAR. (RB's story is from 1951.)
6/7 - "The Watchful Poker Chip of H. Matisse" by Ray Bradbury from THE VINTAGE BRADBURY. This is a seriously weird, tripped-out story. I liked it though it was nothing like I expected.
6/8 - "Grand Tour" by Chris Willrich from the 5-6/12 F&SF. Family dynamics, independence and travel are major themes.
6/9 - Story: "Immersion" by Aliette de Bodard from CLARKESWORLD #69. Intricate story of culture and the lengths some choose to go to so they can feel like they belong. Poem: "Brazil, January 1, 1502" by Elizabeth Bishop from THE VINTAGE BOOK OF CONTEMPORARY AMERICAN POETRY (hereafter, VBOCAP). The title alludes to the Portuguese landing at Rio de Janeiro.

And now, the links:

Why Blog?

There's a good chance some new people will be stopping by my blog in the next few days as Rachael Harrie's Fourth Platform-Building Writers' Campaign gears up. Since most of those people will be writers with blogs of their own, this seems like a great time to discuss why I blog and get to hear the input of readers about why they blog.

First off all, let's talk about a reason which is not part of my rationale for blogging. For me -- and probably most of you as well -- it's not about making money directly from advertising or anything of that sort. I don't run any ads here and my little Amazon search box has led to exactly one purchase in the lifetime of the blog. So, yeah, not a moneymaker. And that's just fine.

Here are the three main reasons I do blog:

1. For the socialization. Getting to meet and talk things over with other writers has had multiple benefits. For one, I've learned from them. A second benefit is that it's been fun getting to know a lot of other writers. The biggest benefit for me, though, has been having a community that I can chat with when I'm feeling good or bad about my writing and a set of people that I've traded critiques with where hopefully all of the parties involved have gotten useful feedback on their work.

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.

Blog Miscellany - Contest, Award, & More

I've been given a free copy of the eBook of Emily Casey's novel The Fairy Tale Trap to give away to one of my readers. If you're interested in possibly receiving this eBook then, in honor of the season, please leave a comment below with a favorite winter memory. I'll pick one of the winter-memory commenters to receive the code for downloading the free eBook.

[Edited to add: Deadline for this contest is 11:59 PM Eastern US Time on 12/27. I'll announce the winner in my 12/28 post.]

In other bloggish news, I'd like to thank one of the other #writemotivation people, jaggedwriter, who has bestowed upon me the Versatile Blogger Award. This award calls for the following:

1. In a post on your, blog, nominate 15 fellow bloggers for The Versatile Blogger Award.
2. In the same post, Add the Versatile Blogger Award.
3. In the same post, thank the blogger who nominated you in a post with a link back to their blog.
4. In the same post, share 7 completely random pieces of information about yourself.
5. In the same post, include this set of rules.
6. Inform each nominated blogger of their nomination by posting a comment on each of their blogs.

I've been fortunate enough to have people present me with this award in the past as well. You can see my random facts and bloggers who I thought were worth passing the award along to in my September 11, 2011 Sunday Links post and my September 28th post which touched on several topics. Between those two pages you can find 17 random facts about me to thrill and amaze. (Or, well, something like that...)

You can also find links to a total of eight bloggers to whom I passed along one or more awards. Today I'm going to add four more bloggers to the rolls. Linking to 15 at once seems a bit overwhelming, so I'll just say I'm doing this part of the award requirements on the installment plan.

• Natalie Whipple at Between Fact and Fiction
• J. E. Fritz at Still Writing...
• Wah-Wah Writer
• Yelena Casele

One more bloggy bit -- I received (and deleted) my first spam comment today. Umm.... Yay?

Finally, just a reminder that I'm taking a Christmas hiatus from blogging. I'll be back a week from today with a new post. I hope that all of my readers who are traveling this time of year have safe journeys.

November Goals Wrap-Up and December Goals

November is coming to a close and December is just a few hours away. As I do each month, I'm reflecting back on the writing goals I set for myself to see how I measure up against them and am working to set new goals for the upcoming month.

Here were my November goals:

1) Write 50,000 words of new fiction. - Done. Total for the month in all was right around 63,000 words of new fiction, 90% of which was my NaNoWriMo first draft.
2) Complete ("win") NaNoWriMo. - Also done.
3) Keep my regular blogging schedule. - As of this posting, done. I tried some new things this month on the blog, not all of them worked as well as I would have hoped (RIP, "Call & Response" Flash Fiction series...) but I kept to my schedule without missing a beat.
4) Write at least one short story of 1000 or more words. - Done. I wrote a few flash pieces during November but also wrote a new 3000 or so word mystery short story which was reviewing by a critique partner, revised, and submitted.

So, four for four. I feel good about that, though I do think that the blog content this month was a bit skimpier than it had been in prior months.

And now, my goals for December...

Sunday Links: October 30th, 2011 Edition

I've been mentioning NaNoWriMo during each of these Sunday Link posts in October, now the time is almost at hand. I still have a bit of work I'd like to get done as prep work, but I have a reasonably good feeling about where I stand. Hopefully a week from today I'll still be feeling optimistic. Anyone who wants to be a writing buddy on the site and hasn't found me there yet can add me as a buddy via my NaNo site profile.

In addition to the good news I got earlier this week about my story being accepted as one of the winners for the October Kazka Press Flash Fiction contest I also heard today that my story "My Name is Imago Montoya..." finished in 8th place in the second Platform-Building Writers' Campaign challenge. Woo-hoo! Thanks to Saba from Of Thoughts and Words, Margo Kelly, and Janice Seagraves from Janice's Home for donating the prizes which I won and to Rachael Harrie and all the others who volunteered to coordinate the challenge.

Now for this week's links!

Sunday Links: October 16th, 2011 Edition

Hmmm... Didn't October just start? The post title claims that we're more than halfway through the month, but I'm finding that hard to believe. *double-checks calendar* Nope, that's right. Well, how about that. They do say that time flies.

Speaking of time... There are still a few days left to enter the first Kazka Press monthly flash fiction contest. One of the things mentioned in my poll was an interest in knowing about new contests and markets. Since I like flash fiction, this one definitely was of interest to me. The people running it were also very responsive when I asked for some details about rights, etc. while they were still in their "pre-announcement" mode last month. This is going to be a monthly contest, so keep an eye on their site if you like writing flash fiction.

Among everything else this week I've been doing tech support work for my wife who got to be one of the first Sprint customers with an iPhone. I must say it's a pretty slick device. I should be able to get a new phone once November rolls around, and I'll likely get one for myself. So it's not really "tech support" it's just "reading ahead" for my own iPhone usage.  :)

But enough about my technophilia. It's just a bit over two weeks until NaNoWriMo time (and I'm not, I repeat, not panicking despite being a bit behind where I'd like to be with planning). One thing I am pleased about is having coming up with my one-sentence description for my planned novel: "A young woman who has just lost her parents to a car accident would give anything to be able to change that aspect of her past, but finds herself in a position where she must protect a different element of the past to save what remains of her family."

Now for this week's links!

Suggestions, Please?

I started this blog just about two months ago, mostly on a whim. I had just leapt back into writing with both feet and was constantly thinking about writing. Writing about that "thinking about writing" seemed like a natural thing to do.

I've been thrilled with the response. There have been over 400 comments left on the blog since I started, nearly 100 people are following it through Google Connect, and four of the posts have had over 100 views. On the one hand, that may not seem like a lot but I know that it takes a long time for a blog to build a following and this seems like a very good start for two months in.

Thinking about the future of the blog, I know that in November I'll be writing some about my experience with NaNoWriMo. I also currently plan to stick with the four posts per week schedule I've been on recently. I plan to continue the bi-weekly "Dissecting the Short Story" posts. What I'd like to know is what my readers would be interested in seeing more of and/or added to the rotation.

So, I've put up my blog's first-ever poll. It should appear at the right side of your screen (if you're using the Blogger/Blogspot interface) and it will be open (if I've done this correctly) through 12:01 AM (I think Pacific time) on 10/11. I would be very pleased if you'd provide your feedback on what you'd like to see more of on my blog. If you select "Other" it would be helpful if you left a comment below to clarify.

Thanks for a great two months! I've enjoyed reading your comments and getting to know you. And I hope that we continue the conversation into 2012 and beyond.

Sunday Links: September 11, 2011 Edition

In addition to my usual Sunday link roundup this week, I'll be responding to some recent blog awards which have been presented to me.

Glitter Lady presented me with the Versatile Blogger award  which calls for listing 7 random facts about yourself and linking back to 15 (!) blogs.  I also received this award from Ms. Saba at Of Thoughts and Words.
Annalise Green presented me with a 2nd Liebster Award which calls for passing the award along to several other blogs.  And I just saw that Kate Lineberger also presented me a Liebster!
Finally, Daina Rustin at Mystic Treehouse tagged me to list 10 random facts and tag back five other bloggers.

Whew! OK, so to keep this something vaguely resembling simple, I'll list a total of 10 random facts and tag back a total of five bloggers.  Everyone I tag back can consider themselves recipients of both the Liebster and the Versatile Blogger award.

But first, this week's links!

Paying it Forward... Liebster Awards

Last week Angela Brown bestowed the Liebster Award to me and four other bloggers. What is the Liebster Award? "The basic idea of the Liebster Award is to showcase bloggers with less than 200 followers." The name, though it may put pulp and science fiction fans in mind of Murray Leinster, is derived from a German term for a close friend.

The tradition with the Liebster Award is to pass it along to five other blogs and I'm doing that today. I am apparently not yet "hip" to how I can determine which blogs have fewer than 200 followers. Unless they had a Google Reader box showing follower count, I was clueless. But I did try to find blogs which didn't appear to be flooded with existing reader comments. Tricky, in the midst of this Platform-Building Campaign!  :)

Without further ado, the Liebsters go to...

Dissection Preview, Getting to Know You, September Goals

This is your biweekly headsup that a short story dissection is coming later this week. Friday I'll be posting a dissection of "Less Stately Mansions" by Rob Chilson. This story was published in the July/August 2011 edition of The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction. So, if you have that issue and haven't read this story yet, now would be the time! If you're not familiar with my Dissecting the Short Story series, what I will do is write up a detailed analysis of the story and what I think may have been some of the issues that the writer considered in crafting their story.  The most recent Dissection was for Dave Zeltserman's "A Hostage Situation."

Next, since there are a LOT of new people coming to the blog thanks, in part, to Rachel Harrie's Platform-Building Campaign, I wanted to have a quick getting to know you with my readers!

The Seinfeld Chain

One of my first blog entries talked about how "Writing Begets Writing" and NOT writing begets not writing. I'm really committed to maintaining the momentum I've built up in the last month around my writing. Some days it feels like the easiest, most natural thing in the world. Other days it can feel like a real drag -- the words don't want to come on a new story, the story I'm going through an edit on feels like it's just not working, etc.

So I'm looking for ways to help myself keep writing. I've already talked about one of the techniques, using peer pressure as a way to keep myself writing, not wanting to have to tell people "Yeah, I guess I sort of set that aside for now." (Again.)

Getting into the Twitter and blog world has been helpful, too. I spend lots of non-writing time thinking about writing and discussing writing with other people. There's a hazard, though, that I could end up spending all my time talking about writing instead of actually writing. That's a balance that I'm trying to carefully calibrate. (Hmm... Could that be foreshadowing of a future blog post?)

My third approach to holding myself accountable to my own writing goals will be The Seinfeld Chain.

Sunday Links : August 21, 2011 Edition

It's Sunday again!  I hope that everyone is feeling good about their last week of writing. If you're not, though, it's a new week and you can start with a mental clean slate!

Sunday also means that it's link day on my blog. Here are several links to articles I've read in the last week that I thought others might enjoy or learn from:

A Writing Blog

"A Writing Blog" -- such a descriptive title. And, really, does the world need another writing blog? Of course not; but apparently I think that I need one.

I'm currently in one of those cycles where I'm taking my writing a bit more seriously. I've got an idea percolating which I think may well work for this year's NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) though I will say that the idea of trying to write 50,000 words during the school year AND hockey season strikes me as being a sign of possible insanity. We'll see. At least I type quickly.

At the moment, I've got a half-dozen or so short stories which are in various levels of making the rounds of publishers of short fiction. The newest is still out to the first prospective publisher; one of the older stories has been through seven rejections and is back out for an eighth time.

I don't know how frequently I'll update this blog until the November NaNoWriMo season is more closely approaching. (And, really, the idea that I might decide to blog and churn out still more words while trying to produce 50,000 words on a novel all in 30 days... Did I say "possible" insanity?)

If you're interested in the fiction and non-fiction I've had published in the past, please look at my Publications page. Thanks for stopping by!