2013 Goal #4: Read 500 Short Stories

I'm going to be working out my 2013 goals publicly here on my blog over the next couple of months. Note that all of these posts will be considered "First Draft" goals, subject to being modified, enhanced, shrunk, contorted, folded, spindled, mutilated, or even out-and-out obliterated at my own future whim. These goals are also being presented simply in the order that I decide upon them. So Goal #1 isn't any more important than Goal #5 (or whatever). I probably will reorder the goals in order of importance when I go to wrap this all together in a final set of 2013 goals.

2013 Writing Goal #4: Read 500 Short Stories and Document What I've Read

As I've discussed in several recent blog posts, my focus as a writer is primary around short fiction (For the purposes of this goal I'm using "short stories" to cover everything shorter than a novel, from flash fiction to novellas.) One of the things which I can do to improve my abilities as a writer of short fiction is to be an avid reader of short fiction.

When I say that I'll document what I read, I pretty much just mean note what I read, who wrote it, and where I read it. I'll also make some kind of notation if it's a story which I want to keep track of for award nomination purposes. That will not be public documentation; just a spreadsheet or something like that which I keep for my own use.

I've occasionally set myself short fiction reading goals and there for a while I was doing a very good job of taking part in #storyeachnight on Twitter. (Exactly what it sounds like, read a story every day and tweet about it.) This goal is a bit more ambitious than a story a day; a little more than four stories every three days. But it's the sort of thing I shouldn't have any real difficulty with as long as I keep reading at a steady pace.

October Goal Wrap-Up and November Goals Defined

Each month I go through a goal setting and measuring process. Today I'm looking back at how I did in October and looking forward to November.

First,the October results:

1) Keep my Daily Writing Chain going. - Barring something unusual happening in the next few days, done.
2) Write and submit one brand-new story. - Done. And it's already been rejected from its first market, too. Yay?
3) Revise and submit one pending story each week. - Two and a half for four. I'm tempted to call it three for four, but the third story didn't get out the door all the way yet. A fellow writer agreed to give it one final look-over before I submit it for the first time and what I got accomplished last weekend was "just" getting it to that stage. However -- and perhaps her opinion on the story will lead me to rethink this opinion -- I feel very good about the changes I made and suspect it will only need minor further tweaks.
4) Submit a story for the Codex Halloween contest. - Done.
5) On 10/31 have two non-time-sensitive blog posts written and ready to post on a day when I'm not otherwise able to post something "new." - Didn't happen. I'm semi-abandoning this goal in general for the moment. As part of my early-2013 goal to reformulate my blog strategy, I'll probably revisit how I go about stockpiling blog post "inventory" for busy times.
6) Read thirty short stories. - Nope. #storyeachnight totally fell off my radar around mid-month and I also got pulled into reading a novel.

Another decent but not outstanding month. Still, put enough decent months together in a row and you'll have quite a lot accomplished.

Now for my November goals:

1) Keep my Daily Writing Chain going. - Standing goal.
2) Write and submit one brand-new story. - Another standing goal as part of my Write 1/Sub 1 monthly commitment.
3) Revise and submit one story from my backlog. - I'm going to chip away at that backlog until it's all gone, one way or another!
4) Finish a draft of my story for the Codex Novella contest. - The goal is to write 20,000 or more words. If I do so successfully, it will be the second-longest piece of fiction I've written. I wish I had a better sense of whether the idea I have for my story will carry the weight of that many words but based on similar stories from within the genre, I think there's a decent chance it will. Either way, I hope to have fun with it.
5) Enjoy myself at PhilCon. - One of my goals for this year was to go to one or more genre conventions. I went to Pulpfest back in August and then attended Context in September. Next month will be my final 2012 convention - PhilCon in Philadelphia. I'm very excited about the trip and the opportunity to meet some more of the writer friends I've made online.

I hope that October has been a good month for my fellow writers and that November will be excellent as well!

October Goals

September was not my best month for meeting my writing goals. One nice thing about having monthly goals, though, is that every month is a chance to start anew.

With that in mind, here are my goals for the month of October.

1) Keep my Daily Writing Chain going. - It's now 13 months long and growing. Even on days when things have been rough for one reason or another, I've kept it going. I feel good about that, but it's also an ongoing thing. So, as always, it's my top goal for the month.

2) Write and submit one brand-new story. - This is my regular month Write 1/Sub 1 goal. Though I didn't have it listed as a specific goal for September, I did accomplish it with my submission to Malfeasance Occasional.

3) Revise and submit one pending story each week. - For these purposes I'm viewing weeks as being Monday to Sunday, so my goal will be to get a story out the door no later than this coming Sunday and then to do the same thing each week. If I meet this goal fully, I'll get four stories out the door from my "backlog." Last month I had aimed to revise six stories and got exactly zero done. I think that goal felt "too big" especially once I got behind on things. This new goal gives me a chance to succeed (or fail) every week, which I think should help me avoid another goose egg at the very least.

4) Submit a story for the Codex Halloween contest. - This, combined with goal #3, means that I need to get a fair amount of writing time in this week since the Halloween contest closes Sunday morning.

5) On 10/31 have two non-time-sensitive blog posts written and ready to post on a day when I'm not otherwise able to post something "new." - I'd had this goal on my lists earlier this year and was doing okay with it for a while. However, I've gotten out of the habit. Since keeping to my regular blogging schedule is something I value, I want to get back to having a bit of a reserve.

6) Read thirty short stories. - Whether I do that specifically by keeping up with #storyeachnight (essentially) every night or otherwise. Reading regularly is helpful to my development as a writer, and as such it makes sense to list it explicitly as a goal.

Sunday Links: September 30, 2012

The calm before the storm...

I have three stories coming out later this week. Web-based stories at Interstellar Fiction and Buzzy Mag and the email pre-release of my story at Daily Science Fiction. (The latter will go live on their website next week.)

There's also the October issue of Kazka Press going live on Monday; the stories I selected as guest editor for their flash fiction contest will all be up on that day.

So I'm going to be blogging and tweeting quite a bit about these stories as they come out this week. I hope that you enjoy any which you end up reading.

Before I get to this week's links, here's a quick rundown of my writing goal progress for the month. I don't have my October goals fleshed out yet. I'll aim to have those up soon, quite possibly Monday.

1) Keep my Daily Writing Chain going. - Done.
2) Decide on and publish revisions to my blogging schedule once my hiatus is complete. - Done.
3) Submit at least six of my previously-completed stories for the first time. - Didn't happen. I'm somewhat disappointed about my lack of progress on this one.
4) Write a story and submit it to Criminal Element. - Done.
5) Write the first draft of my story for the Codex Halloween contest. - This didn't end up happening. It's going to be a close thing at this point to see if I get something submitted.
6) Get a revised version of my novelette out to beta readers. - Done.

I'm calling this "fair." I did get some good work done this month but I've also let some things slip and for one of them (the Codex contest) I'm running out of time.

But that's the month that's passed. For now, let's move on to this week's writing-related links; I hope that some of them are useful to you.

Two Tidbits

Tidbit #1: I have a guest blog post up today on Nicole Cushing's blog about #storyeachnight. Stop over there if you'd like to read about what short fiction means to me and what I feel like I've gotten out of #storyeachnight. There are also posts about #storyeachnight by Victoria Hooper and Nicole herself on the occasion of having completed one year of reading a story each night.

Tidbit #2: It's here!

The page from The Alchemy Press Book of Pulp Heroes
on which my story begins.

Today's mail brought my contributor's copy of The Alchemy Press Book of Pulp Heroes. This is the first honest-to-goodness book that my fiction has ever appeared in. Something to hang on to, indeed!

Fantasy & Science Fiction September-October 2012 Issue

As previously promised, I'm collecting my #storyeachnight tweets about the September-October 2012 issue of Fantasy and Science Fiction in this post.

Here are the stories, all 11 of them in the order I read them, and my tweets:

• "Where the Summer Dwells" by Lynda E. Rucker. Atmospherically foreboding, two sets of friends with one friend in common explore a decrepit set of train tracks.
• "A Diary From Deimos" by Michael Alexander. A clever-enough reimagining of the American Civil War as a conflict between Earth and colonists on Mars. But to what end? Felt like it hit the same notes rather frequently. I see that there is a historical "A Diary From Dixie" which this presumably is intended to reference.
• "Arc" by Ken Liu. An interesting story to read on the night of having taken your eldest child to college though maybe moreso with me, personally, than for some others. A very personal examination of the first person to receive hyper-longevity treatments. 
• "12:03 PM" by Richard Lupoff. Story of a man wandering in time and space. He gets some answers but also some new questions. Third in a series of stories by Lupoff.
• "Give Up" by Richard Butner. Story of a man climbing a virtual Everest in his back yard. It has a fantastic beginning and middle but I found the ending to be underwhelming.
• "The Sheriff" by Chet Arthur. Entertaining Old West story with light fantasy elements.
• "Close Encounters" by Andy Duncan. An old man reluctantly revisits his prior experiences with aliens.
• "Theobroma Valentine" by Rand B. Lee. Strange story of psych workers orbiting a world of cacao farmers. Had a sort of mystery vibe to it along with the SF. 
• "Troll Blood" by Peter Dickinson. Charming story. Took a few pages to hook me but once it did, I was hooked all the way.
• "The Goddess" by Albert E. Cowdrey. Pre-(US) Civil War story with Kali potentially influencing events.  Alas, despite that appealing description, I wasn't crazy about this one.
• "Father Juniper's Journey to the North" by Grania Davis. Gods (and devils?) at work in 18th Century California.

As you can see, it was a solid issue, well balanced with six science fiction stories and five fantasy stories. There were no stories I out-and-out disliked though there were several which I wasn't overly enthralled by. Still, I enjoyed reading the vast majority of them, and even ones which weren't among my favorites generally had some interesting aspect which made them worth the read.

Of the stories, the ones by Liu, Arthur, Duncan, and Dickinson were my favorites. If pressed to pick a single favorite, it would most likely be the Peter Dickinson story, though I could imagine myself picking a different one in a different mood.

Fantasy and Science Fiction is the one of the "big three" which I was still picking up on the newsstand rather than getting it via subscription. I say "was" because after completing this issue, the next thing I did was go to their website and subscribe. If you have an interest in short fiction in the speculative fiction genres, this venerable publication is well worth your time.

The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction

September/October 2012 F&SF
cover by Kent Bash

When I first started reading science fiction and fantasy short stories, it was mostly in anthologies that I picked up as a child at science fiction conventions. I'd wander the dealer's room halls (I think "huckster's room" was common terminology back then.) and pick up just about any collection of short fiction I could find cheap. This would have been in the early 1980's, when I was right around 9 to 11 years old. (So close to that "Golden Age" of science fiction -- 12.)

Among the anthologies I remember owning were collections of short stories from individual publications, often printed in the 1950s and 1960s: Astounding, Galaxy, F&SF, etc. At that age, I recall finding the Galaxy ones to hit my reading "sweet spot." The stories from the vintage F&SF stories were sometimes entertaining to me back then and they seemed to have a certain sophisticatedness at times that I remembering wanting to enjoy but didn't always "get." Of course, for "not getting it" as a youngster, nothing topped the old collections from the British New Wave publication "New Worlds." Full of authors I'd mostly never heard of and with stories that totally didn't match my then conception of "science fiction" or "fantasy", at that age these quickly moved into my "don't buy these" list.

Time went on and interests waxed and waned for me and along about the late 1980s, I got back into SF/Fantasy and had the desire to start not just reading the stuff but writing it. At that point, there were a handful of significant print magazines. Some of them, Amazing Stories and Weird Tales in particular, have had sporadic existences since that time. Some others, such as Science Fiction Age which didn't pop up until the early 1990's, came and went. But three remain, constant in their operation. Fantasy & Science Fiction (founded in 1949), Analog (founded in 1930 as Astounding), and Asimov's (a relative newcomer, founded in 1977).

Having a story appear in the pages of any one of those three would be a major life accomplishment for me. Two of them (Analog and F&SF) have connections back to some of the earliest SF I've read and Asimov's has an impressive track record, all the more so for coming into existence decades later than any surviving major digest fiction periodical. Of the three, I think that F&SF publishes fiction that most closely resonates with the me of 2012, though I enjoy items from each of the three.

Today, a copy of the upcoming issue of F&SF (September-October 2012, with stories by Peter Dickinson, Ken Liu, Grania Davis, Andy Duncan, Richard A. Lupoff and others) arrived in my mailbox. The magazine asked for bloggers who would be interested in writing about the issue and offered to send a copy for them to write about. I don't do formal reviews generally on this site, but that wasn't one of the requirements. What I will do is make a story from this issue my #storyeachnight every night until I've read the whole issue. So there will be tweets from me about every one of the 11 stories in this issue over the next couple of weeks. At the end, I'll pull it all together into a second blog post.

Regardless of whether this issue has a lot of stories that really strike a chord with me, F&SF in general is a publication that I wholeheartedly recommend and one that I hope continues to be a part of my life for many years to come.

Sunday Links: July 1st, 2012 Edition

The link that's nearest and dearest to me this week is for "Write Every Day: Hints & Tips Towards a Daily Writing Routine." This is the non-fiction project I had been working on periodically during the first half of this year. I'm very pleased at the initial response it's received, with two five-star reviews on Amazon and multiple other nice sets of comments about it from readers. It also showed up on three different Amazon Top 100 best-seller lists around the time of its launch. It's since fallen off those, but it was pleasing to see it make a (small) splash like that.

A close second is "Unidentified Funny Objects" -- the pro-paying speculative fiction humor anthology I'm assisting with. Submissions are officially open to the public now, so if you've been waiting to submit, now is the time.

As I mentioned last week, I'm no longer including #storyeachnight and #poemeachnight information in this weekly links rounding. My tweets about these daily reading projects should still be available to review on Twitter for those who are curious.

So, for now, let's head to the links:

Sunday Links: June 24, 2012 Edition

First off, a quick update on "Write Every Day." It's been submitted to Amazon and is available for purchase on their .co.uk site and other European sites. However, it's not yet available on Amazon.com for some reason; I've got an email in to Amazon's support site and I'll let everyone know as soon as it's available on Amazon.com.

I've decided to discontinue adding the #storyeachnight and #poemeachnight information to this Sunday Links post. With adding #poemeachnight it has become a big chunk of text and the most recent week or so of everyone's #storyeachnight and #poemeachnight tweets should usually be available to review on Twitter.

So, for now, let's head to the links:

Sunday Links and the Week in #storyeachnight/#poemeachnight: June 17th, 2012 Edition

And another week has come and gone. Where does the time go?

Here are the stories and (starting on Saturday June 9th) poems from this week. Putting this together, I realize it's gotten to be a fairly large block of text. I'll have to give some consideration to whether I keep creating this summary every Sunday. The most recent week or so of everyone's #storyeachnight and #poemeachnight tweets should usually be available to review on Twitter.

6/10 - 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: "I Know A Man" by Robert Creeley from THE VINTAGE BOOK OF CONTEMPORARY AMERICAN POETRY. A very short poem and sort of fascinating. Four terse verses, each of which short enough that they could be a tweet. Also includes word reductions such as "sd" for "said" and "yr" for "you're." This poem is ~ 50 years old, best as I can tell but if you showed it to me and told me someone had just tweeted it, I wouldn't have batted an eye. Utterly fascinating.
6/11 - Story: "Spring-Fingered Jack" by Susan Casper from 100 HAIR-RAISING LITTLE HORROR STORIES. A story of video-game violence which seems as if it must have been ahead of its time (1983), predicting future hyper-violent games. Poem: "Early Elegy: Smallpox" by Claudia Emerson from the June 2012 issue of POETRY MAGAZINE.
6/12 - Story: "Light in the Darkness" by Sir Andrew Caldecott from NOT EXACTLY GHOSTS. A nicely atmospheric tale of skepticism and curses in a foreign land. I'm looking forward to reading more of these stories by Sir Caldecott. Poem: "Onions" by William Matthews from VBOCAP. This is the type of poem that makes me feel like I don't understand poems. Some interesting imagery near the end around how onion smell lingers on the skin but overall I felt like I missed his point.
6/13 - Story: "The Magician of Words" by Ruth Nestvold from DAILY SCIENCE FICTION. Wonderful poetic story with great imagery. Poem: "On the Ice Planet" by Julia Rios from NEW MYTHS Issue #19. Paints its setting & character well.
6/14 - Story: "Her Words Make It Go Away" by Michael Penkas from ONE BUCK HORROR Issue #5. Well written flash horror story. Poem: "The Physics of Age and Baseball" by Greg Beatty from STAR*LINE 34.4. Nicely done with astronomical effects of gravity used as metaphor for the effects of aging on an athlete's body. Plus -- baseball poetry!
6/15 - Story: "Heaven's Touch" by Jason Sanford from the 8/12 ASIMOV'S. A fantastic story, strong narrative voice and characters. A well-crafted and involving plot, too. One of the best stories I've read recently. Poem: "My House of the Future" by G. O. Clark, also from the 8/12 ASIMOV'S. Fun, whimsical verse about just what the title suggests.
6/16 - Story: "Chinvat" by Sunny Moraine from SHIMMER #14. A ruined Golden Gate bridge and the beings who visit it are key. Poem: "The Night Mirror" by John Hollander from VBOCAP. Vivid images in this poem -- glimpses of an unbalanced mind?

And now, the links:

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:

Reading What You Write

In many of my recent Sunday Links posts I've talked about #storyeverynight, a Twitter hashtag that Nicole Cushing started and I picked up on. The concept is very simple. Read a short story every day/night and tweet about what you read. From talking to Nicole, this was inspired by a statement of Ray Bradbury's that a writer should read a poem, a story, and an essay every day. For now, I'm "just" trying to fit in the story. I could definitely see trying to add the poems at some point. It's been a long time since I read any poems (quite possibly since I was last assigned to do so for a class) and it's a form that I'd like to reacquaint myself with. Maybe I'll find that it resonates with now-Me. Maybe not.

Getting back to the daily story-reading... I'm a firm believer that reading, particularly within the genres you want to write, is an important input into the writing process. This could either be a genre that you already have a reasonable amount of familiarity with or a genre which you want to write in, even though you're not particularly familiar with it. I think there's also benefit to branching out and reading things that are beyond what you're specifically interested in writing. There are slightly different benefits from each of those.

Sunday Links: June 3rd, 2012 Edition

I'm not going to include #storyeachnight comments this week since I haven't done a good job of keeping up with reading a new story on a regular basis the past two weeks. However, I'm looking to try to get back in the habit of doing so -- maybe that should have been one of my monthly goals! -- and I intend to add that back into the Sunday mix next week.

Below are links which I've come across since my most recent Sunday Links post (two weeks ago) which I think could be of use to fellow writers. Have you come across any particularly interesting links in the last week or so? I'd be interested to see them!

Sunday Links & the Week in #storyeachnight: May 20th, 2012 Edition

May is absolutely flying by. I've been incredibly busy with any number of things this month. Our oldest is graduating high school in a couple of weeks but between now and then is the classic film convention which my father has been a major force behind for 43 years now. It's called Cinevent and every year well over 600 people come to watch movies, talk about movies, buy and sell movie memorabilia and so on. It's older than I am and I literally grew up with it.

This year the preparations for the convention have been extra "interesting" for me since my father was injured in late February and while he was convalescing I was tasked with doing a lot of the communications work which he would normally have been doing for the show. It's been a learning experience, that's for sure. I'm glad that I've done it to help him, the rest of the convention committee, and the attendees. It's also reminded me why I have little interest in being a convention organizer on a regular basis! And, for those of us who attend conventions -- science fiction, film, comics, what-have-you, it's been a reminder that the staff put in a heck of a lot of time and effort and voluntarily deal with no small amount of frustration to help put together a great experience for their attendees. (And, yes, sometimes a "great" experience isn't what ends up happening. But most cons I've been to in the past have been good or better.)

Speaking of conventions, I'm still trying to decide which one I'm going to make it to as part of my goals for the year. I'll be at Pulpfest almost for certain, but I barely count that since it's something I've been going to for years anyway. Context and Bouchercon both have a certain appeal to me, but I'll have to see as things get closer to the date for both of those.

A quick programming note: There won't be a Dissecting the Short Story post for May. Since I said I'd give the new format with reader votes, etc. at least two goes, I'll do one again soon, most likely in June.

Now with all that out of the way, on to first my weekly #storyeachnight rundown and the list of links I've found interesting for the week:

Sunday Links and the Week in #storyeachnight: May 13, 2012 Edition

Has it really been a week since last Sunday? I guess it has. Things are hectic as ever around here, but I've been able to keep moving forward on various writing projects, so I'm feeling good about things.

A quick note: I've lagged behind on getting organized around doing a Dissecting the Short Story post for May. If I get a list of choices together in the next couple of days, then I'll still do one this month. Otherwise, I'll defer it to June.

In addition to my writing, I've been reading at least one story each day recently and tweeting about them under the hashtag #storyeachnight. I've noticed that several more people have joined into the #storyeachnight tweeting recently, which is cool to see. Here are this week's entries from my reading:

5/6 - "Out of the Storm" by William Hope Hodgson from 100 HAIR-RAISING LITTLE HORROR STORIES. Atmospheric story, told via telegraph, of nightmares out at sea.
5/7 - "Notes From The Apocalypse" by Stephen Graham Jones from WEIRD TALES 359. I don't say this often, but that was an interesting zombie story.
5/8 - "City League" from the 5/6-12 F&SF. Starts out a bit slow but it builds to a horrifying scenario. I'm glad that I kept with it. All sorts of themes of baseball, fathers and sons, memory & reality. The stuff that pushes my buttons. (* Despite the slow start, this was my favorite of the week.)
5/9 - "We Make Tea" by Meryl Ferguson from SHIMMER 14. A tea plantation's robots carry on in a post-apocalyptic world.
5/10 - "Liberty's Daughter" by Naomi Kritzer from the 5/6-12 F&SF. Engaging MC and interesting world-building. I had a bit of trouble buying the MC's job & her dad's role was a bit too mysterious for me but neither was a deal breaker. (As a fellow writer noted to me on Twitter, it felt somewhat like the first chapter/portion of a novel rather than a self-contained story. I would mostly agree with that. Still, we both enjoyed it.)
5/11 - "Asylum" by Albert E. Cowdrey from the 5-6/12 F&SF. A New Orleans ghost story, I basically enjoyed this. Two secondary characters were one of my favorite parts, though I wonder if they overshadowed the main character a bit at time.

5/12 - "Wrong World" by Steve J Myers from DAILY SCIENCE FICTION.

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

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:

Sunday Links & the Week in #storyeachnight : April 29, 2012 Edition

It's been a strangely low-key weekend here so far, despite the fact that I spent hours yesterday writing. I know it's most likely the calm before a storm, but it's still been nice to feel even vaguely relaxed the last 36 or so hours.

I've continued to keep up with #storyeachnight. Here are this week's entries:

4/22 - "Scout" by Bud Sparhawk from the 6/12 ASIMOV'S. A fallen soldier re-enters the fight in a different role.
4/23 - "Crooks" by Paul Carlson from the 6/12 ANALOG.
4/24 - "You've Ruined This For Me" by Ewan C. Forbes from DAILY SCIENCE FICTION.
4/25 - "Dolly at the End of the World" by Amanda C. Davis from DAILY SCIENCE FICTION. Great voice & characters.
4/26 - "Moving Night" by Nancy Holder from 100 HAIR-RAISING LITTLE HORROR STORIES. A young boy's night terrors & more
4/27 - "The Other Graces" by Alice Sola Kim from THE YEAR'S BEST SCIENCE FICTION & FANTASY 2011. Great voice and interesting character-building. I loved the story up until near the end when it started to lose me.

4/28 - "The Old Genius" by Nikolai Leskov from THE ENCHANTED WANDERER AND OTHER STORIES. A short crime story about how a wealthy man who refused to pay his debts was forced to recompense a trusting old woman.

Now, here are this week's writing-related links:

Sunday Links & The Week in #storyeachnight: April 22, 2012 Edition

It's been a nicely-hectic week on the writing front here. I'm very pleased with both my sale to Goldfish Grimm's Spicy Fiction Sushi and the experience of turning my short story "Gravity's Pull" into my first self-published eBook.

A quick reminder that the next week or so will see the publication of this month's Dissecting the Short Story entry. If you want to read the featured story in advance, you can check out Ken Liu's "Memories of My Mother" online.

Two weeks in a row I've managed to keep up every day with #storyeachnight. Here are this week's entries:

4/15 - "213 Myrtle Street" by Beth Cato from Flash Fiction Online. A fun short about a sentient house with a neat little surprise near the end.
4/16 - "A Nice Neighbourhood" by Kate Ellis from the 5/11 EQMM. A twisty little crime story
4/17 - "Missionaries" by Mercurio D. Rivera from the 6/12 ASIMOV'S. As the title suggests, much philosophy/religious discussion. I liked the character details quite a bit though on 1st reflection I didn't find the end particularly satisfying.
4/18 - "Free Range" by Bruce McAllister from the 6/12 ASIMOV'S. Bizarrely humorous. I literally laughed aloud.
4/19 -  "Forget You" by Marc Laidlaw from LIGHTSPEED.
4/20 - "One Angry Julius Katz and Eleven Befuddled Jurors" by Dave Zeltserman from the 6/12 EQMM. A fun Katz & Archie story, glad to read a new one.

4/21 - "Fata Morgana" by Ray Cluley in INTERZONE 238. A fascinating world, "fantasy" only in that it isn't ours.

Now, here are this week's writing-related links:

Sunday Links & The Week in #storyeachnight: April 15, 2012 Edition

The first link I want to draw everyone's attention to is Ken Liu's short story "Memories of My Mother." This will be the subject of April's Dissecting the Short Story post, which will appear on 4/26 or 4/30. So, if you want to be able to join in the discussion around this story, you could go ahead and read it now to be ready for that.

I've finally gotten back into the groove of regularly doing #storyeachnight. Here are this week's entries:

4/8 - "Amor Vincit Omnia" by K. J. Parker from THE YEAR'S BEST SCIENCE FICTION AND FANTASY, 2011 EDITION. Some rather fascinating worldbuilding in Parker's story, though not sure how I feel about the overall story arc.
4/9 -  "Older, Wiser, Time Traveler" by M. Bennardo from DAILY SCIENCE FICTION. I liked this story. Good voice and sense of where the story was going which, in a time travel story, can always be a bit tricky.
4/10 - "Final Exam" by Megan Arkenberg from the 6/12 ASIMOV'S. An interesting, very non-linear structure though I think I would have enjoyed it more if it had been a good bit shorter.
4/11 - "Waiting at the Altar" by Jack McDevitt from the 6/12 ASIMOV'S. Decent space exploration story though I enjoyed his recent "Maiden Voyage" (which featured the same characters) more. ("Maiden Voyage" was the subject of my January 6th "Dissecting the Short Story" entry.)
4/12 -  "Lethal Injection" by Kevin Levites from NOIR NATION #1. Seems like a lot of snake research went into this one. It had a very authentic feel.
4/13 - "The Green Book" by Amal El-Mohtar from THE YEAR'S BEST SCIENCE FICTION & FANTASY 2011. A great, rather short, story about an enchanted book and people who have interacted with it.

4/14 - "A Brief Respite From Eternity" by Alex Shvartsman from STUPEFYING STORIES 1.5. A nice flash fiction which worked for me even though it deals with a particular subject area I'm getting a bit weary of.

Now, here are this week's writing-related links:

Sunday Links & The Week in #storyeachnight: April 8, 2012 Edition

Not a lot of news in my personal writing world to speak of. I continue working steadily on new stories. I wrote a first draft of one story earlier this week that I need to take through a reshaping second draft before it goes out anywhere. In fact, even though I spent a day doing revising on several stories recently, I still have a fair amount of editing and revising work which I need to get down to doing. I haven't yet given myself credit for a day on my daily writing chain by doing 45 minutes of focused revisions (as discussed here) so I should probably try to do that. I think I've got a bit of a mental barrier to using that as my writing for the day since I've spent so many days in a row writing something new every day. I might just have to pick a day and say "This day I'll do 45 minutes of revising at this specific time and that will be my qualifying work for the day." We'll see how it goes.

I'm still very hit and miss on #storyeachnight though I really do want to get back to reading a new story basically every day. Looking back at the week, I see I was even worse at it than I realized. I'm going to try to get back to reading a story close to every day, but we'll see how it goes.

Here are this week's entries:

4/1 - None
4/2 - None
4/3 - None
4/4 - "After" by C. L. Holland from DAILY SCIENCE FICTION.
4/5 - None
4/6 - "Flower, Mercy, Needle, Chain" by Yoon Ha Lee from THE YEAR'S BEST SCIENCE FICTION & FANTASY 2011. An interesting tale of fantastic weapons, how they came to be created, and their impact on universes.
4/7 - None

Yeah... Definitely not living up to the "each" part of that recently.

Here are this week's links: