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.

Brief Context Convention Report

One of the science fiction conventions here in Central Ohio is Context, now in its 25th year. I'd been to the convention once or twice in its early years and then once as a bookseller about five to seven years ago. But I hadn't gone as a non-dealer attendee to this (or any science fiction convention) in about 20 years. The only cons I'd been to in that time were a few Pulpfests and many Cinevents. And while those are fun, they're both very different from SF cons.

Being that the convention is local, it was very easy for me to get there (with, of course, the assistance of my wife in terms of kid-wrangling for the day). Being that it's local, it was also "easy" for me to decide that going for a single day, today, made more sense than signing up for the whole weekend.

So how was it? In brief, I had a great time. I got to meet people I'd only conversed with online and also got to meet some people I didn't know at all before today. There were also several local writers (mostly from the Writeshop Writing Workshop) who I'd already met so there were some familiar faces, too.

I attended quite a few panels, had lunch with Nicole Cushing and Brady Allen, saw the interview with Fantasy Guest of Honor Alex Bledsoe and listened to multiple readings. I came home with only one new physical book but with lots of new reading recommendations.

I would write more about the convention but I'm completely beat at this point and my brain is only capable of vague, mushy thoughts right now. But I will say that I'm very much looking forward to the next convention I attend. (Barring anything unforseen, that will be Philcon in November.)

Five Things I Learned Reading Slush

Driving home tonight, something occurred to me. I won't necessarily be reading any slush anytime in the near future. After several months reading for Unidentified Funny Objects followed immediately by three-plus weeks of reading for Kazka Press, this was sort of a surprising revelation. And, to be honest, a bit of a relief.

I don't begrudge either of those publications any of the time I spent on them. I hope that the comments I provided Alex Shvartsman for UFO were helpful in production its Table of Contents. And I also hope that people enjoy reading the stories which I (Alone. Eep.) selected for the Flash Fiction portion of the October Kazka Press issue. I enjoyed working with Alex and L. Lambert Lawson and both were excellent experiences.

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!

Free eBooks! (Mine and Other Folks')

You may have seen the little badge on the right hand side of my blog the past few weeks advertising the Codex Writers Promo today and tomorrow.

What this consists of is a total of 12 Kindle eBooks which will be available completely free of charge from the 26th at 3:00 AM EDT until the 28th at 3:00 AM EDT. One of these is my short story "Gravity's Pull." The others are short stories, collections, and novels from other writers who are part of the Codex Writers' Group. Codex is specifically oriented toward "neo-pro" speculative fiction writers, those who have had some professional sales but are still early in their writing careers. (If that description fits you -- if you have one or more SFWA-qualifying sales or have attended one of the major workshops such as Clarion -- it's worth applying to join Codex. If you have any questions about this, let me know.)

The easiest way to snag all of these freebies is to go to this handy Amazon list of all 12 titles. You could also go to a site where each of the titles is described in greater detail.

I hope that you find some things you really enjoy reading from these free eBooks!

Three-Quarter Mark September #writemotivation Checkin

A quick check-in with my Monday #writemotivation status. Technically this is the last one for September, but there's still a decent amount of month left.

By the way, it looks like next week I'm going to have a ton of cool things to share with everyone. Not only will the issue of Kazka-Press I'm guest-editing the flash fiction for come out, but it looks like I may have as many as three stories of my own releasing next week. I'll post links as I have them.

While my monthly goals aren't going fabulous (more on that below), I am going to meet one of my goals for the year this weekend by attending the local science fiction convention Context. I'm only planning to be there Saturday, but that looks to be by far the busiest day. If you're going to be there and want to say "Hi", let me know! I am also planning to be at Philcon later this year.

Now, as far as this month's goals have gone...

1) Keep my Daily Writing Chain going. - Doing just fine here.
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. - I'm officially bailing on this goal for the month, in favor of trying to accomplish goals 4 and 5.
4) Write a story and submit it to Criminal Element. - I have a first draft and someone who's agreed to critique the story for me. Now I need to get a second draft done (tonight, most likely), send it to the critiquer, and then work with their feedback. I might not make 9/30, depending on the speed of my crit partner and how long it takes me to work with their changes. But I feel much better about this goal than before.
5) Write the first draft of my story for the Codex Halloween contest. - No new progress here. I may be able to get this done later this week.
6) Get a revised version of my novelette out to beta readers. - This is done and I've also received feedback from one reader. The other reader will likely have feedback to me within a few days.

Sunday Links: September 23, 2012 Edition

Kind of a quiet week on the writing front. I've spent a fair amount of time reading stories for the Kazka Press 713 Flash Fiction Contest and will be making my final selections there in the very near future.

Speaking of final selections, the Unidentified Funny Objects anthology table of contents has been announced in the past several days. Lots of good stories in it; if you didn't pre-order during the Kickstarter, there will be opportunities to buy it later this year.

Here are this week's writing-related links; I hope that some of them are useful to you.