Two Story Sales and More Goal Updates

I ended 2012 with two more short story sales. My story "Act of Penance" was accepted for the December 2012 Kazka Press Flash Fiction contest. I'm very pleased to have had one more story accepted there before I take over the editorial reins for the monthly contests. This story should go live today or in the very near future.

Also, "Back to School", my zombie teacher story, has been accepted for publication by Plasma Frequency. It will be in the fourth issue of that publication, due in early February.

Now to close out December's goals and declare goals for January.

For December...

My 2013 Goals and a 2012 Goal Recap

I've previously blogged draft versions of my goals for 2013 and in the end, I've decided to make no real changes to the list. To have them in a nice, consolidated place I'm going to list them out here along with links to the original blog posts which covered each individual goal and the details behind them.

Editing for Kazka Press

Several of my first published short stories ran at Kazka Press as part of their monthly flash fiction contests and also as the first longer-form story they ran online. Earlier this year, I guest-edited the "Love Beyond Death" flash fiction contest for the site. I'm very pleased to announce that starting with the first of 2013 I will be editing their flash fiction contests every month. (If you'd like to read the full announcement, it's available here.)

I'm very excited about this opportunity and pleased that publisher L. Lambert Lawson felt that I would be a fitting person to continue the work he began with that portion of the site.

The two submission calls already announced for January and February submissions will be the first two I will be editing. Those are:

• January: An Undelivered Valentine (submissions due 1/20/13)
• February: Spring Training (submissions due 2/20/13)

So I'd encourage you to consider those themes and submit stories of 713-1000 words for consideration!

Story Sale: "Learning the Game" to Sidekicks!

A real quick note during my holiday hiatus. I'm pleased to announce that my short story "Learning the Game" has been accepted for Sidekicks!, an anthology of sidekick-themed stories edited by Sarah Hans for publisher Alliteration Ink. This book will be coming out in print and eBook in early 2013. I'll post more details as they become available.

Letting Go Of The Chain

"Will I give up the chain someday even while continuing a daily writing routine? I suppose it's possible. But I know that if I did give it up and then realized I was having trouble keeping to a routine, I'd want to return to using the chain to help myself get back into a groove.

In the end, the chain is just another tool to help you reach your goals. Like any tool, you can use it when it's helpful and leave it in its toolbox when it's not."

- A Time to Let Go of the Chain? (Chapter 11, Write Every Day)

I've been considering this for a while, off and on. But I've decided to make it official with the start of 2013. I'm no longer going to be formally maintaining a Daily Writing Chain.

Still Here...

Though pretty much completely out of it.

Five-sixths of my house has been struck by a hideous bug the past three days and I'm still feeling wiped out. I've gotten no writing done for the past two days and even being awake long enough to run my daughter (the one who DIDN'T get sick) to the orthodontist, run by the grocery store, answer a few emails and now type up this blog post has felt like a challenge.

The blog post which was going to run Monday will run later today or tomorrow (Thursday 12/20). Everybody else out there, stay well.

Sunday Links: December 16, 2012 Edition

I had let myself get horribly behind on short story submissions. This is normally something I'm very good about, however over the last couple of months in particular, as I got rejections I wasn't getting around to sending stories back out to another market. I've made a major push to that end this week and I'm basically caught up now. The only things not currently out the door are stories which I'm considering making revisions to before submitting them again. As of tonight I have 36 submissions out, five reprints and 31 originals. It feels good to be back to where I've got a lot of stories on on submission and I'm going to make a concerted effort to not fall behind again.

As a side note, with this week's efforts I've crossed the 300 mark for 2012 submissions. There was a point where I thought I might have 366, which would have been neat, but my slacking off in recent months ensured that wouldn't happen. Still, 300 submissions is a lot and I'm quite pleased with what I have accomplished.

Something in early 2013 I'll do a Year-in-Review for 2012 with all kinds of statistics. For now, though, let's move on to the writing-related links I've come across this week which I want to share: