Monday, May 26, 2008

Summer days are here at last!

The summer is finally here and along with it comes the whole responsibility of finding a job so I can pay for college. My progress so far? I've applied to one place and am halfway through another application. A third application (in the form of an email) will be sent out today or tomorrow.

But enough of that. I've finally started to get my writing going again. My major accomplishment is that of finding someone who has promised to read Firequeen through and give it a good critique! I'm really happy about that because I've been despairing of finding anyone to help me. (Of course it does help that I'm critting his book for him).

In my last post I mentioned an anthology that I intended to submit to. Well there have been two changes where that is concerned. First, they are paying for the stories now! Second, they have named the anthology "The Dark Whole" and that has made me reconsider as to which story I will send them. It sounds like they want fantasy that is a bit darker than "The Old Has Passed Away, and the New Has Come to Stay". I have dug through my short story archives and found a piece which I think will fit. It's definitely got to be the darkest piece I've ever written (though it's not that dark). At present it is titled "Houses of Enemies" but I'm going to change the title as I don't think it fits anymore. However, I still plan to submit "The Old Has Passed Away..." to Andromeda Spaceways magazine.

That is all that is going on with my writing. Now I must be off to go and edit "Houses of Enemies". I need to get it submitted asap.

Until next time!

Saturday, May 3, 2008

Finals

I'm back, even if it has been several days. The editing process has ground to a screeching halt because of finals for school. The only thing I'm writing at the moment is a paper on Crime and Punishment for one of my two English classes.

I'm still stuck on page 7 and 8 of Firequeen. I just typed all the edits in (including the extended scene) and that actually added about a page to the novella. So the total page count is about 91 (published) pages.

Right now, I'm looking ahead to this summer and the fall and I'm trying to plan out my next move. Over the summer I hope to finish editing Firequeen and finish writing the 1st draft of Lwyn: A Space Trader's Daughter-Adventure at Anwar. Hopefully I can get the latter mostly edited by the time NaNoWriMo rolls around again in November. I've also been looking at several publishing opportunities. One, of course, being the Q (my school's literary magazine). I want to submit The Old Has Passed Away... to them sometime, but first I have to edit it. Also, I wanted to try to get it published elsewhere first because the Q isn't picky about it being a reprint. I've got two places I'm looking at: an anthology that will be coming out at the end of year (deadline July 1st) and an Australian magazine, Andromeda Spaceways. I think I've decided to try for the anthology first as I have a better chance of getting it submitted there. There's no advance payment but there is the possibility of royalties if it sells well enough.

At this rate I won't be submitting The Old Has Passed Away... to the Q for a long time, but I do have another story that might possibly be ready by the fall. I just came up with the idea for a story based around 1 Corinthians 13. I won't explain it all here at this moment, but it has to do with a world where what you name your child comes true--but with a catch. The story would follow two parents trying to outwit the system so there's no catch. I'll see if I can write this over the summer before I forget all the details that aren't written down in my writer's notebook.

Also, in my planning for the fall, I've been thinking hard about getting involved with the Whetstone, the campus newspaper. One of the staff members is leaving and their column would be open. I was considering starting up a column that would feature all the clubs that are on campus. There seems to be a general apathy toward committing to a club and I'd like to see if I can change that.

As another bit of news, to sign off with, I will be working on the staff of the Q in the fall. It's a course that I signed up for. I hope that I won't be overwhelmed in the fall, but the fall semester always seems to be easier for some reason.

Until next time!