29 May 2010

Tough Love

I didn't post last Sunday's critique group evisceration due to sheer exhaustion.  But the hardest two weeks of the academic year are behind me at the dayjob. I took an extra day off for the holiday weekend and I pretty much wasted yesterday (on purpose).  So, I figure looking at these crits would be a good way for me to get back into writing today as I (try to) keep live audio and video feeds of Roland Garros in the background.

It occurs to me now that I've only looked at the story once or twice since then. I was temporarily seduced by a couple of flash fiction projects, one for a prompt on Zoetrope, and the other by a Twitter joke gone too far, with further yet to go.

Anyway, I brought the next bit of the short story I brought last crit group session, which is for a seekrit project.  The group read the first part of the second act.  With scalpels and machetes out, here's what they said.

23 May 2010

@Everyday Weirdness

"Intermezzo"

This was a flash fiction piece I wrote, prompted by and workshopped in a private office of the Zoetrope Virtual Studio, not to mention my face-to-face critique group

Nice to know I'm going 3 for 10 for my latest round of story submissions, eh?

17 May 2010

Tough Love

It's been over two months since my last confession piece was eviscerated by the critique group.  Almost forgot what it was like.  Luckily, I picked it up again pretty darn fast!

I'm writing and submitting, even got two publications in so far.  I've also trunked two longer writing projects this year that just weren't working for me.  I hate doing that because it means violating Robert Heinlein's #2 Rule for Writing: You must finish what you write.  But I was prompted to start a new story by--well, I can't tell you why, not yet.  It's a seekrit.  Suffice it to say that this is the first time in a long time I was so excited by an idea.  In one morning, I had a rough plot outline of all the major points I want to hit.  By lunchtime, I had a title.  I almost never have a title until the end.

I spit out Act I in time to submit it for vivisection by the critique group.  And, vivisect it they did!

05 May 2010

"Signed, sealed, delivered/ I'm yours"

The contract is signed and in the mail, and the editors announced it, and so I will, too. My story "Combat Stress Reaction" will appear in the Gadgets and Artifacts issue of Crossed Genres on June 1st, along with work from Wendy Wagner, Daniel José Older, Michael Underwood, and Timothy Murphy.

I have nine other pieces currently in circulation, so at least I know I won't be going 0 for 10, whatever else happens.  I just know that it's been too long since I signed a story contract and now that daddy's had another taste, daddy wants more!