This month came in like a ball of fire. Records were broken, eggs were (I’m sure) cooked on sidewalks, and the beaches were an endless sprawl of people seeking relief. I stayed away from the shore and out of the heat. But there was plenty of heat for me. I had a lot of pressure building up as my fallow stretch continued. Things outside of writing began to go wrong, then really wrong, as problems piled up. It was no longer about writing or being productive; I needed an escape from all the crap I had to deal with.
And guess what? It actually helped. All the things that went wrong forced me to write again as a refuge from reality. The words began to come a bit easier. I had my first productive month in a long time and I gathered a lot of momentum to carry me into August. Which is bad news for you, because that means this post will be long!
July was a big announcement month for me. I had two blog posts drafted and ready for months. The first was the announcement that “The Dark Lane Anthology 14” was released on Amazon. As someone with a story in the book, I was able to read through much of it before the release. All I can say is wow. There are some wonderful stories in the book and some incredibly talented authors. I am so fortunate to have the chance to share the pages with all of them. I hope you enjoy The Weiralla. Now go get yourself a copy! (as of this writing only the Kindle version was available. Paperback coming soon!)
The second post – I’m sure you read it by now – is my inclusion in Volume 3 of my absolute favorite series of anthologies: “We Suck At Comics!” I received the acceptance e-mail on Christmas Eve, so I had to wait almost 7 months to announce it. But now that that particular cat has been liberated from its bag, stop reading my blabbering, head over to the Kickstarter page, and get ready for some Errant Adventures. For more on my entry Just One More Thing, read the blog post I mentioned earlier (after you finish this one).
On one of my random, infrequent perusals of Facebook, one call for submissions caught my attention. The post mentioned old dolls, artwork, and a request for short prose and poetry to accompany each piece. I was immediately excited by the concept and fired off an email (which, looking back, was not my best first impression). She replied that all the art was currently accounted for, but if I wanted I could send some non-specific writing along so it could apply to any piece. There is a 300-word limit – yikes, not my strong suit! – and end of July deadline. I mulled around some ideas and settled on one that my wife thought was the best. But a second idea refused to be ignored, so I ended up writing two different short stories. Titled The Limits of Your Sight and The Witness, they are both somewhat positive in tone, though the second is quite a bit darker. I sent them to the artist, and she responded enthusiastically less than two days later. I don’t like to brag (but I will). The first two words of her response to my stories were: “Absolutely stunning.” Not going to lie, it felt damn good. She will choose one for this exhibit, and if she does another show in this series she may use the second story.
This is not a typical publication; the stories will get assigned to artwork and, if it sells, the buyer will get doll, artwork, and writing in one package. If the piece with my story sells, I get a small stipend (it is not and never will be about that, as you all know) and the seller gets a unique piece of my writing. I mean, how cool is that? I will have images to share in the future. For more about the artist and The Quiet Children project, check out her website.
I also spent a lot of time on a short story I have been writing for months. I got myself into a decent rhythm with it in part because I had to; I read the first half at my writing group last month and promised I would have the conclusion ready for the next meeting. I got it done in plenty of time, enough that I could do two complete rounds of editing and my wife could read it through as well. There were a couple of tricky spots and abrupt transitional structure, but I am very proud of how it turned out. The title is Unrequited, and it sort of an anti-Valentine’s Day tale of around 6,000 words. It might be hard to get published with that length, but I will try when some relevant open calls are posted. And I tried something a little different, just to give myself a challenge. I designed title artwork to go with it. Check it out below!
On to my YA series. Book one continues to languish while I search for the right opportunity to get it published. Work on book two is moving along. I am seventy-five percent done with my first editing pass and will have that done by the end of the summer. Book three has been stubborn, but I am cracking it piece by piece. There are a lot of new characters who do not play a big role in this story but have parts to play at various points later. I have all my notes and research, but I am having trouble getting connective tissue between the main plot beats. It does not have the pace or the depth I want it to have. I love the story, it is just missing something to bring it all together. I am halfway through a tentative outline; once that is done, I will shuffle it around and look for different ways to get the pieces to fit.
So now things are finally flowing freer than they have for a while. I’m using the July heat to fire my writing as we head into August, so get ready for another long post next month. Time to review:
1 – Finish writing book 2 with at least two full rounds of edits. Almost there. Round one will be completed before the end of August.
2 – Be at least halfway through writing book 3. That blank page is still taunting me. But the outline is coming together.
3 – Have at least two short stories accepted for publication. Two submissions sent, plus two short pieces for “The Quiet Children.” Cross your fingers!
4 – Expand my search for someone to publish these YA stories. I have some trepidation about this. I have some publishers in mind but it feels different from querying agents. I need to grow a backbone and just hit send.
5 – Average two additional blog posts a month outside of monthly updates and publication announcements. Why do I torture myself with this?
6 – Read 36 books. July reads: “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest” by Ken Kesey; “The Invisible Man” by H.G. Wells. (total for the year – 7)