NaNoWriMo 2013 & other musings

      It’s been a bit over a year since my first short story was published and I still can’t shake the feeling that it’s a bit unreal.  A small publisher in Delaware took a chance on a unknown author and accepted a 2500 word story about an assassin and his axe. Madame was published in August of 2012. Henri’s appeared in another anthology from Smart Rhino [Perfection in Zippered Flesh 2] and there’s hints of a sequel to Uncommon Assassins. The third story, Riot, is partially written and I’m going to revisit it once December hits. I’m leaving a copy of both anthologies with the folks I’m currently working with and have gotten some very positive feedback from them. And a few strange looks.

      In the meantime, I’ve sold 6 other stories, written twice that number, and revised my novella. Got a slew of rejections, some really good advice on how to improve my writing, and encouragement from friends to keep going. Broken Horn in the anthology Astrologica: Tales of the Zodiac was released on 1st. I can't wait to have that one in hand and to add it to the brag box. That leaves 5 more in the pipeline, a couple of which I'm hoping to see by January. The latest one was submitted and accepted in under 10 hours. To be honest, I was floored with the rapid turn around and thrilled that they liked the story.


      This month is NaNoWriMo. 50K words in 30 days. Working on a prequel to my novella, “Fire and Frost”, going back to when the protagonist took his first steps into the world of changelings, magic, and weirdness. Sort of crap right now, but first draft and all that. Using Scrivener for writing, which lets me breakdown the story into chapters, move around parts, and get a rough outline going. And exports into standard manuscript format, which is sort of a pain as it turns all italics into underlines. Minor quibble, as all the other features make it very useful. Ahead of the writing goal at the moment and I'm aiming to “finish” before Thanksgiving, then push for another 10k. See if I can hit that 60k word goal. This is the eighth year and I've "won" five of the last seven. It's a great exercise in discipline giving me a goal to reach and then exceed. Like I need an excuse to write, but I can at least say, "Sorry, need to write" and go hunker down at the coffee shop for hours while I brainstorm a scene.