Finally, a week with more new submissions than resubmissions! Of course, two of these stories were written before this week. I just didn’t get around to the final edits until the other day.
Summary: 3 New, 2 Resubmission
“Blue Pearls” submitted to Crossed Genres.
“Alien Concept” submitted to Crossed Genres.
“Zombielock” submitted to Unidentified Funny Objects.
Resubmissions:
“Who Killed Zombie Robin?” resubmitted to Black Static Magazine.
“False Light” resubmitted to Lightspeed Magazine.
“UnCivil Engineering” is finished! It has also hereby been renamed “Zombielock.” It came in at about 4,800 words. Edited it down quite a bit and got some critical feedback on it. It’s been fired off to Unidentified Funny Objects. Hopefully we’ll get some good results for it.
Also finished my final edits on both “Alien Concept” and “Blue Pearls.” Both have been sent off to Crossed Genres for their first-ever flash fiction themed issue. They’re accepting up to three stories, so I’ll have to cook up another between now and the end of the month. I don’t know that my flash fiction pieces are any good, but they’re a fun challenge. Developing a full beginning, middle, and end is a tough thing to do in 1,000 words or less.
Ok, on to today’s numbers:
Total Fiction for Month: 12,448
Total Salable for Month: 4,800
Total Fiction for Challenge Year: 62,671
Total Salable for Challenge Year: 15,744
Here are this week’s totals. A couple of new stories finished, but mostly resubmissions:
Summary: 2 New, 5 Resubmissions
“Harmonious Bedlam” submitted to Crossed Genres.
“Unit Zero” submitted to Penumbra.
Resubmissions:
“Sand” resubmitted to Fablecroft’s “Insert Title Here” Anthology.
“A Necessary Sacrifice” resubmitted to Betwixt.
“Paper Planet” resubmitted to Asimov’s Science Fiction.
“The Heart of the Wendigo” resubmitted to Straeon.
“Who Killed Zombie Robin?” resubmitted to Nightmare Magazine.
Writing Goals (Any titles listed are working titles):
Reading Goals:
This week was an interesting one. Blizzards, shoveling, blizzards, shoveling. I’ll admit all of that left me drained physically and mentally. I was able to push through some of the writing goals I had, but the week ended with a lot left to be done. I can only blame so much of this on the weather, as the rest lies squarely on my shoulders. I knew the week was going to get bad and I didn’t take precautions and frontload as much writing into the better days as I should have.
The plan should always be to think of tomorrow as being worse than today in terms of productivity. Tomorrow could be perfectly fine and productive, or the car could break down or the heating system could die and the day could be spent dealing with that. Better to assume it will get derailed and focus on the present than to hope for a better tomorrow.
With that said, the rough drafts of four stories were finished. They are:
“Songs of Fate” and “Interstellar Explorers” were not started, though some planning/outlining was accomplished.
On the reading front, I did finish the stories that Daily Science Fiction sent out, and look forward to enjoying more next week. My goal with this reading is to eventually start reverse-engineering the tales and breaking them down into their component parts. Such an exercise can only help improve my own grasp of the craft of writing, and it’s something I want to start doing with everything I read. The more I can understand what goes into an accepted tale, the more likely my own work will find a home in the publications I read.
Started my writing at 12:00 PM today. Normally I like to get writing started at 10:00, get a solid two or three hours in before lunch, and then hit it again until dinner. The “hit it again until dinner” also didn’t happen. With the bad weather rolling in, it’s been a busy day of running more errands and gathering firewood. No excuse for someone trying to make a career of writing. Writing time is something I need to guard jealously and insure that only writing is done during those specified blocks. That is something I will implement first thing tomorrow. 10:00 – 12:00, then 1:00 – 5:00, or something to that effect.
With that said, there was some productivity. The rough draft of “Alien Concept” is finished, clocking in at approximately 1,050 words. The rough draft of the Kazka “Journeys” theme story is also finished. It’s another flash fiction piece, and it will need quite a bit of work to get it up to where I’m satisfied with it. On the planning and outlining front, I’ve figured out a starting point and protagonist for the “Songs of Fate” story that I’ll begin actually writing on Friday. That is for the Crossed Genres‘ music themed issue.
Total Fiction for Month: 3,168
Total Salable for Month: 000
Starting today, every Monday there will be a post of my goals for the current week. This will include writing goals as well as reading goals. Reading is as important to a writer as writing, for both are learning experiences that help us to grow in our craft.
Or, so I like to think. Anyway, on to the goals!
Writing Goals (Any titles listed are working titles):
Reading Goals:
Starting today and continuing each Sunday I will post a list of submissions completed for the previous week. This will serve as a form of accountability for me, as when weeks go by where I submit nothing (Either new or resubmissions) I can now be publicly shamed over it! Even with writing happening, if nothing is getting submitted it can’t be considered a productive week. From a short story standpoint, anyway.
So, without further ado, here are my submissions for the week:
Summary: 4 New, 0 Resubmissions
New Submissions:
January 29th, “Starting from Zeroth” submitted to Penumbra Magazine.
January 31st, “Supply Chain Management” submitted to Crossed Genres.
January 31st, “False Light” submitted to On the Premises.
February 1st, “Paper Planet” submitted to Unlikely Story.