Category Archives: Daily Science Fiction

Goals for the Week Ending 03-09-14

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Writing Goals (Any titles listed are working titles and – thankfully – subject to change):

  • Outline/Rewrite of “Sublease”, a science fiction tale set in the not-too-distant future where all of humanity is tied into a network that makes use of everyone’s unused physical and mental abilities in exchange for paying off the enormous debt a collapsed global economy has placed on everyone.  Think of it as a coal-mining town where the company owns everything, and charges more than you get paid for the necessities.  The hero is someone who wants to break free of that system.  I’m expecting this tale to be around 10,000 words.  This is the story I want to send to the Writers of the Future contest.  The revision for this one story should take the bulk of the week, I’m guessing.
  • Brainstorm/Outline/Rough Draft of “Metamorph,” a short story for Resurrection House‘s XIII Anthology (6,000 words or less).
  • Brainstorm/Outline/Rough Draft of “UnCivil Engineering,” a humorous short story featuring civil engineers in the aftermath of an apocalypse (6,000 words or less).  Aiming this as one of my submissions for the “Unidentified Funny Objects” anthology.
  • Brainstorm/Outline/Rough Draft two or three flash fiction pieces (1,000 words or less each).  I have some ideas jotted down in my brainstorming notebook by the bed.
  • Write outline for the second draft of “Into the Wastes”, a fantasy novel about a company of crusaders sent into their kingdom’s northern hinterlands to deal with one threat, only to discover multiple threats.

Reading Goals:

  • Read each of the five stories that Daily Science Fiction puts out this week.
  • Read Rhapsody, the first of the “Symphony of Ages” series by Elizabeth Haydon.
  • Re-read the prologues and opening chapters for several epic fantasy novels, including King’s Dragon (Kate Elliott), The Green Rider (Kristen Britain), and The Eye of the World (Robert Jordan), amongst others.  I’m doing this as an exercise to see if there is anything common in each book’s opening chapters and how that could benefit the opening chapters to “Into the Wastes.”

Goals for the Week Ending 02-23-14

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Writing Goals (Any titles listed are working titles):

  • Write “Songs of Fate”, a fantasy short story for Crossed Genres‘ “music” theme. (4,000 words or less)
  • Write “Interstellar Explorers”, a science fiction short story about human prospectors discovering – and dealing with – a pre-spaceflight alien race that is very warlike and will be a threat if they do reach the stars. (6,000 words or less)
  • Write “Sublease”, a science fiction tale set in the not-too-distant future where all of humanity is tied into a network that makes use of everyone’s unused physical and mental abilities in exchange for paying off the enormous debt a collapsed global economy has placed on everyone.  Think of it as a coal-mining town where the company owns everything, and charges more than you get paid for the necessities.  The hero is someone who wants to break free of that system.  I’m expecting this tale to be around 10,000 words.  This is the story I want to send to the Writers of the Future contest.
  • Write outline for the second draft of “Into the Wastes”, a fantasy novel about a company of crusaders sent into their kingdom’s northern hinterlands to deal with one threat, only to discover multiple threats.

Reading Goals:

  • Read each of the five stories that Daily Science Fiction puts out this week.
  • Re-read my notes for “Into The Wastes” and lay the groundwork for a second draft.
  • Re-read the prologues and opening chapters for several epic fantasy novels, including King’s Dragon (Kate Elliott), The Green Rider (Kristen Britain), and The Eye of the World (Robert Jordan), amongst others.  I’m doing this as an exercise to see if there is anything common in each book’s opening chapters and how that could benefit the opening chapters to “Into the Wastes.”

Week in Review – Week Ending 02/16/2014

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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:

  • “Fallout Ariel”, originally on the goal list.
  • “Ninja Mama”, originally on the goal list under the Kazka 713 “Journeys” theme.
  • “Alien Concept”, a flash fiction story that just came to me and had no bearing on the original goals.
  • “Listening Post”, originally on the goal list under the Penumbra‘s “superhero” theme.

“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.

Brevity in Flash Fiction

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One of my favorite sources for great flash fiction is the aptly named ezine Flash Fiction Online.  Another is the Daily Science Fiction, although they do not solely publish flash fiction.  They prefer shorter fiction for first time buys, so I have always tried to gear my submissions to Daily Science Fiction with that in mind.  In fact, of the numerous tales I have sent to them (16 as of this writing), it was the 11th one that made it to the second – and final – round of selection.  It was also my shortest, at just 273 words.  It has yet to be published, but hopefully a home will be found soon.

I find myself writing more and more flash fiction as the months go by, and my main hang-up is keeping my tendency for verbosity down.  If brevity is the soul of wit then I’m lacking in the wits department!  As frustrating as it can be, it’s a great exercise for a writer to try and be as concise as possible.  The words do add up, whether one is writing a story that’s only a sentence long or an entire novel or series of novels.  There comes a point when you need to rein them in.

Take “Fallout Ariel”, the flash fiction piece I finished the rough draft of today.  It’s a lengthy 1,650 words.  To be considered a flash piece by most markets it will need to be at least 1,000 words.  That’s a lot of shaving, but that’s to be expected from me.  I will probably re-read the rough draft and then rewrite the story entirely.  I have some ideas of how I want to change up the plot to make it a better tale.  After that, the story will need to be tightened.

By tomorrow night I’ll have a tangible example to show of the process I go through from rough draft to revised draft to final draft (Or as many revisions as are needed before arriving at the final draft).  Each story requires different things of me, which is what keeps things interesting.

Suzanne Vincent, the editor of Flash Fiction online, has a great article on managing story length.  It’s been a tremendous help to me, and if you’re into writing fiction (flash or otherwise) you owe it to your self to give it a read.  Not only is it good advice, but it comes from an editor!  You know, one of the people who determines the life or death of your story once you release it into the wild lands known only as “Submitted.”  It never hurts to see how they think and to know what they look for.

Goals for the Week Ending 02-16-14

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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):

  • Write “Fallout Ariel”, a flash fiction story of a technical diver meeting a mermaid at the outset of nuclear war. (1,000 words or less)
  • Write a flash fiction piece for the Kazka 713 “Journeys” flash fiction contest. (1,000 words or less)
  • Write “Songs of Fate”, a fantasy short story for Crossed Genres‘ “music” theme. (4,000 words or less)
  • Write “What Use, This Strength?”, a short story for Penumbra‘s “superhero” theme. (3,500 words or less)
  • Write “Interstellar Explorers”, a science fiction short story about human prospectors discovering – and dealing with – a pre-spaceflight alien race that is very warlike and will be a threat if they do reach the stars. (6,000 words or less)
  • Write outline for the second draft of “Into the Wastes”, a fantasy novel about a company of crusaders sent into their kingdom’s northern hinterlands to deal with one threat, only to discover multiple threats.

Reading Goals:

  • Read each of the five stories that Daily Science Fiction puts out this week.  It’s free to subscribe, so I highly recommend it.  They put out many wonderful stories of varying sizes, shapes, and stripes.
  • Re-read my notes for “The Wastes” and lay the groundwork for a second draft.
  • Re-read portions of Elizabeth Haydon’s Symphony of Ages series, mostly for how she incorporates music into her writing.  This will be important for my own musically-themed stories.  Plus, it’s a good series!

Submission Sunday – Week Ending 02-09-14

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Well, this past week hasn’t been very productive in terms of new writing. I’ve been working on some concepts, but no rough drafts have been written at all. This was a combination of work interference, snow interference, automobile interference, and general laziness. I have a bad habit of tacking one big thing and then being done for the day.

Anyway, today I spent a lot of time getting a bunch of stories resubmitted. Here we go:

Summary: 0 New, 9 Resubmissions

Resubmissions:

“False Light” resubmitted to Daily Science Fiction.

“Flickering Freedom” resubmitted to Flash Fiction Online.

“Sand” resubmitted to The Dark Magazine.

“Familial Obligation” resubmitted to Apex.

“A Necessary Sacrifice” resubmitted to Asimov’s.

“Water Cursed, Earth Atoned” resubmitted to Lightspeed.

“Subroutine” resubmitted to LORE.

“Beneficent” resubmitted to the Intergalactic Medicine Show.

“An Unquiet Peace” resubmitted to BuzzyMag.