Category Archives: Unidentified Funny Objects

Submission Sunday – Week Ending 03/09/2014

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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.

Writing in Public: Day 07, Month 02

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“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:

  • Nonfiction: 91
  • Planning and outlining: 350
  • Short Fiction: 2,400 (Halved the salable total, as it wasn’t all new words)
  • Novel Fiction: 000
  • Salable words: 4,800

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

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.”