Where I’ve Been

Posted on April 17, 2014 by admin

The last couple of weeks have been strange for me. Up until a few months ago I was not actively writing on my blog, nor was I actively keeping up with my daily word counts. At the end of approximately 8 weeks of doing just that I felt like I was in a good rhythm and ready to keep going forward with it! Before March was over I had made my April schedule out, and was going to get more written than in the past two months combined!

Or, so I thought.

A couple of hours after getting the wonderful news about the acceptance of “Mechanicis Solis” by Fictionvale, my wife’s car broke down. It had been acting up, but I thought I had fixed the problem the weekend before. It was running great all day, so I decided to go pick her up from the office in her car. Big mistake. It waited until I was almost to her office to start giving me problems, and we were almost home when it finally gave out. Had it towed back to the house since – once again – I thought I could fix it. It hadn’t been acting this bad since I changed this one part out so obviously changing that part back should have fixed it, right? Well, you can see where this is going.

Then, to make matters worse, both of my day jobs exploded with more activity than I knew what to do with, and that has yet to let up. As such, no writing has actually been done at all this month to any great degree, though I have made some headway on planning for a few of the April 30 deadlines that I want to meet. Further, I’ve been reading through my recently acquired copy of David Farland’s Million Dollar Outlines and learning quite a bit. I’m about a third of the way through it, and plan to post up some of my notes from the book. I’m also considering taking one of his online courses later this summer, so if anyone has done so please let me know how it was! I’ve heard nothing but good things about them.

Anyway, I am going to cut down on some of my goals for the end of the month, but here are the ones I’m still committed to. If the good Lord is willing, it will be possible to pull off even with the extremely busy schedule I’ve been hit with:

Novel Goals:

Finish reading and taking notes of Million Dollar Outlines.
Choose which of two novel concepts to outline, and outline that one.

Short Story Goals (In no particular order):

Crossed Genres Time Travel, Entry 1
Crossed Genres Time Travel, Entry 2
Spindles Fairy Tales, Adult Version
Spindles Fairy Tales, Child Version
Penumbra Hyperspeed Issue
PARSEC Contest Entry

I will be starting up the “Writing in Public” challenge again tomorrow. Not sure how productive the end of this month will be, but let’s do our best!

Writing in Public: Day 24, Month 02

Posted on March 24, 2014 by admin

professor-farnsworth No writing was done today due to various factors, but I did hear something positive from the staff over at Flash Fiction Online. They did not accept my story “Amidst the Swirling Sakura Petals” but it did make it into the final selection process, which is something a small percentage of submitted stories achieve. That alone is a huge accomplishment, but they went a step better and provided feedback that I consider invaluable to improving the story for the next market. Positive and critical, the criticism is greatly appreciated.

Miss Vincent, I don’t know if you’ll ever read this post, but know that I am indebted to you and your magazine! I’m already looking forward to sending my next story to you and hope it will do even better. I’m also indebted to the magazine’s blog for providing me with a formula that greatly improved my ability to write flash fiction. That post, “The Hollywood Formula – Flash Style!” is a great resource for anyone trying to condense a story down into a flash format.

Nonfiction: 202
Planning and outlining: 000
Short Fiction: 000
Novel Fiction: 000
Salable words: 000

Total Fiction for Month: 56,303

Total Salable for Month: 13,940

Total Fiction for Challenge Year: 106,526

Total Salable for Challenge Year: 24,884

“Astronomical Odds” is Out!

Posted on March 17, 2014 by admin

The “Astronomical Odds” Spring 2014 anthology from Third Flatiron Publishing is out!

It is available at Smashwords in .epub, .mobi, and . lrf formats. and at Amazon in .mobi (Kindle) format. The Amazon link will also include a paperback format at some point in the near future.

A synopsis provided by the Juliana Rew, the editor at Third Flatiron:
Third Flatiron Anthologies presents “Astronomical Odds,” a fresh selection of short SF/Fantasy/Horror/Humor stories with a mathematical twist. New and established speculative fiction authors include Ken Altabef, Michelle Ann King, Edoardo Albert, John A. McColley, Jennifer R. Povey, James Aquilone, Martin Clark, Iain Ishbel, Garry McNulty, Nick Slosser, Benjamin T. Smith, Susan Nance Carhart, and Adele Gardner. Edited by Juliana Rew.

What are the chances of getting away with murder? Or of getting back that letter the Post Office lost?

Stranded in space and time? Odds of survival may be tiny, but you may luck out and find a friendly planet–or maybe not.

Stuck in a dead end life? Having a “perfect” baby or spouse is usually a crapshoot, but maybe an adjustment can be made–for a price.

I’m looking forward to reading the other great stories in there. If you’ve read it and have a comment on the other stories or my own (“Lost in the Mail”), please leave a comment! I would love to hear what you have to say.

Submission Sunday – Week Ending 03/09/2014

Posted on March 9, 2014 by admin

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 03, Month 02

Posted on March 3, 2014 by admin

No, you are not reading the title wrong. This is the first entry in the Writing in Public Challenge, Month 2. I wasn’t feeling the best over the weekend, so I spent much of it resting up, brainstorming ideas without committing anything to paper, and getting some of my goals for the month organized. Today was the official start to the month.

Starting this month I’m breaking up fiction writing into two subcategories: short story writing and novel writing, which will be combined into the total amount for the month and year.

With all that said, today was pretty awful for actual fiction written. I outlined the revision for “Sublease,” but that was about it. I also spent quite a bit of time reading articles on writing by Rachel Aaron (Of “The Legend of Eli Monpress” fame) and watching a great interview of sci-fi/fantasy author Cat Rambo that . All of that is no excuse for the lack of words today. The only thing I can blame – other than general laziness – is my lack of writing over the weekend. It’s always a mistake when I go cold turkey for even a day or two. If writing is an addiction it’s about the easiest one to break. The day job can interfere with writing, but that’s still no excuse. The time is there. It just needs to be utilized.

Anyway, here are the lackluster numbers:

Nonfiction: 331 + 268
Planning and outlining: 794
Short Fiction: 000
Novel Fiction: 000
Salable words: 000

Total Fiction for Month: 000

Total Salable for Month: 000

Total Fiction for Challenge Year: 50,223

Total Salable for Challenge Year: 10,944

Goals for the Week Ending 03-09-14

Posted on March 3, 2014 by admin

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.”

Writing in Public: Day 16, Month 01

Posted on February 26, 2014 by admin

The rough draft of “Harmonious Bedlam” was finished after an additional 4,800 words. It is much better structured than past rough drafts I’ve come up with, so I think the outlining strategy I followed from the people at How To Write A Novel Now. Now, while that outlining strategy is designed primarily for novels, it was a big help to me for a longer short story of around 6,000 words or so. I’m looking forward to putting it to “Sublease” and “You Are My Brothers” to see what elements I’m missing and where I can improve the story flow.

I have to say the last two months have been a journey for me. A lot has been written, but even more has been learned. I’ll go into that in a post at the end of the month, but I’m very satisfied with the way the time has gone. There are definitely areas where I need to improve on multiple fronts (Technique, plotting, language, and theming for the writing itself, but also efficiency and stamina). But, the forward momentum is there, and it is building.

Now, on to the day’s numbers!

Nonfiction: 197
Planning and outlining: 000
Fiction: 4,800
Salable words: 000

Total Fiction for Month: 43,723

Total Salable for Month: 5,944

Writing in Public: Day 14, Month 01

Posted on February 24, 2014 by admin

It took a whole weekend to get rolling on it, but I finally finished with “Listening Post”. It clocked in at roughly 3,333 words. I’m going to let it sit until either tomorrow or Wednesday before re-reading it and making the final changes, but it won’t be much more or less than that. I just need to check grammar, make sure I’m not being redundant in the story-telling, and see if there’s any way I can tighten up the plot and action.

The final draft of “Fallout Ariel” (Renamed to “Blue Pearls”) is finished. It’s currently at 806 words, and hopefully will not fluctuate too much.

Lastly, the final draft of “Alien Concept” is finished. Its final word count is 735.

Nonfiction: 397 +
Planning and outlining: 000
Fiction: 4,874
Salable words: 4,874

Total Fiction for Month: 37,423

Total Salable for Month: 5,944

Goals for the Week Ending 03-02-14

Posted on February 24, 2014 by admin

You’ll note that a couple of these goals have been here for a couple of weeks now, and that’s because I keep finding reasons to not get around to them. Specifically, reviewing and revamping the outline for the second draft of “Into the Wastes” as well as doing some reading research of some of my favorite fantasy books.

Another reading goal that has been added is to read a book each week. I’ve fallen out of reading novels in favor of short stories over the last year or so, and it’s high time I get back to it. As stated in an earlier post, reading is just as important a task for writers as writing is. Reading is what gets most of us interested in writing in the first place, and by reading other authors we can see technique in action and learn from it. It’s an enjoyable form of research, and it makes me feel a little guilty when I do it. That’s probably why I keep finding excuses to not do it, but no more!

Writing Goals (Any titles listed are working titles):

Revise and submit “Listening Post” (3,500 salable words or less)
Revise and submit “Fallout Ariel” (1,000 salable words or less)
Revise and submit “Alien Concept” (1,000 salable words or less)
Write, revise, and submit “Songs of Fate” (4,000 salable words or less)
Write, revise, and submit “Signalmen” (4,000 salable words or less)
Revise and submit “Gentle Breeze” (3,500 salable words or less)
Finish rough draft of “You Are My Brothers” and get ready to outline it (6,000 more words of rough draft)
Outline “Sublease” and get ready for the rewrite.
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.”

Words Goal:

Total Fiction: 35,000

Salable: 17,000

Writing in Public: Day 13, Month 01

Posted on February 23, 2014 by admin

Yet another bad day for actually getting stuff written. I was at the keyboard for a number of hours, struggling to get “Listening Post” rewritten. I’m not sure what the problem was, but the words did not want to come. It was one of those days that makes a writer think he’s not a writer at all. It’s not a very complex tale either, which had me both puzzled and frustrated.

Further, it ate into my rough draft time and yet another day passed with little more done on “You Are My Brothers.” Tomorrow is the start of a new week, and a new set of goals. And part of those goals will be finishing the rewrites of “Listening Post” and “Fallout Ariel” very early in the week, possibly as early as tomorrow.

Nonfiction: 148
Planning and outlining: 200
Fiction: 1,627
Salable words: 000

Total Fiction for Month: 32,549

Total Salable for Month: 1,070

Benjamin Tyler Smith

Writer of Fantasy & Science Fiction

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