R.J.K. Lee's Figments Blog: Halloween Ends and NaNoWriMo Begins

Happy Halloween people. I had a nice outing with my daughters and girlfriend. We had a home party with two other families. Great fun, though my older daughter got a bit tired after the festivities. We had the Joker, Pennywise, a spooky skeleton, and the green monster Mike.

As for my most recent submissions, I just submitted a 3500-word story to PseudoPod. That story would be a trip to hear read live in their podcast. It has a haunting beauty to its dark poetry. Such an emotional literary horror piece. Makes me cry. I also submitted a 350-word revision of a weird xmas story I wrote a few years back. and sent it out to the Weird Christmas Flash Fiction Contest.

Some good news for me--I applied for a scholarship for some master workshops with teachers at Fyrecon 2020 (money has been rather scarce for me since job loss hit hard as a freelancer) and, guess what? I got approved for two master workshops! The first one is a two-day workshop of eight total hours: Cracking the Story Code with Amy White.The second one is The Secrets of a Howling Good Plot with Wulf Moon (I took his other master class on winning short stories in the summer).

And now, it's suddenly November. Already the second of November for me here with a bunch of business to take care of... voice acting job needs to get finished in a few days, some examiner training I need to send, another teaching-related project that awaits revision/expansion, and some jobs will take over several days this month...Sigh.

Of course, NaNoWriMo has started, so I'm supposed to get 6000 words written into the rewrite/revision of my novel today to get off on the right foot with my profile mentioning some further details. I'm working as a NaNo Rebel again this year, with plans to dive back into my 60,000-word novel. I pitched this one to agents at the Willamette Writers Conference, but after that I ended up adding another thread and messing with the story, so I must expand or cut or completely rewrite it. My plan is to explore a few sections of it that need fleshing out then cut out the excess and expand with the heart of it in mind. Basically approach my novel with some lessons learned while working with Wulf Moon's Super Secrets over the course of a year. I think his KYD exercises will be especially useful. I also have a flash that I wrote in August/September that will provide another good link into the novel, and a possible new diving in point for it. We'll see. I expect to reach around 100,000 words on this one if the current structure of it is any sign of its new normal to come.

I had a past post on NaNoWriMo advice. I may try to do that again, but here...I recommend using as many approaches as will help. Keep a notepad and pen handy, but also keep your smart phone handy. Both can be useful to brainstorm wherever you are. If you're stuck at work, you can keep quick notes on the side. Use Scrivener to keep all your notes together and various drafts for swift reference. Print out pages and mark them and move them around for structural inspiration. Set a clock, do writing sprints, and/or use the Write or Die software to make sure you write during your planned or unplanned sessions. Do not plan everything as things will fall apart, but do plan some so that it actually happens. Do leave something waiting to be written whether by having a notepad full of notes or a scene not quite finished. Have your inspiration constant my having your fingers in multiple pies (more than one scene ready to go, multiple avenues and interests that need to be jumped into, etc.). Okay, that's all the quick advice I have for now. Just zoom through the words and get the basic idea and pathways down. Do plan to come back and revise. Also, some new advice I'll be toying with: consider the Super Secrets, and especially the KYD exercises, as long they don't slow down your production output too much. But these last two are especially important if you find you not quite reaching the actual story and emotional core behind it.

I do have the Pack Chat writer friends who have been such a boon. Though we have finished the 2019-2020 year and the official 2020-2021 group has been reduced, our pack chat group remains. Quick to provide feedback on stories and always adding in some nice chat on life and writing inspiration. A nice pack of fellow creatives. One has invited me to send the first 50 pages of my novel to provide some help in my rewrite. Others have provided consistent help with fixing up my short stories and flash. One in particular has always been happy to tear apart my stories to help find the stronger core.

In the meantime, short story submissions continue. Current 2020 stats are inserted below.

Total submissions to publications: 113 (111 to pubs of 5-20¢/word; 2 to 1-4¢/word)

Rejections: 96 (59 short, 32 flash, 4 poems, 1 novel writing grant application)

Pending: 17 (10 short, 7 flash)

Just a few new deadlines added below. A bunch with deadlines right at the start of the month. Details for Flame Tree's latest horror anthology Beyond the Veil have been added now that they announced more about it (11/15 deadline). Deep Magic is still open if you have any amazing PG-13 speculative stories to send us first readers. The Dread Machine has a new anthology looking for dread-inspiring stories set in 1986 (2/26/2021 deadline). Added Departure Magazine to deadlines as their window is now limited to January 2021, i.e. they are currently closed. Also adding an open anthology on quiet horror with no deadline below from Cemetery Media Gates. Edit: Added Flame Tree’s flash fiction contest (11/17 deadline) to the deadlines list.

Search This Blog

Sunday, November 1, 2020

Halloween Ends and NaNoWriMo Begins

No comments:

Post a Comment