Category: Writing

Weekly writing check-in: the one with yet another novel

I am really psyched about those two submissions this week. I’m hoping to build my list back up to a respectable level. I have some reprints I’d like to submit to audio markets. I would like to write a few more short stories too, although I can’t seem to stop myself from writing novelettes, so we’ll see how that goes.

Speaking of which, I’m doing something a bit different: working on two things at once, a novel and a novelette. So far it seems to be working.

And, of course, The Fine Art of Holding Your Breath is out, and you can read all about it, the Goodreads giveaway, and the countdown deal in yesterday’s post.

Writing Work:

  • Writing ~ 9,200 words
  • Graphic Design tutorials

Submissions:

  • Abandonment Issues
  • March Madness

Rejections:

  • None

Acceptances:

  • None

Publications:

The Fine Art of Holding Your Breath

Fine Art_blueYou can see all the details in yesterday’s post, but yes, she is live and on sale.

Revealed: The Fine Art of Holding Your Breath

So, now it’s here, or rather, now it’s official. It’s in the wild and will do whatever it is that it’s going to do out there.

Currently, it’s available in Kindle and Print (and if you buy the print version, you can get the Kindle one for free).
Fine Art

Secrets–like war–have their own casualties

MacKenna’s mother died when she was a baby, a casualty of the first Gulf War. Now seventeen, MacKenna has spent her life navigating the minefield of her dad’s moods, certain of one thing: she is destined to follow in her mother’s combat boots. But when she pursues an ROTC scholarship, she finds herself at war before even enlisting.

Her father forbids her from joining the military, inexplicable considering he’d raised her to be a “warrior princess.” MacKenna turns to her grandmother–who arms her with an ammo crate containing her mother’s personal effects from the war. Hidden in the crate’s false bottom is a journal, one her mom stashed there hours before her death.

While MacKenna untangles the secrets of her parents’ tragic love story, her own life unravels. Dad’s behavior becomes erratic, her best friend grows distant and even hostile, and a boy from her past returns–with a life-threatening secret of his own.

If ever a girl needed her mother, it’s now.

The pen might be mightier than the sword, but are a mother’s words strong enough to slice through years of hidden pain? Can those words reach through the battlefields of the past to change MacKenna’s future?

Save the date

I’ll be running a Kindle Countdown Deal starting on January 27th, when you can get the Kindle version for 99 cents. In the meantime, you can hop on over to Goodreads and enter the giveaway for a signed paperback copy:

Goodreads Book Giveaway

The Fine Art of Holding Your Breath by Charity Tahmaseb

The Fine Art of Holding Your Breath

by Charity Tahmaseb

Giveaway ends January 28, 2015.

See the giveaway details
at Goodreads.

Enter to win

Weekly writing check-in: the one where I look back at 2014

Action is hopeHappy New Year! I hope it was joyous and safe and you have lots of plans for the new  year.

I’m going to take a quick look back before I jump into 2015 proper.

Words written:

For 2014, I wrote ~270,000 words.

Uh, yeah. That looks like a lot. You know what? It doesn’t feel like a lot. I don’t feel tired or drained from doing that. In fact, I feel energized, and to quote Mr. Bradbury, I’ll be damned, it’s been a good year.

270,000 words looks intimidating. But really? Divide that by 365. It’s only 740 words per day.

740. Not even 1,000 words per day. That’s doable. If you bump it up a bit, you can take weekends off. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again now. Daily writing is a lot like exercise. It isn’t sexy or glamorous, but if you commit to it, you’ll see results.

Of those words I wrote, I managed a couple of novels, a handful of short stories, and several novelettes. I love writing novelettes, but it’s hard to find a home for them.

Other stats:

I made 51 submissions this year (down ~ 50 from last year).

I sold six stories/poem thingies.

Of my fiction writing income, 30% came from selling to traditional markets (short fiction markets) and 70% came from publishing my own work. With this in mind, I will probably concentrate on publishing my own work in 2015, in a variety of ways.

2014 Publications:

Straying from the Path at Flash Fiction Online

A Most Marvelous Pair of Boots at Timeless Tales Magazine

Breakfast in the Desert at Every Day Poets

Playing Soldier in issue #9 of Vine Leaves Literary Journal (and best of anthology for 2014)

The Secret Life of Sleeping Beauty, in audio, at Cast of Wonders

Girl with the Piccolo, in audio, at Cast of Wonders

Incriminating Evidence in Fantasy Scroll Magazine, Issue #4

This week:

Writing Work:

  • Writing ~ 9,700 words (I’m on a bit of a tear this week)
  • Graphic Design tutorials

Submissions:

  • None

Rejections:

  • None

Acceptances:

  • None

Publications:

  • None

Weekly writing check-in: the one at the end of December

cakeA quiet holiday week. To the left, you can observe one of my accomplishments. Seriously, that it turned out is some sort of Christmas miracle.

That I successfully sliced the cake in half to create two layers is an actual Christmas miracle.

So in between the baking and cleaning and wrapping and movie watching, I did manage 5,000 words.

Cake and words. Not a bad way to end 2014.

See you in the New Year! I’ll have a bit of news then, too.

Writing Work:

  • Writing ~ 5,017 words

Submissions:

  • None

Rejections:

  • None

Acceptances:

  • None

Publications:

  • None

 

Weekly writing check-in: the one with incriminating evidence

issue-004-cover-smallNot as much writing this week, but I’m not turning up my nose at ~4,000 words either. I also did the page layout for a +300 page book in Adobe InDesign. That … takes time.

I received my gift card and a very nice note from the women at WOW, Women on Writing for my honorable mention. Plus, I sent the story on its way again.

Issue #4 of Fantasy Scroll Magazine is out and it includes my story Incriminating Evidence (links below). So all in all? Not a bad week.

Writing Work:

  • Writing ~ 4,393 words
  • Page layout +300 pages

Submissions:

  • The Life Expectancy of Fireflies 

Rejections:

  • None

Acceptances:

  • None

Publications:

Weekly writing check-in: the one with a flash honorable mention

I’m keeping a nice, easy pace of about 1,000 words a day. I need to send out a few stories. I haven’t done that for a while, which I’ve mentioned before. But I have at least four or five I could send out into the world, including the one below. So either before the end of the year (after the holidays) or at the start of the next.

And, because it’s the holidays, I give you this:

catmastree2012
Oh, Catmas Tree

 

Writing Work:

  • Writing ~ 7,104 words

Submissions:

  • None

Rejections:

  • None

Acceptances:

  • None

Publications:

  • None, but The Life Expectancy of Fireflies received an honorable mention in the WOW! Women On Writing flash fiction contest (although they called it The Life Expectancy of Butterflies, which is a fine title in and of itself–as long as the Amazon gift certificate works, I’m not complaining).

Weekly writing check-in: the one with a word-count milestone

My news this week? I hit a milestone. So far this year I’ve written 250,278 words! Yes. I know. I have no idea how I did it either.

Well, actually, I do. But the nuts and bolts of it are pretty boring. There’s no magic formula, no silver bullet. It’s a lot like exercise. You do a little bit every day and that little bit adds up. Not sexy in the least. But that’s all I have.

But if you’d like a bit more inspiration, I highly recommend Ray Bradbury’s Zen in the Art of Writing. That’s really where this all started.

Also? It’s snowing on WordPress. I love that.

Writing Work:

  • Writing ~ 7,805 words (those last five words are very important)

Submissions:

  • None

Rejections:

  • None

Acceptances:

  • None

Publications:

  • None

Weekly writing check-in: the one at the end of November

More proofing this week, revising, and other whatnot. Even so, I managed to eke out 3,200 words. I mentioned at the start of the month that I wanted to do the equivalent of National Novel Writing Month, or 50,000 words. I ended up with 30,000, which considering I switched gears and did a few other things during this month, isn’t too bad.

Switching gears like … organizing a promotion for The Fine Art of Keeping Quiet (see links below). Between now and December 14th, I’m having a 99 cent sale on the electronic version. Or! If you buy the paperback via Amazon, you can get the Kindle version for free.

So? November? You didn’t turn out too shabby at all. I think I’ll keep you.

Writing Work:

  • Writing ~ 3,200 words
  • Revising, editing, proofing, oh my!

Submissions:

  • None

Rejections:

  • None

Acceptances:

  • None

Publications:

None, but! The Fine Art of Keeping Quiet is now on sale! If you buy the print version via Amazon, you can get the Kindle version for free. Just in time for the holidays. Buy early, buy often.

Print, Kindle, Nook, iBooks, Kobo

Keeping Quiet

Weekly writing check-in: the one with a character named Macro

 

So, I was working on a story this week with a character name Marco. Only one problem. About every other time I used his name, I spelled it Macro. Did I see this mistake? No. But when I reviewed the story with text-to-speech? Oh, but did I hear it.

Every time I think: oh, this manuscript is pretty clean, I can skip the text-to-speech, I find something. So now, even though it takes time, I run everything through either a program on my PC or send it to my Kindle.

So … that’s my writing tip for the week. If you don’t have text-to-speech, you can always do it the old-fashioned way and read your story out loud.

In writing news, not as many words this week, but I did get some. I spent a lot of time with the revising, editing, and listening tasks–and ridding my story of a character named Macro.

Writing Work:

  • Writing ~ 3,300 words
  • Revising, editing, proofing, oh my!

Submissions:

  • None

Rejections:

  • None

Acceptances:

  • None

Publications:

  • None

Weekly writing check-in: the one with a stretch goal

ProudtobeVol3

Oh, but it’s cold out there, what we call real writing weather. Because what else are you going to do but stay inside and write? (Or read–that’s acceptable.)

My submission tracker is looking mighty thin these days. That being said, I have made fifty submissions so far this year, so that’s not exactly slacking. As I mentioned in last week’s post, I concentrating more on longer works or ones that don’t quite fit with the short story market, and I will find other ways to send them off into the world.

Still, I’d love to get a few more submissions out this year, and I have a couple of stories that need a once-over before I send them out the door.

In other news, Proud to Be: Writing by American Warriors, Volume 3 is out. It’s in paperback only. I wish they’d publish an electronic version as well (I bet they’d sell more copies that way).

Looking at my writing this week, I realized that I’m 14,000 words away from 250,000 words written this year. New goal! Dare I add a stretch goal of 300,000 words? Maybe … maybe I will.

Writing Work:

  • Writing ~ 8,500 words

Submissions:

  • None

Rejections:

  • Abandonment Issues

Acceptances:

  • None

Publications: