Write 1/Sub 1 check in: week 6, the one with Girl Scout cookies

Week 6! Despite the 200 hundred boxes of Girl Scout cookies in my living room–that need a home that isn’t my living room–I had a very good writing week. Here’s what I did:

Writing:

  • It Only Takes a Minute, 247 words, for the Flash Fiction Chronicles String of 10 contest
  • The Weight of Secrets, short story of some length. I wrote it longhand and it’s still in my notebook, so I don’t know the exact word count.

Submitting:

  • It Only Takes a Minute, since I wrote it for the contest, why not actually submit it too?
  • The Madness in King’s End, to a local mystery contest. However, my story is probably more fantasy than mystery, so I’m not holding my breath on this one.

Rejections:

  • None!

Acceptances:

  • Payment, that even shorter (25 words) version of Cash or Check received an acceptance from Literary Juice for their Pulp Fiction section, where the story must be exactly 25 words with a one word title. (Now you know why I changed the title.) Oddly enough, it’s a story with a Girl Scout cookie theme.

Published:

I also started an online class this week at The Loft Literary Center,  Breaking the Unwritten Rules in Middle Grade and Young Adult Fiction. I’m all about the rule breaking. The next couple of weeks are going to be very busy, so this Write 1/Sub 1 thing may be more of a challenge. It’s like a cliffhanger–stay tuned to see if I can make it all work. 

Is Your Writing Stuck Because Your Brain has Plateaued?

I love this post from Rosanne’s blog. It captures one of the reasons I’m participating in Write 1/Sub 1 this year. Give it a read–as you can see, it applies to more than just writing.

rosannebane's avatarBane of Your Resistance

By Sean D’Souza

I’m delighted to introduce you to today’s guest blogger, Sean D’Souza, Chief Brain Auditor for Psychotactics. Sean is a fellow brain geek — fascinated by the human brain and able to translate what he discovers into engaging articles (as you’re about to see). He is the author of The Brain Audit—Why Customers Buy And Why They Don’t. Visit the Pyschotactics website for more articles by Sean including a free report on “Why Do Most Headlines Fail?”

As you read’s Sean article, consider how much of your writing resistance is caused by your brain plateauing…

Imagine you had thirty-three seconds to pick up a glass of water, take it across the room, and throw the water down the sink.

Could you do it?

Sure.

And you wouldn’t need more than ten seconds to do the task, especially if the sink isn’t very far away. Now give…

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The Burden of So Many Roses: Milestone story

Falling Roses

So today, The Burden of So Many Roses is live over on Kazka Press, where the theme this month is an undelivered valentine. My guess is (I haven’t read all the stories yet) that if you’re not a fan of gooey Valentine’s Day stories, you’ll be happy with the fare offered up this month.

At least, mine isn’t gooey.

It is, however, a milestone story for me. Here’s the breakdown:

1/3/2013: finished the draft

1/13/2013: sent to Kazka Press

1/30/2013: accepted

2/5/2013: published!

Not only is that one of the fastest turnaround times for me, submission to acceptance, it is the fastest I’ve ever drafted/revised/polished a story and sent it out. That being said, Kazka Press has a list of prompts on their submission page, and I had that undelivered valentine fermenting in the back of my mind for the entire month of December. That probably helped.

One of my goals this year is to figure out how to maintain a steady pace of writing while dealing with the ebbs in my creativity. And ebb it does. To the point where I’m all reclined on the fainting couch, hand on forehead, and despairing, I’ll never write again!

But since I always do, I’ve stopped believing myself when I get this way. This is why Write 1/Sub 1 is such a challenge. If I don’t write one, I’ll run out of things to submit. But it’s teaching me that:

  • I can write more than I think I can.
  • I have more story ideas than I think I do.
  • No one story concept is like another. Some tumble out like gifts, some I pick at, bit by bit.
  • There’s no wrong way to draft a short story.

Sometimes, to write, you simply need to get out of your own way.

Write 1/Sub 1 check in: week 5, the one with no heat and a sale

Week 5! Our furnace died on Friday. It’s also been one of the coldest weeks all winter. Clearly our appliances have a (dark) sense of humor. Yesterday was Girl Scout cookie “go” day, so since the house was cold, Kyra and I bundled up and sold cookies door-to-door. By the time we arrived back home (several boxes lighter), we had heat.

Writing:

  • Poem about the color orange. It is full of whimsy. And adjectives.

Submitting:

  • One Good Turn, (very) tongue-in-cheek science fiction story.
  • Payment, an even shorter (25 words) version of Cash or Check

Rejections:

  • None!

Acceptances:

  • The Burden of So Many Roses to Kazka Press for their undelivered valentine prompt. The story should be “live” in a few days. 

I also spent a good deal of time revising/editing two stories, One Good Turn and another that I’m set to submit in this upcoming week. 

Write 1/Sub 1 check in: week 4 rejections, fast and furious

Week 4! I did take it easier this week, writing a flash story. I also worked on some revisions as well for some upcoming deadlines. Plus, I read a novel-length manuscript for a friend and provided some feedback. Have my fingers crossed for her.

Writing:

  • The Madness in King’s End, flash fiction, ~967 words

Submitting:

  • Cash or Check, to another postcard fiction type site.

Rejections:

  • Cash or Check, in what may be the world’s fastest rejection (or at least my fastest) ~ 8 hours
  • Long Distance Charges May Apply, 12 days

These were both nice rejections and if I have something appropriate in the future, I’ll definitely submit to both markets again. Besides, I don’t mind fast turnarounds. It beats staring at your submission tracker and thinking, wow, that’s been out for 397 days. Is it too soon to query?

This Shakespeare quiz will not be graded

Stolen from Annie Cardi.

Which Shakespeare character are you? Apparently, I am Rosalind and I’m thinking it would be a lot more fun to live in a Shakespeare comedy than in one of his tragedies, no?

If you click there here, you can find out who you are. No worries. This quiz will not be graded. However, we may judge you.

 

Write 1/Sub 1 check in: week 3

Week 3! This week I finished a long short story. Word count says it’s a novelette, but I think it wants to be a novella when it grows up.

This coming week I would really like to work on some shorter stories.

Writing:

  • Aliens & Invisibility ~ 11,800 words. Aliens & Invisibility is not its title, just a reminder (to me) about its content. Although I feel compelled to say that the aliens in the story aren’t invisible. You can see them. Or could, if they weren’t a fictional construct. You know what I mean. 

Submitting:

  • Long Distance Charges May Apply, another super short story (80 words) that I sent to a postcard fiction site.
  • The Burden of So Many Roses, normally I don’t send stories out so soon after writing them, but this was in response to a prompt call for submissions with a deadline, so out it went.

Rejections, etc.:

  • Cash or Check (that 44-word story) was a finalist but did not make the winners’ list. Which, if you recall, I was totally fine with since part of the prize was reading on stage. 

Booking through Thursday: Baby, it’s cold outside

I haven’t booked for a while and today’s topic caught my attention:

It’s the depth of winter here where I live right now … what books do you like to read when it’s snowy and white? What books do you read to evoke a real feeling of winter (good or bad)?

I’m not sure I have a particular type of book I read during the winter. For the past couple of years, I’ve been a reading fool during the winter months since I was reading for the Rita contest–but I didn’t sign up this year. Honestly, I’m not sure what I’m going to do with all this time I have now that I’m not charging through eight/nine novels in six weeks.

Cover via Amazon

As for a real feeling of winter, the first book that comes to mind is One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich. Want to forget how cold you are? This is the book you reach for. And it comes with one of my all-time favorite lines:

How can you expect a man who’s warm to understand a man who’s cold?

The world would be a better place if we tried to.

Write 1/Sub 1 check in: week 2 is untitled

Week 2! This week I worked on a longer short story and I think I have about 5,000 words. It’s on my Mobile Pro, which doesn’t have a word count function, so I’m guesstimating by its file size. (And yes, I’ve written so many scenes/stories on my Mobile Pro, I can do this. Certainly a skill I can apply to other areas of my life.)

I completed an untitled (for now) flash fiction, which I managed to write without a single line of dialogue. However, it does have neck tattoos. So, you know, there’s that. It’s Desperate Housewives meets Breaking Bad. In 600 words. Without dialogue. Yeah. This one’s going to sell.

Writing:

  • Untitled flash fiction, ~600 words
  • Untitled longer short story, not complete ~ 5,000 words

That longer short story? Another dream-inspired one. I crawled out of bed and scribbled down the notion, even though I had some note cards and a pen on the nightstand.

Submitting:

  • Two Hammers, a persona poem I wrote during a poetry class last year. I found a lit journal that focuses on historical topics, so I sent it there.

Also in this week’s writing news: I did some revising and wrote several pages on a story that only wants to be written by hand.

Be sure to check the Write 1 Sub 1 Satummary page each week. It includes links to all the published stories from the Write 1 Sub 1 participants for the week. Not only is it some good reading, but if you’re a writer, it’s a great way to get a feel for the market as well.

Highlights: UFO anthology editor Alex Shvartsman has a really cool story up at Daily Science Fiction, and my friend Von has a lovely New Year’s story at Every Day Fiction.