Just Write Stuff

I didn't notice that the one-year anniversary of my Thursday Just Write feature whizzed by at the end of May, but it came up in e-mail conversation with a reader who didn't know I was publishing new works on the blog.

So for the benefit of the not-so-regular visitors, in the year since I began writing and posting new stories on PBW, I've managed to publish three new works with my byline: Breath of Ice, In the Leaves, and Club Denizen. At present I'm working on Ghost Writer, which I expect will take me a couple of months to finish as it's definitely turning into a novel.

As a ghost writer I've been knocking out on average 71K in contracted work per month, which is pretty much equal to what I was doing for traditional publishers in my heyday. This month I'm about to wrap up an extended series for one client, and begin my ninth short series for another. As a result the time I have to write stories that aren't going to pay the bills is very limited.

I am aware that some readers don't want to read the .pdfs on the computer, or find them a hassle to download on their particular e-readers, and that it's frustrating to follow a story in progress when you're used to reading only finished works. I wish it could be different, but this is the best I can manage right now -- and since anyone on the planet can access my Just Write stories for free, I feel that's a fair trade-off for any inconvenience involved.

Thursday has become my favorite day of the week now because I can take a few hours to write whatever I want, and share it with you all. That's important to me, and lots of fun, and I hope you'll stop in when you get a chance and check out the latest story in progress.

If the Shoe Fits

The story of Cinderella is well known around the globe; some scholars believe up to three thousand versions of the story are told by nearly every culture on the planet. Here are a couple of interesting spins presented by the Victoria and Albert Museum (with narration and background music, for those of you at work):

Cinderella's Shoes from Victoria and Albert Museum on Vimeo.

Just Write

Today I'm back! and off to write something new and post it online before midnight. Everyone inclined to do the same is invited to join me.

My link: More on Ghost Writer, with new material beginning on page 70.

For more details on Just Write Thursdays, click here to go to the original post.

Image credit: windujedi

Tiger Eyed

I'm back, and thanks to everyone for your patience while I was off writing and dealing. To have some fun today (and find out how sharp your color vision is) try this online eye test and discover which animal shares your range of color vision.

I was expecting to score badly, but the new and improved eyes actually did pretty well with a score of 21 and no errors:





I'm pretty sure most tigers can see anything better than me, but it was an interesting test.

So which animal's eyesight do you have? Let us know in comments.

(Test link swiped from Gerard at The Presurfer)

Still Off

I'm off today; explanation here.

Still Off

I'm off today; explanation here.

Off to Write and Clean

I need to unplug from the internet for a couple days to finish a project for a client, tidy the office and clean the rest of my house. I've run out of pre-written posts to put up in my absence, and I'm kind of sick of doing the blast from the past thing, so expect a repeat of this along with some pretty images to fill in while I'm away.

See you in a couple of days.

Sub Op

Cantina Publishing has an open call for their upcoming Untethered: A Magic iPhone Anthology: "iPhones are magic. I mean, do you know how yours works? Could you take it apart and put it back together? We can’t go out without our smartphones. They organize our lives, find our locations, and sync with all our other tech. We sleep with them beside our pillows. Yet… their workings are a mystery. What does “magic iPhone” mean to you? Consider the supervillain who mind-controls a city’s populace, or the employee who stamps the runes that make your iPhone 8s so lightweight. This anthology is based on the success of anthology editor Janine A. Southard’s recent novel, Cracked! A Magic iPhone Story, which stars an explicitly magical iPhone (found by story gamers in modern-day Seattle). That iPhone comes pre-loaded with a romance finder app of dubious morality that not only sends its users on terrible dates, but also sucks their life forces. Editor’s Note: I’m looking for stories that cleverly incorporate the idea of a “magic iPhone” into any setting you like. I will, of course, be psyched to read variations on my crazy romance app, but I’m also excited to read something totally different. I’m accepting all genres except straight-up erotica or hard-core horror. (We’re aiming this anthology at general audiences, after all.) I think the idea lends itself well to comedy and dark fantasy, but… I guess that was obvious already." Length: 3-7K, Payment: $100.00, no reprints, electronic submissions only, see guidelines for more details. Deadline: October 1st, 2015.

Pale & Precious

This fascinating film from the UK's Victoria and Albert Museum offers a gorgeous overview of the history of pearls as adornments and jewelry (narrated and with background music, for those of you at work):

Pearls from Victoria and Albert Museum on Vimeo.

Just Write

Today I'm off to write something new and post it online before midnight. Everyone inclined to do the same is invited to join me.

My link: There isn't one this week, as some bad weather and other vastly annoying difficulties kept me offline all day and night. Since it's 1:52 am on Friday I'm simply going to cancel this week's Just Write. I apologize and promise to do better next week.

For more details on Just Write Thursdays, click here to go to the original post.

Image credit: windujedi

Wait for It

Author Anne Frasier just announced that Pretty Dead, her third novel in the Elise Sandburgh series, will be released September 1st. This book was #1 on my summer reading list but I don't mind waiting a couple of extra months for it. Some authors are worth the wait, and the first two books in the series were among my favorite reads of 2014.

Sometimes I lose track of long series that follow a chronology of events, which frustrates me. I was doing okay with Rachel Caine's vampire novels until I stopped at the fifth, sixth or seventh book and then lent the series to someone who never returned them (which also aggravates me, but I know better, so that's my fault.) I can't remember who I gave the books to or where I left off. I'm going to start over with that one by checking out the first books from the library and read them again until I can figure out which book I need to pick up next.

There are a lot of series that are readable from any point because there is very little chronology or no timeline at all, and/or the protagonists and support crew seldom undergo any big changes. Janet Evanovich's Stephanie Plum series is a prime example of this; same thing with Lee Child's Jack Reacher -- in ten or so books I think the only things that have changed about Reacher is how he banks his money and that he broke his nose. I'm not especially faithful to cookie cutter series, but I do think many readers like them simply because they can miss a book or two and not really miss anything important happening.

As for the other series I'm currently following, I might start making up and maintaining lists of the books I've already read. How do you guys track the series you read? Share some tips in comments.

Sub Op

Strangelet is "a journal of speculative fiction that publishes fiction, poetry, nonfiction, graphic stories/comics, and artwork six times a year with an anthology at the end of each year. We showcase the intersection where genre and literature collide. We want works to reveal compelling, universal truths that speak to us—from starship computers, from dragons’ mouths, and from everyday worlds tinged with miracles.

Guidelines for Submissions

We use Submittable for our fiction and poetry submissions. Please contact us directly for comic and art submissions. There is no fee for submitting your work to us.

When submitting, please include a brief cover letter with a short bio. Do not include any identifying information on the manuscript.

We do not accept unsolicited reprints. We do accept simultaneous submissions, but please notify us immediately if your submission has been accepted elsewhere.

Submissions are accepted on a year-round basis. Published works are featured both in the print and electronic editions of Strangelet.

In addition to payment (see below for our rates), we will also give you 2 electronic copies and 1 print copy of the issue you are published in.

Our goal is to notify all submitters of acceptance or non-acceptance within four months of submitting. We look forward to reading your work!

Rights

We acquire first world English rights for digital and print publication. Rights revert to the author upon publication. We also acquire first anthology rights for our end-of-the-year anthology. We may occasionally publish excerpts of accepted or published pieces on our website and social media.

Short Fiction

Short fiction should be between 2,000 and 7,500 words. Please query for anything longer. We currently pay $0.01 per word for short fiction. According to Duotrope, we are offering semi-professional rates for fiction (defined by them as $0.01 to $0.049 per word).
Accepted Document Types: doc, docx, txt, rtf

Flash Fiction

We define flash fiction as anything under 2,000 words. We currently pay $2.50 per page (1-250 words 1 page) with a minimum payment of $5.00. According to Duotrope, we are offering semi-professional rates for fiction (defined by them as $0.01 to $0.049 per word)."

For more information see the submission guidelines page here.

In a French Kitchen

As I mentioned last month I received through Library Thing's Early Reviewers Program an ARC of Susan Herrmann Loomis's In a French Kitchen ~ Tales and Traditions of Everyday Home Cooking in France, which I promised to review in exchange. Here's me keeping the promise:

As the daughter of a chef I learned to cook from an expert who was happiest in the kitchen. If Dad taught me anything, it's that there is no better meal you can serve your family than one you prepare at home with a little time, thought and love. I didn't inherit my father's wizardry with food (although I am an excellent baker), but for the last thirty-odd years I've cooked meals nearly every day at home. No matter how hectic life becomes I do believe home cooking is the best food in the world.

With In a French Kitchen Susan Herrmann Loomis does for her readers what my Dad did for me, and shows us the many sides, secrets and little sorceries of home cooking in France. From her own kitchen to those of her friends and colleagues, Ms. Loomis demystifies and illuminates how ordinary people carry on the well-known and often obsessive love affair the French have with food while looking after their families, perpetuating traditions and creating more than a few of their own. That she covers so much in just thirteen chapters, all of which include dozens of recipes, helpful lists and topical spotlights, is just as fascinating as her stories.

I wouldn't say this is a traditional cookbook. It's something of a memoir, as the author offers plenty of tales about her own experiences in France, but it's also an intimate guide to how we can all learn a little from French home cooks to make our cooking lives a little fresher, livelier and fun. I don't see myself whipping up homemade mayonnaise -- I'm a Hellmann's girl from way back -- but I definitely want to try out many of the delicious-sounding recipes, particularly in the chapters on breads and desserts. There are a great many terms in French in the text, but Ms. Loomis deftly translates all of them directly or within context. I particularly appreciated seeing all the various quantities listed in both US and European measurements, which when not offered can be a pain for either side to convert.

Among other things the author is a trained chef who runs a cooking school (in France!) so this is not going to read like your Mom's Betty Crocker or the last issue of Taste of Home. She's a pro, guys, and while she does want to develop her readers' inner French cooks, many of her techniques are fairly advanced. While the dedicated gourmands probably won't bat an eyelash over Lapin Aux Pruneaux D'Edith, if you're a Hamburger Helper-dependent cook you're probably going to feel a bit intimidated. Don't be. Everyone has to start somewhere, and you can try something simple, like the homemade hot chocolate in chapter eight, or the poached pears in chapter thirteen. Once you've tackled a few of the easier recipes (and there are a lot of those, too) you can try something a little more complex, like Edith's Rabbit with Dried Plums.

I recommend this book to anyone who enjoys French cooking and culture and wants to take some adventures with their own cooking -- and if you simply love reading about cooking as I do, then you're in for a treat. This book is scheduled for release on June 16th, 2015. If you'd like to get your own copy, here's where you can shop:

Amazon

Barnes & Noble

SF/F Contest

The 2015 N3F Amateur Short Story Contest is now open for entries, and here are the rules:

"1. This contest is open to all amateur writers in the field, regardless of whether they’re members of the National Fantasy Fan Federation. For the purposes of this contest, we define an amateur as someone who has sold no more than two (2) stories to professional science fiction or fantasy publications.

2. Stories entered in the contest must be original, unpublished, not longer than 8,500 words in length—and must be related to the science fiction, fantasy, or similar genres in the opinion of the judge.

3. Send all manuscripts to the contest manager: Jefferson Swycaffer, P. O. Box 15373, San Diego, CA 92175-5373; abontides@gmail.com. Emails with the story attached in word format are preferred. Paper manuscripts are acceptable. All entries must be received or postmarked no later than Dec. 31, 2015.

4. Manuscripts on paper should be typed, single sided on 8 1/2″-by-11″ white paper, double spaced, with pages numbered. The name of the author should not appear anywhere on the manuscript to ensure impartial judging. Photocopies are acceptable, if they are of good quality. Computer printouts must be legible.

5. Email entries will be accepted. Send to Jefferson P. Swycaffer at abontides@gmail.com. No guarantee can be made of email receipt. Privacy and property rights will be absolutely respected. No one other than the Short Story Judge will ever see the submission. The name of the author should not appear anywhere in the manuscript to ensure impartial judging.

6. Contestants can enter up to three stories. Enclose a self-addressed, stamped envelope (SASE) if you would like your story returned at the end of the contest. Stories will not be returned without an SASE. Do not send your only copy in case of accidental loss. We are not responsible for lost manuscripts.

7. There are no entry fees.

8. Cash prizes totaling $100 will be awarded as follows: First prize is $50, second $30, and third $20. Honorable mentions and semi-finalists will receive a certificate of award.

9. The Short Story Judge is a published science fiction professional, and also a loving fan of the sf and fantasy genres. All comments and critiques are solely the Short Story Judge’s opinion, but he promises to be constructive and polite.

10. The NSF may want to publish an electronic book including top entries from one or more years of publication. You will not be contacted about this until after the contest is over and prizes have been awarded. If we want to publish your story, you will have to sign over to us first world serial rights. Your willingness to do sign over rights cannot affect whether or not you win the contest. Royalties will be divided evenly between all contest entrants once publishing costs are covered. Winners will be notified as soon as the judging is completed. Announcements and notifications of winning entries will be made in March 2016. Please take your time and submit your best work. You can resubmit stories previously entered. All entries will be kept confidential and will be judged fairly and anonymously. The deadline for all entries is Dec. 31, 2015. Good luck!

Please supply on a separate page the following information as your entry form.

Title of story (for identification):
Author’s name and address:
Author’s email address:
I have read the above rules for the 2015 N3F Amateur Short Story Contest, and I agree to them.
Signature:
Date: ________________________________________________________________________

Mail to: Jefferson Swycaffer, P. O. Box 15373, San Diego, CA 92175-5373 ; or email abontides@gmail.com"

What the Heck, Answered

If you've ever seen or taken a picture of something you were unable to identify, Wolfram's Image Identification Project may be able to help. I used it to upload a photo of a bird I didn't recognize at the beach, and it named it for me:



It doesn't always get the identification right, of course:



That's a zentangle I drew, not lace, so IIP does make mistakes. Still, if you're researching something and need to ID an image, this might be a quick way to get some help.

(Link to IIP swiped from Gerard over at The Presurfer)

Global

If we're not careful this beautiful and scary little film could be our story (with background music, for those of you at work):

The Rise and Fall of Globosome from Filmakademie Baden-Württemberg on Vimeo.

Just Write

Today I'm off to write something new and post it online before midnight. Everyone inclined to do the same is invited to join me.

My Link: More on Ghost Writer, with new material beginning on page 66.

For more details on Just Write Thursdays, click here to go to the original post.

Image credit: windujedi

Free Writing Apps

While off hunting freeware somehow I ended up redirected to this big list of free writing apps for (I think) Android devices, some of which looked pretty neat. Since I don't own any devices I can't check them out, but maybe you folks with Androids of your own will find them useful.

Sub Op

Horrified Press has an open call for their upcoming Detectives of the Fantastic antho: "Send me your stories of those trying to use some kind of science, technology, magic powers, anything that allows them to solve mysteries surrounding supernatural occurrences. What is the final verdict? Truth? Hoax? Something in between—the claimant was experiencing something but it has an explanation? Or– often the scariest of all—the inconclusive result so common on ghost hunting shows. You decide. If there is ultimately an explanation, however, please provide suspense or scares along the way. This is a horror/fantasy/sc-fi anthology so please provide elements of these genres. As stated above regarding your desire to explain it away, even if your tone is largely comic or all in good fun, there still needs to be some sense of a supernatural threat springing the story forward. Old school Pulp Fiction might be a fun way to go also. Beyond that, let your collective imaginations run wild and bring me investigators from divergent time periods, settings (even ones of your own creation), male, female, no need for them to be human either – your mind is the limit." Length: 2-5K; also: "Flash fiction or a story shorter than 2000 is fine as long as it tells a story, and is not just a scene or vignette. If your story is over 6000 words, please send me a short synopsis first and explain why it needs to be longer. I will accept a few longer ones." Payment: "Exposure and Royalties". Reprints okay, electronic submissions only, see guidelines for more details. Deadline: when filled.

Toes and Throws

Sometimes writers have to stop writing. It happens, usually when you have to deal with a problem or event that can be best described by adding the letters sh to the first word in this sentence. I did last year in between my eye surgeries, first because I was too blind to write, and then I was healing and still a bit fuzzy-sighted (and by the way, if you ever need someone to put drops in your eye, I'm your girl.) Once you do stop writing often it can be difficult to start again, especially after a long hiatus from the page.

I learned what to do from another surgery that got between me and the work many years ago. I lost most of the use of my left hand after having a tumor removed, and since I was left-handed I had the additional burden of relearning how to do everything right-handed. Anyone who has been forced to do this will tell you it's not much fun. Hand writing was out of the question until I learned to write as a righty, and my typing was restricted to whatever I could do with one-finger pecking. That's why I didn't write anything for almost a year. I even stopped thinking about writing so I could wrestle the larger issues.

When at last I did have a functioning right hand and semi-functioning left, I sat down to write. I remember how disconnected from the work I felt, too. It was still in my head, like a huge inner ocean of stories, but I hadn't gone for a swim in so long that simply eyeing it scared me. I decided to cautiously dip my toe back in the writing waters by composing a first page. I'd just start a story and see what happened. What happened was three hours of sitting there and sweating and fussing over every word until I'd produced about 200 of them. Which were collectively so bad that I immediately trashed them.

The next day I was back to square one with nothing to show for my first try. I considered writing another cautious toe-dip partial, and promised myself it was purely practice, and gave myself carte blanche to write crap in hopes that would jump start my mojo -- all the bargains writers make with themselves to get back on the horse. And I wrote another toe-dip page with some lukewarm setting and some action about as exciting as yawning, and trashed that, and started to seriously question myself.

On the third morning I sat in my writing space for a while staring at the keys. Desperation hovered, wanting to set in. Or maybe it was writer's block; I'm not sure. One thing I did know was that I couldn't dip my toe in to test the waters again because that wasn't working. Neither were the bargains and promises I'd made with/to myself. So I decided to hell with it, and defaulted to the last resort. No more toe-dipping and thinking about it and worrying. No more thinking about it, period. I'd throw myself in the water and write a novel. A fun novel. A novel for me and no one else.

Four months and 468 manuscript pages later I typed the last page of that novel, gave myself a week off, and then finally read it. The beginning was complete and utter crap, and the middle crawled more than it should have, and the twist at the end was more of a wrinkle, but it was a novel -- a finished novel. And the next one I wrote was better, and the one after that was much, much better. As for that lame, for-fun novel I never published or even showed anyone, it remains the most valuable story I've ever written. If I hadn't thrown myself into it, I know I would have quit writing altogether.

The process still works for me, too. Last year In the Leaves was my 2014 post eye-surgery throw story. Rain Lashed was a throw story after another, earlier eye surgery. After I broke my foot and cracked some ribs during a bad fall down the stairs back in 2003 writing Deimos threw me back into the work.

Whether you use toes, throws or something in between, maybe the most important thing you can do after taking a long break from writing is to write anything, really. Whether it's 1 page, or 468 of them, you're doing your job, and bottom line: writing is what makes you a writer.

Image Credits:

Toe dip: warrengoldswain
Leaping dolphin: vitaliy_sokol