Storybook Perfect

Always quirky, sometimes sweet speculative fiction

Tag: first acceptance letter

March Goals Round Up

April 3, 2013 / / 7 Comments

Once again, reporting in on my progress on my yearly goals.

I returned to work on the 1st of the month to Key, Clocks and Quests, intending to get enough of a draft hammered out that I would be able to come up with a working title that didn’t suck the big one. Fell a bit short, but did manage to pound out an extra 7,500 words, so I’m making progress on goal #3.

I also wrote 14,800 words the novelette ‘The Troll’s Toll’ and am down to the very final scene now. The Troll’s Toll was supposed to be a short story, but at 15,000+ words I’m afraid there’s nothing ‘short’ about it. I’m still counting it as work towards goal #5 (write and submit more short stories).

In fact, The Troll’s Toll is the story in which I have had my most productive recorded day ever, typing 8140 words in one day. I know, mammoth! I may perhaps have had a few better days back when I was bedridden with my vertigo disorder, but I wasn’t recording my word counts back then.

I also wrote a flash fiction piece ‘Stolen Hearts’ which I’m intending to submit to Fireside Magazine.

The biggest achievement for me this month was receiving my first acceptance for a short story. I’m eagerly awaiting the edits to come through and looking forward to giving you all more details when they’re available.

As for goal # 7, learning, this month I’ve mostly been reading short stories on my Kindle to see what published shorts are like. I’ve read all the old Fireside magazines, several Aurealis releases, Subversion: Science fiction and fantasy tales of Challenging the Norm from Crossed Genres, Orson Scott Card’s Intergalactic Medicine Show(awards anthology), Dieselpunk ePulp Showcase, and Phoenix by Chuck Palahniuk (the writer of Fight Club).

I beta read Talitha Kalago’s Lifesphere Inc (very awesome young adult series) and of course have been devouring the critiques for my writers’ group as well, so am working a fair amount with other writers also. This wasn’t really a goal, but it’s something I quite enjoy.

How are you tracking with your goals this month?

Best News Saved For The Last

March 11, 2013 / / 10 Comments

Today there was a talk by Kate Forsyth at the Cleveland library, and while I managed to go, Xander had no intention of sitting calm and quiet for even a minute. So I got to pace around the library bouncing him on my hip and when my arms gave out pushing him in the pram trying to stay near enough to hear her talk but far enough away that the grizzling shouldn’t bother anyone. After 45 minutes I remembered I’d packed the iPad and the magic of videos distracted him long enough for me to get her signature on my copy of Bitter Greens. I apologised if he had made enough noise to bother her and she told me that when her eldest son was Xander’s age she had gone to an author’s reading and her son had behaved the same. It’s interesting to see cycles, I wonder if one day an aspiring author/mother will attend my reading and sheepishly come up to me at the end and apologise if her child was disruptive?

Getting a bit ahead of myself there, but we all have dreams, don’t we?

In other news, I’m beta-reading a YA Sci-fi for the talented Talitha Kalago, and it’s great. She’s intending to self-publish, so I’ll keep you updated on when it comes out so you can all enjoy it as well.

And now, the best for last – and I’m not sure if I should talk about this yet – but I have had my first story accepted for an anthology! I’m so excited, but of course the story is still subject to the editing process, so I’m not going to say more until I’ve passed that hurdle, but hopefully soon I’ll be able to tell you all where you can buy my first published story!

Of course, there’s no rest for the wicked, there’s the mythpunk stories I’ve been working on which I’m considering compiling into an anthology, my novel Keys, Clocks and Quests to finish (so it can FINALLY get a real title, not a lame working title), and of course though I have an acceptance letter  now, I also have a bunch of other stories I need to get out into the world, so I need to start submitting other works (like that massive bunch of new short stories I wrote in December and January). So onwards and upwards.

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