The Closer It Gets...

...the more nervous I become.

That's right. I still haven't heard about the short story I submitted to that contest back in November (actually, the end of October, because I wanted it out of the way before NaNoWriMo). I have until March 16th, however...I'm supposed to hear about it by then. I check the mail anxiously every now and then, and I have my husband on alert for anything from them, but nothing so far. And honestly, sometimes it's so far from my mind that I forget for a while.

They say no news is good news, but it will really stink if I wait all this time just to get a rejection. Oh well. There's nothing tangible I can do about it, right, so I'm better off turning my attention to other things.

I finally got out of my writing stasis the other night. I hadn't written much in a week or so because I was a bit stuck on the specifics of a detail in the story, but it wasn't a detail I could really skip over and figure out later. Finally, my husband helped spark an idea, and I wrote a few pages last night. I was having such a good night writing after that, I didn't want to stop. But, I finally did, and I think I left off at a good spot. Hopefully it will be very easy to pick up from that and resume my writing.

I could use a little cheer in my life, something to go well. Had a job interview the other week, thought it went well, and didn't get it. There's just a lot going wrong lately; I need something to change for the better. Like a job or a published story. *sigh*

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Submitted!

I sent my vampire cows story in to the Writer's Digest Popular Fiction contest, under the fantasy category. It's entitled Put a Stake in It! It was somewhat inspired by my friend Morgan, who suggested similar titles that didn't quite fit. So that's what I finally came up with one morning while watching my daughter. My husband doesn't like it, and informed me so today. He was then subjected to a short rant about how I didn't care if he didn't like it, it's my story and my title and I like it, which is all that matters.

Then he said, "Boy, once you make up your mind, you really don't budge, do you?"

Usually, no. Especially when I didn't ask for your input to begin with. Ahem.

Figured out some new stuff for my nanowrimo story. I have a small, brief character profile for my main character, and I have a sketchy idea for the ending of my book, which is (as always) subject to change.

Now I just need to figure out my other characters before the contest starts...

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Warm Up Those Presses!

I sent the final draft out to some of my editing buddies for feedback and opinions before I turn it in for the contest. As soon as I get some replies, I'll make any necessary changes and enter my final version in the contest. I'm really hoping I at least place in the contest, because I think my idea is really creative, but I won't hold my breath.

Meanwhile, I'm trying to turn my attention to Nanowrimo. I've finally decided what type of story to write. I'm writing my first ever science fiction. But it has a bit of a horror twist to it. So it's kind of a science fiction-horror, or maybe a science fiction-thriller. I'm nervous and excited. I've never written a science fiction before. Most of what I write is fantasy. Still, this is a wonderful opportunity to stretch myself as a writer, and I'm looking forward to seeing what results from this experiment.

Oh, and I've started job hunting! Yay, me! I'm hoping to be employed by Christmas. Prayers and good wishes for that are appreciated!

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That's One Thing Out of the Way! Now on to Nano!

I did it! Yayness (as my friend Echo would say)! It is 4000 words exactly. Now I just have to call my sister and double-check my cow facts. Then I can send it in for the contest. This is about the best birthday present I could get right now, I think.

Speaking of birthdays, I have to go. My husband is taking me out to dinner to celebrate my birthday tonight, since he can't be with me on my actual birthday tomorrow. He got called in on a DJing job, so he called off of his regular job today to be with me, using a vacation day. Is that nice or what?

Here's to hoping I win!

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It's So Close I Can Smell It...

...and I'm salivating with the promise of victory on the horizon. I'm almost finished with my short story. I just need to finish up the last scene or so, and I can begin editing it. I'm way over word count for the story competition, I just know it. But, I've done much worse on college papers and somehow managed to trim them down to limit. The papers always came out so much the better, somehow. That's why I consider it a good sign when I go over my word limit. Does anyone else ever feel this way, or am I just crazy?

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There's An Awfully Fine Line...

...between fantasy and horror, at this point in my short story. I'm writing the first battle scene, and after some struggle, I need my main character to kill one of the cows in a way that sort of shows just how much power she has and what kind of person she really is. I have several ideas, some more gruesome than the others. I'm afraid of making it too gruesome or macabre in places, lest my story be recategorized to horror instead of fantasy in the short story contest I'll enter this in. I don't want to become known as a horror writer, because that's not what I consider myself. I don't write horror, I write fantasy.

However, given how many people will enter the contest, the chances of my story winning are low, given the odds. I could then try and market the story as a dark fantasy if I so chose.

I always wonder, though: what is the difference between dark fantasy and horror per se? The line looks awfully blurry sometimes.

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Of Bizarre Stories and Re-Hashed Fairy Tales

I am posting rather early tonight, at least by my usual standards. Yet I haven't updated in a few days because everything has been rather hectic around here. I've accomplished little writing for most of the week, which is the bad news. The good news is that I'm doing rather well in my writing tonight. So, things are getting better for me. Granted, all of my writing so far has been in the form of notes for a new short story, but writing is writing, no? And notes are the preliminary stages of work that help you jumpstart and construct an actual writing project, so I'm rather happy with the way that things are going at the moment.

My short story idea is rather crazy. The idea is actually quite bizarre, and I got it from a snippet of overheard conversation when my husband was on the phone with one of his best friends. When I heard the strange phrase, I laughed and my husband relayed to me that his friend said not to laugh at him. Of course, I couldn't stop laughing--certainly not when I was specifically being told not to laugh. Then I blurted out that I would have to write a short story about it, just for fun.

So, I am. Although I may submit the story to some places after all. Namely, a place that is looking for silly fantasy stories. When I saw the call for that type of submission, I couldn't think of a good story that was sufficiently silly to write. Well, I think this topic just about covers it. And it can't hurt to try. Plus, it's doing wonders for my creativity.

Who knows? I may end up submitting it to other places as well, when all is said and done. I just hope that in writing this piece, it will help rev up my creativity and sense of humor for that humorous short story re-telling. I'm going to try to start working on a re-relling of the Frog Prince, and see what happens. I'll probably play around with re-telling some other fairy tales since I never could definitively pick one from my list to re-tell, and simply see which one I like the best after that. What's interesting is that I found part of a fairy tale that I started re-telling at some point in the past, and I had totally forgotten about it until I discovered it while digging through my writing files recently. It has some promise, but the reservation with it is that it's a re-telling of a fairy tale that will probably be very commonly submitted. I'll have to think some more about whether to finish rewriting that one for the contest. Until then, I have plenty of other things to keep me busy. Too much, in fact. I'm finding it harder and harder to write as much as I want to and still get stuff done around the house, not to mention preparing for our baby. Still, a little is better than nothing.

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Feeling Like A Winner!

I. Kicked. Butt. Today. I did a ton of great work today in my editing, I think! After struggling most of the day with the rough draft, trying to add more description to various parts of the story, my creativity finally kicked in this evening as my perseverance paid off! I'll have to type up the changes tomorrow, but I'm really pleased with my work. I think it has promise as it is, and once I polish it, I think it could definitely win the contest. I don't know if it will, of course, but I'm hoping it will!

Yesterday was some of the same. I spent it editing. Mostly, I fixed grammatical mistakes or misspellings. I even went through and changed some words that I had been overusing. I added a little bit of new writing to it, but not a whole lot. In addition to the editing on the story, I began two new poems. One of them...I really don't know exactly where it was going. It sort of turned into a ranty piece about how I feel, being stuck at home without a job. But aside from one or two salvageable lines, it really sucks so far. I can't seem to capture the things I want to say with just the right words. I have a feeling it'll go through a major rewrite. The other poem I started is about writing. It kind of rambled along until it developed the theme of writers block and trying to meet deadlines. I dunno that it's all that great, but it sure pleased me a heck of a lot more than the other poem.

In the meantime, I'm enjoying my new book when I get a chance. I've been pretty good about not letting it interfere with or distract me from my writing so far. It's kind of like when I was in college, or grad. school: I sneak a little of my pleasure reading in during lunch time, or right before bed, to help myself relax. That way, I can read something that I really want to, but not at the expense of my work.

Now if only the book weren't so hard to put down at the end of lunch, or my bedtime...

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Busy, Busy Day

In stark contrast to yesterday, I accomplished a lot today. True, I spent most of the day cleaning, but I did manage to do some writing and writing related stuff today. First, I researched some writing markets and publications a bit and found a contest with a theme called "Goodbye to All That," which I think I'm going to enter. The deadline in January 31st, however, so I need to get to work on it soon. I think I can do it, though. I'm going to rewrite an old piece of mine for the contest, and I already started some notes on the different changes, deletions, and edits I'm going to do to it. Plus, I'm going to completely change the scenery, and change the ending a bit, plus add a whole new beginning. Sounds like a lot of work, and it is, but I'm going to keep the essence of the original piece while making the necessary changes to the piece to make it a short story and fit the guidelines of the theme for the contest.

I'm hoping to begin work on it tomorrow.

While I was going through my writing files looking for the aforementioned piece, I came across one of my old sheafs of poetry. Long story short, I found a few good or relatively decent poems among them that I might try to submit for publication. And since looking at the poetry put me in the right frame of mind, I finished up a poem tonight that I had started a week or so ago.

I also did some reading today on those fairy tales, and I'm starting to narrow the list down a bit. Some of them simply aren't suitable for a humorous re-telling (or at least I can't think of any way to make them so, given the subject matter inherent to the stories. I mean, how do you make something like the story of the Ugly Duckling funny? Not in any good way that I can think of). So, I'm crossing some off of the list here and there. Besides the Ugly Duckling, I'll probably eliminate Little Red Cap, simply because the story of Little Red Riding Hood might be a popular one to submit. But, I'll reread it when I get to that place on my list, and give it a thorough consideration anyway. Rumplestiltskin, which I thought might be a good candidate for a humorous retelling, was crossed off my list today. I'd forgotten how creepy the end of that story was, somehow. But I do recall vague memories of that ending as a child, so they must have read the original version to me from that old book of fairy tales we had when I was a kid. But, I digress.

The story of the Frog King, or Iron Heinrich, has possibilities. I don't have any specific ideas in mind on how to implement the humor, but I think, given the structure, and stuff, it COULD be done. I might have to just mess with it and see. I have a feeling that when I get my list narrowed down to the last candidates, I'll just have to try writing them to see what happens and if they work out or not. Good thing I have until the end of March for this deadline. I'm going to need all that time!

Finally, I wrote a bit more on my NaNoWriMo novel (yes, it's not November, and all of that is over by now, but since the story still lacks a title, that's how I'm going to refer to it until then). I've been doing most of my writing to meet my daily word count on this novel. Tonight, I only wrote a little bit on the novel, but I did meet my word count, because my word count was split today between the preparatory notes for the short story I'm going to rework/write, the poem I finished, and the NaNoWriMo novel.

All totaled, I reached 551 words today.

And now, I'm going to sleep because I'm tired and I have an appointment tomorrow.

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