The Writerly Update: In which the Procrastination Fairy is sent to swim with the fishes

Urgh. I did so well cranking out the first draft of this short story, but then the Procrastination Fairy came along and waved her wand at me before I could get started on the second draft. I’ve taken a hit out on the stupid fairy so I can get some second draftage done this weekend.

I fear for my lack of a title on this story.  My experience with titles has generally been this: if a title doesn’t pop into my head while writing the first draft, I end up having a hell of a time coming up with one that doesn’t suck big hairy balls of suck.

On the positive side of writing-related things, I did an hour writing exercise a few hours ago and cranked out a 1K draft of a flash piece. I’m not sure if it’s something I’ll polish up for submission, though, as I’m not sure where I’d send it.  Is there an appropriate publication for an unabashedly liberal-leaning flash piece about a gay Jewish superhero who saves the day only to be accused of being an illegal alien because he’s from another planet?

The Writerly Update: Diary of a Word Count Psychic

And as of last night, the crappy first draft of a new short story is done! Early on in the draft, I predicted this one was going to push past the 6K mark. And it did. Crappy first draft has clocked in at 6,800 words. I am so proud of my eerily accurate word count predictions.  

Now on to the second draft de-crapification process!

I’m Looking Over a Four-Leaf Clover

I’m pleased to report that my short story “Unlucky Clover” has been accepted for the July 2011 issue of Beyond Centauri. “Unlucky Clover” is a sequel of sorts to my story “Lucky Clover” (Flash Fiction Online, March 2008), following the son of that story’s leprechaun protagonist (who also makes an appearance in the sequel).

Today’s Entry: One Part Plug, One Part Review

1) The non-shameless plug: Fantasy Magazine has a poll for the Best Fantasy Magazine Story of 2010. The shameless plug: my story “Mortis Persona” is among the stories you can vote for if you enjoyed it and feel so moved. 

2) In a review of issue 20 of Black Static at Suite101, my story “The Wounded House” gets an “outstanding.” I’ll quite happily take that!

My brain is a vengeful brain

So, that last post where silly conversations with my uncooperative brain eventually led to me outlining the rest of the short story I’m working on? Well, yesterday I sat down to write, confident that I’d now be able to crank out some significant wordage and maybe even finish the first draft, only to discover that, somehow, none of the outline had saved. I’m rather obsessive compulsive about constantly saving my work, so how I managed to completely lose half an hour’s worth has me completely baffled (not to mention annoyed as all get out).

So instead of finishing the story, I spent most of yesterday’s writing time redoing the outline.* There were many frustrating moments of “I know my protagonist was going to do this next, but for the life of me I can’t remember why.” Eventually, though, my plot came back together. Who knows, maybe what I have outlined now is better than what I had originally. But still, the whole process took far longer than it should have.

I suspect that my brain did some self-sabotaging and made me unconsciously delete the original outline as revenge for me subjecting it to Battlefield Earth. The movie was on TV the other night, I was morbidly curious to see if it was as horrible as I had heard, and wow. Just wow. The sheer dreadfulness overpowered my ability to mock. I only made it through half an hour–approximately the same amount of time I spent doing that original outline. I think my brain decided, “You wasted 30 minutes of my life, so I’m going to destroy 30 minutes of yours.”

*I normally don’t outline short stories, but this one is the type where having a road map will be a huge help to my writerly sanity, even if I ultimately decide to take a different route.

Your Writing Soundtrack

I’m not someone who has to have music on when I write.  I’ve written in silence, and I’ve written in noisy places without benefit of music–or sometimes in places playing music I didn’t care for, which meant I tuned the music out.  But I prefer to have music (that I like) on when I write.

Continue reading “Your Writing Soundtrack” →

The Writerly Update: Butt + Chair = Productivity Edition

In theory, I should have had more writing time last week.  In actuality, I didn’t make a lick of progress on the short story I had started the week before.  But today?  Oh, today was surprisingly lovely for a Monday.  For what felt like the first time in ages, I sat down and just cranked out first draftage for three solid uninterrupted hours.  About 1,400 words in all, which is pretty damn good for slow-going me.  It’s all crappy first draftage, yes, but I think (hope) it’s going to clean up nicely.  When the story’s done, that is.  I usually get a good sense early on about how long a story is going to be, and I think this one’s going to push the 6K mark, at least.

In other and unrelated news: shiny new Apple trackpad!  I’m quite loving this thing.  It doesn’t make my hand all crampy and achy like a mouse would do after a day at the computer.