Tag: sales

Shiny writer things!

Thing the first: A panel! On March 25, I’ll be participating in Storycrafting Sessions: Drafting, a free one-day virtual conference hosted by Weeknight Writers. I’ll be on the 5:30 p.m. EST panel, “Nailing the Ending: How To Write a Satisfying Story Conclusion.” There are some other great panels lined up as well, and did I mention registration is free?

Thing the second: A publication! Issue 6 of Weird Horror Magazine is out this month, and it includes my flash story “Dead Maiden Chic,” as well as some badass cover art, which Super Great insisted on showing off with the help of some friends:

Thing the third: A sale! My short story “The Girl Who Welcomed Death to Svalgearyen,” which was originally published in Beneath Ceaseless Skies, will be appearing again in audio format thanks to the lovely folks at Cast of Wonders. Release date TBD. This story is close to my heart and, of all the stories I’ve written over the years, still one of my absolute favorites, so I’m happy to see it get more love.

Thing the fourth: All the novels! A few weeks ago I finished revisions on a fantasy novel that has now been tossed out to first readers so I can figure out what else needs tweaking. Tentatively titled Barren Water, it’s a bit of A Handmaid’s Tale blended with magic and an Old West-ish fantasy world. And now I’m outlining a horror/supernatural romance novel where an opera singer recovering from an onstage nervous breakdown takes a job housesitting an isolated beach home during the off season only to become entangled with a ghost and a cursed piano. This will be my first stab at a novel-length work set in the contemporary world rather than a secondary fantasy world, so all new challenges!

Miscellaneous Updatery

Oh, right, I have a blog. Hi, blog.

So what’s been happening since I’ve been gone?

For starters, two shiny short story sales!

My fantasy story “Ceiling Snakes and Slithering Saints” will be appearing in Mysterion later this month. Thrilled to be making my second appearance there.

And just announced, my story “Self Storage” is going to be included in the awesome-looking anthology In Somnio: A Collection of Modern Gothic Horror, forthcoming from Tenebrous Press.

And that back burner novel idea I babbled about in my last post way back in February? It has been officially moved to the front burner since then. As in I am about 20,000 words into the novel now. After doing some research and preliminary worldbuilding, I decided to try out the Snowflake Method, which I’d read/heard a lot about but had never given it a whirl. Now I am why-wasn’t-I-doing-this-before levels of in love with it. It was fun! And I have an outline! There’s a plot! And I didn’t break my brain developing it!

Speaking of, I should probably be writing, huh?

Shiny Publication Roundup!

What is this? A second blog post in a matter of days?

So, shiny things. Story sales! Story publications! Some of these got pimped on Facebook and Twitter, but I’ve been crap about mentioning them here. Let me correct that:

New stories! I had two horror flash stories published back in March: “The Girl Who’s Going to Survive Your Horror Movie” in Flash Fiction Online and “Seen and Not Heard” in DarkFuse Magazine.

Reprints! It’s been a good year for those so far. “43 Responses to ‘In Memory of Dr. Alexandra Nako'” was reprinted in the anthology Funny Horror, alongside some authors I’m thrilled to be in the company of. In the podcast department, “What the Blood Bog Takes” and “Notes on a Page” were both featured in episodes of Far Fetched Fables, while “A Red One Cannot See” was included in Gallery of Curiosities.

And sales! Notably of two stories that I had an absolute blast writing: “The Stork and the Crone” will be appearing in Cosmic Roots and Eldritch Shores in the near future, and “Seer’s Salad” will be in a future episode of the Cast of Wonders podcast. And continuing the reprint trend, “The Holy Spear” will be appearing in Digital Fiction Publishing‘s Killing It Softly 2, an anthology focused on women in horror.

Oh, and almost forgot: plays! I’ve written a few short ones, and last month I got to see one produced for the first time. “Ghost Writer to the Dead” (adapted from a short story I had published in Penumbra in 2012) was featured in a local community theater’s short play festival.

Did I mention it’s been a good year for horror and reprints? Because it’s been a good year for horror and reprints, with a smattering of fantasy thrown in there.

Now back to the writing of new stuff!

Don’t leave me, summer!

One more week of freedom before my fall semester starts. My brain is finally emerging from its state of denial over that fact. But, to look on the shiny side of the crazy busyness that fall will bring, this will be my final year of grad school. Two more semesters and I’m done, baby!

This summer was strong with the shiny side of the Force, so I’m going to miss it. Two stories that I had lots of fun writing (“The Girl Who Welcomed Death to Svalgearyen” and “Memories of Mirrored Worlds”) were published. There was traveling awesomeness—France in July, several jaunts to the shore in August. When not gallivanting about on vacation, I took full advantage of my summer break from school and choir rehearsals to tackle lots of personal projects I had put off during the school year.

And there was writing time. Lots and lots of glorious writing time.

I went into this summer with a writing goal: there were several short stories I wanted to get revised and sent out, and once I did that, I could finally go back to the long-neglected novel revisions I’ve kept threatening to one day resume. It is with a proud wielding of the productivity stick that I declare that goal met. The short stories in question have all been prettied up and submitted, and last week, I blew the dust off the novel revisions.

And to add to the summer shininess, I can announce another sale! NewMyths.com (who previously published my story “The Cycle of the Sun”) has accepted “The Perfect Instrument” for their March 2014 issue. “The Perfect Instrument” had originally sold to an anthology, but the project fell through before publication, so I’m happy the story has managed to find a new home.

France, shiny writing news, and the impending arrival of the cymbal-clapping demon monkeys

Life has been so amazingly nice to me lately that I’m expecting the other shoe to drop at any moment, complete with an army of cymbal-clapping demon monkeys. I’m a pessimist like that. But in the meantime, I shall revel in the shiny!

I just got back from a rather lovely trip to France with my husband’s family. Much awesomeness was experienced. As an opera nerd, getting to see the Palais Garnier was the highlight for me during the few days we spent in Paris. After Paris, we took a barge cruise through Burgundy, which rocked on every level—the food, the wine, the weather, all the places visited, the amazing crew, and the chance to go bicycling along the canal route. But now, alas, I am re-adjusting to real life, where lunch sadly does not include wine and a ridiculous number of cheeses.

There has also been continuing writing-related shininess, most of it occurring while I was off learning just how rusty my French has gotten:

* My story “Memories of Mirrored Worlds” is now available online at Daily Science Fiction;

* Last week I got another acceptance from Daily Science Fiction for a flash piece called “The Perfect Coordinates to Raise a Child”;

* And finally, “The Girl Who Welcomed Death to Svalgearyen” from issue 124 of Beneath Ceaseless Skies received some nice comments in reviews at Locus Online and Tangent Online. BCS will also be offering the story as a podcast sometime in the near future, which I’m quite looking forward to hearing.

Two quick bursts of shininess!

Shiny #1:  I’m thrilled to say that my story “The Girl Who Welcomed Death to Svalgearyen” is now out in issue 124 of Beneath Ceaseless Skies! Much happy dancing has ensued. Here’s a snippet:

Adda looked up and down the snowy lane, but Grandma Marit had already disappeared into the darkness. The only movement came from flickers of firelight sneaking out of neighbors’ windows. The darkness groaned in annoyance at the tittering flickers, who flitted up and down the sides of the box-like wooden homes. The flickers skipped over the ground and tickled Adda’s feet, even through her heavy boots.

Shiny #2: I’m also happy to announce that a new story called “The Whole of His History” will be appearing in Stamps, Vamps, and Tramps, an anthology being published by Evil Girlfriend Media. It looks I will have some lovely company in TOC for this one.

On that note, things will likely go quiet here on the blog for the next few weeks as I go off and have some fabulous vacationy adventures. Not that I’ve been posting all that much anyway, so y’all probably won’t even notice that I’m gone.

#SFWApro

The Semester That Ate My Blogging Time

So, um, you may not remember me, but I used to blog here. I know it’s hard to tell, what with the eerie silence and the dust and all. In fact, the dust bunnies have grown large enough to feast upon small mammals. And that huge one lurking over in the corner? He’s got that “Why, hello there, lunch” look in his eyes.

But seriously, I need to stop pretending that I’m going to have the time and mental reserves necessary to maintain any kind of blogging routine when grad school’s in full gear. So come fall, blog silence will probably resume. But in the meantime, summer break, baby! And only two more semesters left before I’m all masters-degree-ified!

So what’s been going on during the two-plus months I haven’t been blogging? Let me explain … no, there is too much. Let me sum up:

* School. Ridiculous workload. Fried brain.

* Awesomesauce story sale! Beneath Ceaseless Skies bought “The Girl Who Welcomed Death to Svalgearyen,” a story inspired by the Norwegian town Longyearbyen, where you’re not allowed to die. A story I absolutely adored writing + one of my favorite short fiction publications = squee!

* Lots of singing and piano. Even my clarinet got the dust blown off it a couple times.

* My writerly pal Krista Magrowski invited me to do a talk on “Turning Ideas Into Stories and Other Tales from Publishing” for the South Jersey Writers’ Group last month, which was a lot of fun and involved much discussion of bunny wrangling.

* Day job. I’m not sure if I’ve ever mentioned it here, but I’ve been doing a fellowship in an orchestra library, which has been (and continues to be) a great experience.

What hasn’t been going on these last couple months, unfortunately, is fiction writing. I cranked out a bunch of flash pieces right before the start of the semester, but so far I’ve only been able to get one of them cleaned up and flung out into the submission void. But now that I’m done with school until the fall, fiction shall be accomplished!