Chekhov Diary – Week 12 – “Nightlife of the Modern Artist”

Wednesday – 1/18 - Wow, I’m getting bad at journaling to keep up with this, but I’m going to blame the increasing hectic nature of my schedule than laziness. *shifty eyes* This week’s story I’m writing by hand, anyway, so there aren’t any word-counts to report just yet. This is the second story–SCRATCH THAT!–*third* story I’ve written by hand this year, which is an all-time record for me. The last time I wrote a story by hand was probably getting close to four years ago. It’s been a very interesting learning experience. I’m finding that for SF/Fantasy/Horror genre work, I tend to prefer my laptop, which allows me speed, but for more straight-forward literary stories, I much prefer writing by hand. It lets me 1) slow down, so I can actually think about what words I’m picking and whether or not a detail is relevant, and 2) it gives me that awesome versatility to flip-flop on words–crossing them out, then considering, then re-writing them back in–or add additional info in the margins without changing anything else. It’s a bit more like sketching, which I rather like. I don’t know if I could do it with a story that requires a lot more planning or plot-driven action–I don’t write by hand very fast, and for the action-y bits, I do prefer the speed of a keyboard. But for exploring a theme or a character or a setting? Fabulous! I’m going to have to do this more often. 

Saturday – 1/20 - As if I could come up with a more presumptuous title! :) No, no, but seriously folks–this is the first (other than *maybe* “Snap”) that qualifies as a non-genre short story. It’s not great, to be sure, but I did have fun writing it. Finished it yesterday, actually, but typed it up today and added it to my growing folder of new drafts for later review. Its final word count was about 1.9k.

Did go back back and re-read part of “Three Sisters” and “Swallow,” both of which I actually enjoyed immensely! Looking forward to possibly editing that one to a place where I could think about submitting it.

Twelve stories down, only forty more to go! :) That doesn’t sound *that* bad… O_o

 

Chekhov Diary – Week 11 – “The Dreamer Sleeps”

Sunday – 1/15/2012 - So a little late update, but there have been some delightful (read: sarcasm) changes to my everyday schedule, so my writing time has been a bit disrupted and unpredictable. Since it looks like it’s going to be the same for the foreseeable future, I’m adjusting my weeks to include weekends (so Saturday & Sunday may be used to complete a story which originally I’ve tried to finish by Friday). The rationale? I need more time to write. So! More likely than not, you’ll start seeing these diary updates on Saturdays or Sundays moving forward, though I’ll post them whenever a story for a week is finished.

I didn’t keep very diligent notes this week, but in the end, I did manage to finish the story. I was shooting for a 5k dark fantasy, and ended up with–still a dark fantasy-almost 11k story. This, I’m realizing very quickly, is something I am going to have to work on. Not only are stories above 7.5k much harder to place, they also commandeer a significantly larger chunk of my writing time, which seems to keep shrinking. I really need to get down to the 4k-5k range if I want to break into the fiction markets with any greater efficiency. It’s not that I haven’t sold stories that are 11.5k long–miraculously, I have–but it’s much more of an uphill battle, and I’d rather write an 11k novelette because I *want* to, not because that’s just how long my *short* stories run by accident. I need to move in to deliberate lengths, rather than “oops” lengths. Granted, a story will be however long it needs to be, but what that means is that I need to work on story conception and how many complications I put in/how many characters I want/how many scenes it’ll need to accomplish/etc. I’ve written 2.5-5k stories before, so I know I can do it. And I know I can come up with ideas that are still interesting even at that short of a length.

Either I need to shrink down, or I need to get bigger–I’m hedged in that demilitarized zone of 7.5k-25k. :( Too long to be a short story, too small to be a novel. *le sigh*

 

Chekhov Diary – Week 10 – “Prince Harold and the Princess Scam”

Thursday – 1/5/2012 - Knee deep in the first weekly story of 2012, though I’m not exactly sure what to think about this one. I’m working off the idea from last week that was too long to do then, and am somewhat concerned it may be still too long to do now. I’m almost 5k deep, after adding 1.6k this morning, and I still haven’t quite gotten to the “action”-y bit. There’s a lot of good background information, but I’m not sure it’s all useful, and I’m sure it’s not all necessary. Ugh. I haven’t had an overwriting crash like this for years. I’m talking a whole lot, but the story is just crawling forward. At least I’ve gotten back in to writing in the AM, which is better–at night, I just never know when I’ll get time to sit down, and it’s a lot harder to make time after dinner. Plus, if I write too close to bedtime, my brain tends to have a hard time shutting down for the night, and I end up inadvertantly brainstorming for a few hours before actually falling asleep.

Friday – 1/6/2012 - SO. Didn’t realize until mid-day that yesterday was Thursday. DERP. [Dates in this journal are added post-week, for clarity.] Well, it’s official. I’ve written my first Big Bad Bear ending (and *no*, not Elizabeth BEAR, an actual bear, with teeth and claws and lots of fur). BBB endings came into effect in the first Chekhov year for those times when, after dutifully hacking away at a story, you suddenly realize that it is *way* bigger than a short story, and there’s no possible way you can complete it in time with a satisfying ending. In cases like this, to keep from having the urge to continue the story the following week and sneak in a short-short, I created the ending: “And then a bear came and ate [Character Name Here]. The End.” This doesn’t mean I won’t go back to this story and finish the ending when I’ve got time either this year or when I revisit it later in 2012, but it DOES mean I’ve given myself the OK to set it aside for now and ramp up for next week’s story guilt-free (or guilt-light, anyway). It was bound to happen one time or another, so at least this daunting fear is now out of the way. All that said, I actually rather like where this story is headed. I changed the plot mid-week, which revealed about a hundred other Hydra-head plot devices rearing their ugly–and interesting–mugs, so there’s plenty of fodder to use here. I could blame being sick on Sunday/Monday on the inability to officially finish this one on time, or I could blame the story idea being about ten characters and five scenes too big, or what-have-you. There are a million excuses. Disappointed that this one didn’t get to more than a summarized ending, but at least I’ve got it summarized, so when I come back to it, I’ll be able to wrap it up without too much trouble. And possibly expand it. Into a novella. Oh, boy. Week #10?–Not entirely successfully ended, but ended just the same. It happens.

ONWARD AND UPWARD.

 

Chekhov Diary – Week 9 – “Moments of Clarity”

Friday – 12/30 –  This has been a pretty pitiful week for writing, but I can at least say that as of this morning, I’ve finished  story #9! I’ve been on vacation all week, and finding the time to mentally compose a story–much less write it!–has been quite a challenge. This week’s story is very short, only about 650 words. Even so, I think it’s got plenty of room for expanasion in future revisions, so I’m not too disappointed. Do note: this very short tale (a light fantasy) is not the first story I attempted to write this week. I started another one at the airport on Monday, and quickly realized over the course of the next few days that it was going to be much too long to complete in the limited available time I was going to get. :) That first story may be what I do for next week though, so I’ll hold off on the details of that one, just in case. At any rate, Week 9 is completed with “Moments of Clarity”!

 

THREE QUESTIONS: Ty Schwamberger

Ladies and gentlemen, bogarts and ghouls (yes, I went there), today I’ve had the marvelous opportunity to host THREE QUESTIONS with The Zombie Feed’s Editor-in-Chief Ty Schwamberger. Mr. Schwamberger has just come out with his new zombie novella, THE FIELDS. Per the press release:

Billy Fletcher learned to farm the family’s tobacco fields – and beat slaves – by the hands of his father. Now, his father is dead, the slaves have long since been freed, and the once-lush fields are dying. Salvation by the name of Abraham knocks on the farmhouse door, bringing wild ideas. He can help Billy save the plantation and return the fields to their former glory…by raising his father’s slaves from the dead.

Can the resurrected slaves breathe life back into the Fletcher farm? Having brought the slaves back from graves that his father sent them, can Billy be the kind master his father wasn’t? Is keeping the farm worth denying the men the freedom they earned with death?

Billy’s conscience holds the key to those mysteries, but not the biggest one: what does Abraham really want from the former slave owner’s son?

Find out what the reviewers think by heading over to Ty Schwamberger’s blog, and pick up your copy of the novella either in paperback or e-book format!

1. The Writing Question: What published story of yours was the most difficult to write, or the most difficult to sell?

I’ll start by saying this: I’ve been extremely fortunate and lucky – fortunate, because for whatever reason I’ve always been good at “pitching” projects to prospective publishers, and lucky, well, I think everyone needs a bit of luck at one time or another in this business. Some people don’t believe this when I tell them, especially with 4 books, 1 short film, and several short stories and articles already out there, but I didn’t start writing until early 2008. In fact, the first two “horror” authors I read that got me into writing were Jack Ketchum and (this won’t surprise a lot of folks) Richard Laymon. After those two novels, I just sat down, not knowing what the hell I was doing, and started pounding away at the keyboard. Three months and 100,000 (awful) words later my first novel was finished (and subsequently published, but I don’t talk about that one). After that, I just kept going. After THE FIELDS, there will be 6 additional books (novellas, a collection, anthologies I’m Editor on), a few short stories and 1 feature-length film that is currently in pre-production (there’s a few additional things in the works, but I can’t talk about them quite yet). And that’s all before the end of 2012. So, you can see, I really pushed myself in the beginning. Hell, I still do. Ok, that was a long ramble to one part of the question… In short, I don’t think I’d classify any one book as a “difficult” sell to a publisher. The publishing world is generally a slow-moving machine. That’s just the way it is. You have to keep forging ahead, blazing new trails, and never, ever, give up.

As for THE FIELDS… Jason Sizemore (owner of Apex Publications) and I met a few years ago at a convention. I quickly grew to love the catalog of quality books he was putting out, and ever since I have been trying to pitch something to him. Before writing THE FIELDS, I had always enjoyed zombie movies and books, but I didn’t want to just rehash the same stuff that’s already been put out there a ton of times. I wanted something different. Unique. Something that’s never been done before. So, it was around this time last year that I came up with the idea to write a zombie story, but place the “characters” in the middle 1800s. The middle 1800s, you ask? Yup, you got it. What could be more exciting than former slaves rising from the dead hellbent on getting back at the same people that made their lives a living hell. BUT, I didn’t want the story to be just about revenge. Oh no. I wanted something deeper. A lot deeper. I think Jonathan Maberry, whom wrote the introduction to the novella said it best: “It’s part horror story in the classic sense – misdeeds from the past coming back to haunt the present. It’s part zombie story.  It’s part adventure. And it’s part social satire in its darkest sense. The Fields is a morality tale.  With zombies.

I’m extremely excited that it’s finally seeing the light of day…and I think folks are going to be pleasantly surprised they’ll get a lot more out of the book than just brain munching fun!

2. The Horror Question: Blood and gore: scary or not scary?

It depends. Is it integral to the story? Or is the writer just going for the gross out factor? Personally, I enjoy (if “enjoy” is the right word to use) a little slice n’ dice. But, again, it all depends on the plot. Back in the horror hay day of the 1980s, slasher films were almost always putting three common elements into each movie: action, gore and sex. When I first started writing (specifically, my first novel), that’s pretty much all there was. Well, that, and perhaps a little plot on the side. But, growing as a writer over the years, I’ve learned more about the business, what does and doesn’t sell, and subsequently toned down the sexual content in my stories (unless I’m contracted to write about it, of course…then money talks and bull–)…

Anyway. Back to gore…

For instance, THE FIELDS, has very little gore. Yes, there is some (you can’t write about zombies without mentioning their rotting skin or need for eating the living, right?), but not very much. As I mentioned before, I wanted THE FIELDS to be different. Very different. I wanted the reader to get more out of it than the brain-blasting, undead fun many of us enjoy. I think THE FIELDS is very scary, because the “zombies” in the story represent something a helluva lot worse than an ambling horde coming after you. It talks about racism, a young man’s love and respect for his father – even though he knows his father was wrong for treating the slaves like he did – and just how much one is willing to sacrifice themselves for the greater good of man.

3. The Oddball Question: Barring family photo albums, religious books, cookbooks, etc.: If you could save only one book from your house because a blob monster was about to absorb it into its massive jelly-like girth, what book would you grab?

“The Bible” aka A Writer’s Tale by Richard Laymon. I’m fortunate enough to own a copy, and would throw a tray-full of ice cubes at a blob monster to slow it down long enough, so I could run and grab the book. EVERY aspiring author should do whatever they can to find a copy and give it a read. But, don’t ask to borrow mine, or you might just get bitch slapped.

#

Ty Schwamberger is a growing force within the horror genre.  He is the author of a novel, multiple novellas, collections and editor on several anthologies.  In addition, he’s had many short stories published online and in print.  Two stories, ‘Cake Batter’ (released in 2010) and ‘House Call’ (currently in pre-production in 2011), have been optioned for film adaptation.  You can learn more at:  http://tyschwamberger.com.

 

Chekhov Diary – Week 8 – “Three Sisters”

Monday – 12/19 - Began this week’s story, working-titled “Four Sisters Walk into a Bar.” Andy’s challenged me to write a story in the mode of one of his favorite SF authors, and I’m going to give it my best shot, but GOSH. It’s going to be hard and it’s going to take a long, long, long time. Overtime anyone? Today I clocked in a mighty 400 words. Ouch. This style just requires a lot more thinking; I can’t just hash it out fast. It’s got to be deliberate. Careful. It will probably make my brain bleed…just a bit… May add some more this afternoon.

Tuesday/Wednesday – 12/20 – 12/21 - Missed journaling yesterday. Got caught up in a whirlwind of other to-be-done-before-the-Holidays stuff. I have no idea how many words have been added today, or yesterday, because I’ve been writing this story by hand. It’s a strange experience; I rarely (RARELY) write by hand these days–my spelling is sloppy and my penmanship is a bit cryptic (not, perhaps, as bad as it could be), and my worst plague is simply that the muscles of my hand don’t enjoy writing for periods of time longer than forty-five minutes. I think I push too hard with the pen or something. Regardless: writing by hand has helped–I think–in the construction of this story, since I’m trying to replicate a very specific style and need to really think about everything I’m putting down. I already know that when I type it in on Friday, I’m going to have to make some significant changes, which I’ve already started noting. It’s going to be…interesting… Though it may not be good. :)

Thursday/Friday – 12/22 – 12/23 - Missed journaling yesterday too, due to the holidays, but writing still got done! :) And today, the story is complete. I’ve shortened the title to “Three Sisters” for now, and it’s clocked in at 3556 words. While it’s a lot shorter than others from this year, it took infinitely more time for that meager 3.5k. Writing by hand was an interesting experience, and showed me how much more time I could (and perhaps should) take when it comes to choosing the words I really want verses the first ones that pop into my head in a rush to get a story down. Whether or not “Three Sisters” is successful may not be something I can judge for a few months; the ending feels a bit abrupt to me at this moment, but there are parts I really like. I suspect it will benefit from a number of rewrites in which I can condense the language more. That’s one thing I’ve discovered about writing on the computer verses by hand: it makes it so much easier to write more words than I might need. I find I explain a lot more when I write via computer than I do on paper, simply because writing by paper makes me slow down and consider whether I *really* need X sentence, or X word, or X description. It’s been fun! Hard and rather trying at times, but overall, worthwhile. I may have to do this again sometime this year!

But it’s done! Happy holidays everybody! :D

 

Chekhov Diary – Week 7 – “Swallow”

Monday – 12/12 – Began this week’s story, and got about 700 words in. Not quite as fast as other days, but that’s okay–I’m trying something a bit new on this one. I’ve been reading a bunch of Roald Dahl short stories (he’s one of my absolute favorite macabre authors, particularly in short-form), and I’ve noticed than in a handful of his stories, his narrator is just an observer of an incident. It’s strange though, because although the narrator is just an observer, he seemed intimately involved in the emotional roller coaster of events playing out, maybe all the more so because he has no control over what happens to the people around him, or over the decisions they make for good or for bad. “The Man from the South” is a particularly good example of this, and all the more gripping because like the narrator, the reader can only hold her breath and watch as the events unfold. So I’m trying that–I’m bringing an innocent narrator into the middle of something far from normal, and letting myself play along those lines. We’ll see how it goes by mid-week. It’s going to be a busy (and stressful) week, it seems, and I’ve been a little worried about how this is going to impact my ability to be creative. That in and of itself is making me more stressed.

Tuesday – 12/13 – 1.1k of progress on story now titled “Swallow.” This story is totally unrelated to any music selection, so it’s not *quite* following my monthly prompt…at all, actually…but it’s getting on the page, and that’s all I’m really worried about. :) I am totally loving writing about a setting I’m familiar with. It feels so much more real to me, and I’m having a blast remembering details. I’ve set this story in the bungalow of a friend of mine–or at least in the house they lived in when we all lived in Portland–and it makes the story feel so alive. I’m going to have to do this more often. Writing a lot of far-future and distant-past styled stories makes it hard to literally incorporate many of the places I’ve lived, besides in a general way, but I really do enjoy writing more modern-set pieces which I can populate with real places I’ve known. There’s something deliciously intimate about it. It’s the same feeling I got writing “The Road to Ki’o Ahi” which is set in the Manoa Valley of O’ahu where I lived for a year and a half–I love that story, because when I read it, I feel like I’m back there. It managed to capture a lot of my memories of the place at the time, and that’s a really neat thing to be able to do in fiction. Recognizing a location is certainly something I enjoy immensely in other authors’ works. It’s fun to try my own hand at it now. :)

Wednesday – 12/14 – It’s Wednesday again, isn’t it? How is this week going by so fast? Added another 1.2k, but I’m going to have to pick up the pace. This is another one of those weird ones that seems to be writing itself–it’s not quite an unpleasant experience, though experience has taught me that just because something writes itself doesn’t mean it writes itself well. These kinds of stories tend to have a really tight flow to them, which is great if I get it right the first time through, but usually I don’t, and then the tight flow makes the revising so much more difficult because every change feels like it’s disrupting the natural groove. It’s rather like the story’s on pre-destined tracks, and it’s just rolling along, at its own pace, on the tracks, and I’m just sitting in the car waiting to see where it ends up. Maybe I’ll add more to it this afternoon if I have time. I need to do some other things also, but I’d like to get through the next scene to lock it down. There are a bunch of other steps I have to hit before the finale, and only a couple of my characters’ days to hit them in, so we’ll see…we’ll see… It may be tight….

Thursday – 12/15 – Eeeeeeek! We’re getting down to the wire. I have a feeling I’m going to be spending some time on this tonight to prep for tomorrow. It’s going to be a bit of a squeeze. So far today, I’ve added 1.9k, but I’m going to need to add a good deal more to get to where I need to be for tomorrow. The writing itself is going well, if a little slow. It’s happily chugging along at its own pace, which means all I can do is put in the hours and hope it gets where it’s going by tomorrow night. *bites nails*

Friday – 12/16 – Tried adding some to the story last night, and fell on my face. Was just too tired and too unmotivated to come up with more than a handful of sentences. BUT! That said, this morning I got an early start, and after 2.9k, the story’s a wrap at another ridiculous 8,484 words. So, shorter than last week, but then I did have to crunch it a bit at the end to hit my deadline of finishing today. Overall impression? I like it. It’s a reworking of a story I wrote a long time ago of the same name, possibly even during the last Chekhov year. The problem with that story was it was interesting, but wasn’t quite horror enough. Granted, I’m not sure this one is either–it’s sure longer, but I was definitely going more towards the Roald Dahl eerie feel than obvious horror. I very much like the personal details of this one better than the last one, though I worry the last one may have a bit more soul. But then, it’s been ages since I read it, so who knows? I may just be projecting that. I’ll have to dig it up and see. This one, I believe, is definitely creepier, but at such a long length, I’m going to have to edit it like crazy to get it down to a decent size. At any rate, Week 7 is complete!

 

Chekhov Diary – Week #6 – “Fun With Robots”

Monday – 12/5 - Grumpy. Got started on this week’s story, YA/SF. This month’s theme is to write a story inspired by a song, so this one’s inspired by World Gone Crazy by Sleepthief–not that the story itself has anything to do with the lyrics… It just sounded happy, so I wanted to go with it and write a happy/sweet Peter Pan meets The Little Prince PLUS ROBOTS story, and that’s what I’ve started. Working title “The Seedling Prince”. That said, I hate what I’ve done on it so far. *haaaaaaaaate* It’s dumpy and slow and has no sense of place, and I think I’m trying too hard and thinking too much about what makes a work “YA” and really I think I probably just need to loosen up and have fun. I had fun planning it last night–I guess that doesn’t always carry over to the draft. BUT NO BIG DEAL. It’s a rough draft, and if there’s anything salvagable by the end of the week, I can always rewrite the whole thing some other time.

Tuesday – 12/6 - Restarted from scratch, with a little more focus on making Blanca more like me, and her situation more like mine. It’s less YA and more adult, but that’s okay for now. It’s been retitled “The Weight of the Mind’s Indulgence” and so far I’m a lot more pleased with it. 1.3k today. Probably has too much jibber-jabber about the space station, but I want the locale to be clear.

Wednesday – 12/7 - Crap, is it Wednesday? Why am I feeling like it’s Tuesday? Added another 1.2k to TWotMI, though I think at this point I’m falling into the ever dangerous “characters sitting around and talking” method of divulging background information, which I’m not too happy about. But it’s moving forward, at least, which is good. I need to really plug along and get this wrapped up, since I wasted Monday on a false start.

Thursday – 12/8 - Made excellent progress on TWotMI, though I still feel there’s a lot I’m leaving out, the prose seems to just flow for some weird reason. It’s kind of freaking me out, to be honest. This is the second story in two weeks that has just unfolded itself. It still needs work (I need to add in some earlier stuff about Blanca’s robot-making) and I still think the characters may just chat a bit too much, but I’m really liking the sense of place (which I’m sure could still be stronger). All in all, though, I made a miraculous 2.3k addition in only 1.5 hours, which kind of blows my mind. I didn’t feel like I was writing that fast.

Friday – 12/9 - Woosh! And done, at a ridiculous 9867 words. Ugh. Of that ~9.9k, I wrote 4k of that just today. YOWZAH. And Slater fails to write a responsibly short story, yet again. But hey, at least it’s done, and even if it’s crap (it is) I can always rework it later if I so choose. It’s certainly got some plot-hole (like giant, rough-edged, filled with water so you don’t realize how DEEP they are plot-holes) that would need addressing, and I have a feeling that with proper time and consideration, this one’s going to want to be a novelette at least, if not a short novella. That said, it’s been renamed to the more appropriate and less presumptuous “Fun with Robots”, which is really what this story is all about. :) Also, glad I didn’t check my email BEFORE finishing the last scene, because I got a nice two-date form rejection for a story I really love. *le sigh* Onward and upward, evermore.

 

Chekhov Diary – Week #5 – “The Alien Heart That Beats Within”

Monday – 11/28 - Got a story started for the week, and made a good 1k start. I’m not 100% convinced this is going to work out the same way I want it to–it’s quiet, and contemplative, like I so often drift toward. One of these days, I’d like to try tackling a short action story–but action in a short space is so challenging! At least, it is for me. I want to write something with pep, with excitement, with drive. With moments–of course–of thoughtful calm and contemplation. A nice mix of action and resolution. Maybe I’ll throw in an action twist just to see what happens. *shifty eyes*

Tuesday - 11/29 - After a momentary distraction last night (I wanted to write an action story, was chaffing at the bit to write BANG! POW! WHAMO!), I’m back to the story I started yesterday. I may play around with that other story (it’s a fantasy world I’ve worked in before, so more or less of some of the background has been done, though I need a world-name, and I need to know more about the industrial revolution… Note to self: research more), but for now, I’m sticking to the SF one I already started. There’s something about it, though it’s not a fast story, that seems to be partially writing itself. I hate to abandon that feeling just because it’s not as active as I’d like. The characters seem to be taking on some life, too–I mean, obviously it’s a rough draft, so editing would be guaranteed post-draft, but it’s not horrible so far. Could use more world building, to be sure, but the characters feel real. I guess that’s a good sign, hmm?

Wednesday - 11/30 - Added about another 900 words today without too much difficulty. This story really is writing itself, which is surprising and a bit strange. It doesn’t feel like it’s got a drive, or at least not one I’m conscious of, but it is going somewhere. Not sure quite where it’ll end up (mostly just hoping it won’t be 5k+ down the road), which is a little fun. I think endings are one of my weaknesses that I may need to work on. I typically have a start and a location in mind, and after that a character, but as for conflict and resolution, that’s a bit fuzzy for me. I had reason a few days ago to think over my writing weaknesses, and conflict (particularly action-y conflict) is definitely one of them. I think I have a lot to learn about the very basic conception of a story arch, and how to approach thinking about one in the proto-stages of a piece of fiction. I feel like if I could just understand that a little better, I could really make a jump in terms of quality of fiction. That said, I’m just glad this story isn’t as dull to write as some of the last couple stories have been, even if it isn’t action-y.

Thursday - 12/1 - Added another 1k to the story, again without difficulty. I’m not sure if the ease of this is due to the story itself or because I’m finally starting to switch out of my inclination for 30-minute/500 word sessions. The story is progressing, though I’m not sure at all where it’s going, still. And I’m not at all sure how it’s going to end, which makes me nervous at this point. It’s Thursday–the story has to be done tomorrow by midnight, and I know after work, I won’t be writing, so it’s got to be done mostly tonight and tomorrow morning/tomorrow at lunch. I’ve gotten into a bad habit this week of sleeping in when I would normally go to the gym–means I start writing a little after nine rather than a little before it. It’s been a very sluggish week in terms of motivation. There are a lot of things I *need* to do, but very little I *want* to. The short-story focus has also kick-started the novel-drive in me; what’s it they always say about the grass on the other side? :) Too bad, novels! You’re confined to index cards for now.

Friday - 12/2 - Packed on a last 1.5k to wrap up the story to a semi-satisfactory ending. It’s not an action-y story at all, but I do think there’s something here that could be useful down the pipe, so I’m rather happy with it. I’m not 100% convinced that the MC would *actually* have his change of heart this way, but maybe he would. I’ll have to re-read it and re-evaluate at a later date to judge it better. All in all, the story’s approx. 5,900 words long, which is better than I typically do when just “roaming” like this, so I’m pleased with that! And I’m not going to have to wrack my brains tonight or spend valuable spouse-hangout-time writing instead of kicking back to watch a movie. :D Block week (the week of Do0m for med students here) is coming up in a couple weeks, so I need to take advantage of seeing the hubby whenever I can! ^_^ Week #5 story–SF/”The Alien Heart That Beats Within”–completed. TRANSMISSION END.

 

Challenges, challenges, challenges

So it’s been a few weeks since the last post, and for that…I apologize. But I’m not going to grovel, because I’ve been working on some pretty crazy stuff. First off, starting in November, I decided to jump back on the crazy train–no, not NaNo, though that is a crazy train of crazy which I might try again next year, but alas, not this year–and do another Chekhov Year.

What is a Chekhov Year? Basically, it’s a year (so 52 weeks) in which I attempt to write one short story rough draft per week. I accomplished this (or very near it–just six stories shy) in 2007, and apparently (according to this blog!) attempted a modified version in 2009 which failed miserably. The whole every-other-week thing I tried to make happen just didn’t cut it. I need every week or nothing.

So this year, starting on the first of November, I began Chekhov Year #3: Return of the Chekhov Year. Thus far, I’ve successfully drafted four new rough drafts:

- “The Mortal Coil” (SF)
- “Arin Gladspire and the Rogue of Chaos” (F)
- “Snap” (magical realism/mainstream)
- “Relief from the Shadows of the Night” (F) (just finished this one today!)

They’re not always pretty, and they all need a lot of work, but at least I’m getting new drafts to play with! :)

For the time being, I’m setting my novel projects aside on lay-away. I haven’t quite gotten to the point where I feel like I’m ready to move in that direction, but I’ve got some stuff set aside for the future, when/if I begin approaching longer projects. For now, I’m pretty satisfied sticking to short fiction. I think there’s still a ton I can learn about the short form, and I’m seeing visible progress in my abilities in this area. Just a few days ago I got a rejection from Clarkesworld Magazine, but it specified that the story I’d sent them was close! I’m so thrilled by this, I cannot even tell you. Of course, it’d be great to sell a story there, but I’ll take a promising rejection, too! I’m not picky! :)

I’ve gotten a few other promising rejections lately, too, which makes me feel like some more focus in this particular area could be something with payoff in the future, so I’m going to focus in. I think part of this calming-down on the novel side is also due in part to recognizing that I often try to do things a little too fast, desperately trying to achieve certain personal career goals by subjective ages, etc., instead of focusing on the craft itself and improving that. Heck, even if I don’t qualify for SFWA until I’m fifty, it’ll be better if I’ve spent this whole time working my tail off on short fiction. So for now: the short fiction has it. My undivided (*cough*) attention.

Okay, I’m lying a bit. I’m also still trying to churn out chapters of The Thief Dilemma on a semi-regular basis, and DO still intend to get as close to a finale on that as possible by June. I got a little snagged up because September/October’s chapter was so draining to write, and I fought with it for so long–it’s where I want it, but now I have to work myself back up to jumping in again for another chapter! :) That said, writing a novel chapter a month or bimonthly may be how I eventually write novels. Oh, boy. :0\

Other than that, still chugging away per usual! I may begin a “Chekhov Year” diary, which might be posted every Friday, post-short-story completion for the week, and compiles notes from each day during the week. An example entry might look like:

Week 2: [Working Story Title Here]

mm/dd – OMGZ I have noooooooo idea what I’m going to wriiiiiiiiiiiiite this week!!!!!!11!!!!!!1
mm/dd – Ok, so I’ve got like this *TOTALLY AWESUM* IDEA AND OMGZ IT’S GONNA BE LIKE WHOA.
mm/dd – Fail. *sob*
mm/dd – 1000 words of progress on [Story Title Here]. I changed the whole plot and killed 90% of the characters.
mm/dd – Draft of [Story Title Here] finished! Hooray! I’m not dead yet! :D 

“OMGZ I have no ideeeeeea what to wriiiiiiiiiite this weeeeeeeeek!!!” which would have been my post as of 10PM last night, though I managed to pull an idea out of the air and out of some tunes this morning. AND it’s DONE already. Which is totally a rarity. I pounded out 3.5k today to finish the story in total, and I’m pretty sure it doesn’t *entirely* suck, but I’m not making any promises as of right now.

And I’m going to call this post HERE because it’s getting long and unwieldy. ENOUGH I say. And goodnight.