ArmadilloCon & Fast Drafting

shlomi on June 12, 2014

 

ArmadilloCon 36 Logo

ArmadilloCon is one of those events I kept promising myself to attend, but for which I never chose to make time. I thought I had an out this year: I didn’t have any 5k word writing samples, which is the limit for the the workshop component of the Con.

Whew!

Then I rifled through my stories. Ah, From Generation to Generation. Fantasy. Jewish mystical fantasy… Oh, good: almost 6,000 words. Won’t work.

Good.

Um, well, maybe if I gave it another editing run-through…

It’d been long enough since I’d last read it not to wince at the trimmings of word and scene. A couple of ‘ritas later and 4,998 stood the word count.

Now I have no more excuses. And am looking forward to all manner of critiquing late next month.

On Focus (Again, and Again, and Again!)

shlomi on June 10, 2012

Six months ago for some reason I had a clearer “plate” for writing. But third rewrites, frantically writing down scraps of ideas for new stories, and working on what is turning out to be a monumental task for a simple thing (Google Charts embedded in WordPress, with data updates), plus the flotsam and jetsam of life’s issues, had made for a plate of raw squid tentacles (calamari, for those trying to keep with the metaphor) entangled with angel hair pasta, glued together in a sauce of lost time and chores.

And on my ride to work my train buddies ask “how’s the writing going.” It’s about discipline, I want to say. “And if you find mine, please give it back to me.”

So today I finish the rewrite of Generation to Generation so I can give it to one LAST reader before getting a {sigh} cover together.

A Return? On a 99 cent short story?

shlomi on April 21, 2012

I’m going to take the high road and assume that someone accidentally purchased Consent, meaning to buy a $200 tome instead. And I’ll make that my final answer, since I didn’t get an accompanying lashing of a review.

{grumble}

I doodled on a Generation to Generation cover, and quickly realized that if my stick figures weren’t awful enough, stick figures in perspective, spinning back in time, arranged as a double helix certainly didn’t showcase any nascent talent I might believe I have in that arena.

Splitting today into cooking, finishing G2G and getting it up online, and continuing to work on a WordPress plugin to integrate Google Charts into a blog site.

Dusting Off “Finished” Pieces

shlomi on April 19, 2012

The problem with writing is that, with practice, it improves. I went back to a really nice piece I’d written, intending to slap formatting on it and bring it up as an e-book short story. (As I did with Consent a few days back — thanks to all of you who’ve purchased it for the exorbitant, crazy price of under a buck!)

My writing friend JNE calls ’em ‘vampire words.’ They suck energy from scenes, dull down dialog… and the dang story dripped with them. ‘Began.’ ‘Felt.’ ‘Seemed.’ ‘Was.’

Rewriting is a recursive experience. One sentence leans on the next, paragraphs on their neighbors, and the whole short story on it’s scenes. The patient lies still on its word processing operating table, mostly put back together, but with yet a distance to travel.

Hopefully I can figure out how to create a cover for it — I really need to learn how to draw.

CONTEST!!! Speaking of publishing, with all the folks buying Consent there aren’t any reviews. Any and all would be much appreciated! I’ll pick a reviewer at random and write them into a story I’m just wrapping up. The higher the rating, the better the character in the story!