Meanwhile…

Just under the wire on this one. Inspired by some show we saw while waiting for Battlestar Galactica to come on. ~540 words Continue reading

The year before last was my first attempt at NaNo. I jumped into NaNo with no real concept of what I was doing – I’d never even tried to write a novel before, and joined on pretty short notice. It was a fantasy steampunk sort of thing. I did a little world building and dove right in. I forget how much I wrote, maybe 8-10,000 words or so? I haven’t really thought about or done anything with the concept since then, so I thought I’d revisit that world just a little tonight. I had to dig up some old notes to try and remember some of the geography and names.

I still think the setting and concept has a lot of potential. Maybe sometime I’ll work on it some more. A little under 700 words. Continue reading

It’s another Chuck Chaykin, Bounty Hunter! adventure. I wasn’t feeling all that creative today. Around 600 words or so I realized I used pretty much the same premise tonight as I did a couple days ago. Hmm.

A little over 900 words. I really need a name for Chuck’s ship. Continue reading

Just in time! A little alternate history for ya. I doubt I’ll ever do much with this, so here’s the whole thing. About 700 words. Continue reading

Done with a couple of hours to spare! For those of you just joining us, my writing group is having a little contest this month in lieu of our regular prompt contest (500-word minimum). We’ll be writing a short story each day for two solid weeks. If it sounds like pure misery and pain, you are not entirely incorrect.

I think I’m going to just be posting small doses of these stories. Any one of them I might end up enjoying enough to publish somewhere.

This one even has a Schrödinger joke. Continue reading

For my birthday, my wife got me The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, by Junot Diaz. I’m only about seventy pages in, but it’s a fantastic book. It’s riddled with geeky sci fi/fantasy references that are a delight to read. I mean, it starts off with a quote from one of the greatest comic books of all time, for Pete’s sake.

(It’s also riddled with a lot of Spanish, most of which I have to puzzle through using context clues. None of that has spoiled the joy of the novel, however.)

Anyway, I’ve hardly started on it, but I highly recommend it. It’s one of those books that makes me want to be a better writer.

I was pretty busy this weekend and didn’t get anything done. My to do list:

I’ve got a my robot librarian story to send out, I think I’ve put the final tweaks on it. I like the story, but I’m afraid there’s a reference in it that people may not get. I think the story works anyway, but we’ll see.

I’m also planning to send the cake story out again. I might work on it some more. I happen to agree with the editors who’ve already rejected it, so we’ll see if there’s something there to salvage.

I need to revise my Sevastian Dušan story. I love the characters and enjoy the story, but unfortunately have absolutely no clue where I would send it.

I need to catch up on some crits for the writing group, namely Stephanie’s novel. I’m way behind on it!

I feel like I should write some new superhero stories for A Thousand Faces. That’s a publication I should be plugging away at, it’s right up my alley. The problem I’m encountering is that the next superhero story I want to write will likely be a novel about the Scarlet Ranger. But she has plenty of friends and enemies who are deserving of short stories, and anything I write will only help me write the novel later. So I really need to just need to sit down and start doing it.

I really need to get this stuff (at least the first few) done this week. Next week the writing group is having a “Story Every Day” contest, inspired by the little challenge I put myself through a while back. It’s going to be crazy! We’ll be doing it for two weeks, so if everything goes according to plan, I’ll be posting a little chunk of flash every day between the 9th and 22nd. With luck a few will actually be worth trying to sell.

Meanwhile, I’ll be busy trying to keep my eyes away from this thing of absolute beauty that I just received in the mail this weekend.