Hint, hint…

My morning started off on a very high note; I got an e-mail notifying me that my incredibly short story “Through Tiny Windows” has been accepted into Robert Swartwood’s Hint Fiction Anthology.

The Twitterverse is alive and kicking with others that have also been accepted into this unique anthology.  Mr. Swartwood’s blog states that he will have a ToC for the anthology posted in the near future.

And that’s all out of m for the day.  Work has me swamped and there has been very little (as in NO) time to write, much less blog.

Congrats to everyone else that made it into the Hint Fiction anthology!

The Ghosts of Guitars

My poem “The Ghosts of Guitars” is up at Every Day Poets today.  I’d appreciate it if you’d swing by, read it and drop a comment or vote.  Be forewarned, however…it is not the least bit horrific, as most of my poems are.

In other writing news…well, there is nothing to report, really.  I am still plugging way at The Final Study of Cooper M. Reid and trying to hold off on beginning my planned NaNo project, tentatively titled The Nowhere Tree.

There is tons of work to be done today, so it appears as if this will be a very uncharacteristic short post…

How to Confuse Yourself and Alienate Ideas

Over the past few weeks, I have mentioned my somewhat overly ambitious project The Final Study of Cooper M. Reid.  I started writing it as this sort of unorthodox project, planning to only contribute to it when writer’s block hindered progress on everything else.

But over the course of the last few days, the project has really taken up most of my free writing time and it is taking on a life of its own.  It’s actually a lot of fun to write because it allows me to approach writing fiction from the technical aspects that I have come to know through working as a freelancer and, in my former career, a proposal coordinator and technical writer.  It is also a challenging project because there is no way it could work as a novel and is to complex for a short story…so it is going to fall into that 15 – 20,000 word ether of novella/chapbook.

To give you an idea of the flow of The Final Study of Cooper M. Reid, here is the first page of the story (with the loss of some formatting due to my lack of technical skill in getting a Word doc to properly show up on WordPress):

Property of Center for Scientific Anomaly Research
Assigned to	Case Study Number	Dept.
William Corban	239-8239-5A	11-B
Assignment
Access and study the contents of all text, audio, video and photographic evidence from the Cooper M. Reid case.  Transcribe all audio, making necessary case notes as needed (notes to be included within the transcriptions). Describe video and photographic evidence as needed.  You will include copies of these materials in your final report.
Objective
Using Cooper M. Reid’s text entries, voice recordings and other evidence, determine the following: a)      Specific scientific or paranormal anomalies occurring at the site 67-019A in Tilton, Kansas (if any) b)      Any findings Reid may have recorded (if any) c)      Attempt to determine the current whereabouts of Cooper M. Reid
Attachments
1 note from Director L. Stewart 1 Fed Ex Package containing the property of Cooper M. Reid.  Package includes 1 Mac laptop (screen is cracked and F6 key is missing) 1 Toshiba Web Camera 1 Sony handheld video camera (apparently broken) and 2 discs 1 Cannon Digital Camera 1 loose leaf notebook 3 pens 1 Toshiba 3 GB memory card 1 Sony digital voice recorder
Assigned by
Director L.B. Stewart

The page that follows this is a letter from the Department head.  The story is also full of interview segments, audio transcriptions and footnotes.  I have also contacted a photographer to hopefully include some visual components to this as well.

I’m hoping to break the 12,000 word mark on this story by the end of the weekend (it now sits at 7,300 words), with intentions of having a final draft done by the end of the month so I can focus on NaNo…which I haven’t really even decided if I will be actively participating in.  And speaking about the end of October, it should be a hectic and exciting time of the year because

• Debris will most likely be released (although there have been some setbacks to my poor management of proofing)
• All work for Issue #1 of Birdwatching from Mars will be complete.

That’s all for now kids.  Have a great weekend.  Mine will be filled with family trips (to the apple orchard and the pumpkin patch at the request of my 2 and  a half year old daughter).

Quick Bits (with bonus music)

A busy day today, so I will see if I can get across all of the worthwhile  information down in bullet-fashion.

Debris has been proofed and, I believe, will be sent to the printers within the next few days.

Just got permission to include a pretty unique prize for the upcoming Debris Super-Duper Ultra Cool Contest.  More to come in the coming days.

Brokes Skies is now so close to being finished that it scares me.  (Any willing beta readers that aren’t afraid of hurting my feelings, feel free to raise your hand).

I have found a photographer that, I believe, is going to assist with some of the oddities I will be including in my admittedly overly-complicated chapbook/novella project The Final Case of Cooper M. Reid. More on this project to come.

And now, although I am no longer the biggest fan of their music, here is what both a rock show AND story based songs should sound and look like.  (If you aren’t familiar with the structure of Coheed and Cambria’s albums and songs, do yourself a favor and Wiki or Google them).

Almost like chainsaw juggling

I understand that Wednesdays are typically reserved for “works in progress” posts, but as I sat down this morning, waiting on instructions form work, I went through all of the projects that are currently active and managed to both depress and motivate myself at the same time.

It’s a good thing I made the decision to stay away from short stories (see previous post).  If I plan on finishing any of the following, I wouldn’t have time for shorts, anyway.

The Masks of Our Fathers: 25,200 words (of an estimated 60,000)

The Final Case of Cooper M. Reid: 4,200 words (of an estimated 15,000)

Under the Skin: have only edited 2,600 or so words of the manuscript which currently stands at 93,000 or so (planned rewrites will most likely have this closer to the 75,000 word range when it’s all said and done).

The Nowhere Tree (planned NaNo Project): Almost 100% mapped out.

The currently untitled project that I really don’t have the time for but the idea just won’t go away so I’m letting it have its way: This one is most mapped out, too.  As soon as I can write the “intro” to it, I’ll probably post about it here at some point.  It’s a pretty lofty project but I think I have to at least TRY it.

Birdwatching From Mars, Issue 3: The final script for BFM for 2009.  It’s about 70% done.

And that is basically how I will be spending the remainder of my 2009.  Wish me luck!

A “short” break

I made a tough decision today.

I will be taking a break from writing short stories for a while.  Not too long…maybe the rest of the year.  The exceptions to this are the two that I currently have in progress; one is an attempt at the Dead Bells anthology and the other was originally being written as an attempt at Graveside Tales’ The Beast Within 2 anthology, but took on a life of its own.  But other than that, no more short stories for a while.

I have decided to do this for two reasons.  One of them is a project I have been outlining for a few weeks now…a project I will probably talk more about in detail on here in the near future.  It’s going to require quite a bit of attention.  It has waited patiently on the back burner for about a year now and I think it is finally time to give it a try.  The second reason is because of November.  I fully intend to try NaNoWriMo again this year.  I already have most of my novel, tentatively titled The Nowhere Tree, outlined and am very excited to start.

Throw in my intention to also finish the first draft of The Masks of Our Fathers before 2010 begins and I feel that’s more than enough writing stuff going on at once.

Now let’s just see if I can restrain myself from short stories for the next three months.  Let’s just pray no super-cool anthologies open for subs between now and then…

Crash!

It’s been a while…and going so long without blogging makes me feel lazy in a way.  Hard to explain.  But I have a good excuse…

Last Wednesday, my hard drive crashed on me.  Out of the blue and without warning.  The data could not be recovered.  I lost roughly 300 work files, all of the Birdwatching From Mars art and too much other stuff that I don’t want to think about.  Luckily, the colorist for Birdwatching From Mars is sending me everything to date, so that’s a load off of my shoulders.

Luckily, I only lost a little bit of my writing.  I think it was something like 3 short stories, 2 of which I had basically given up on anyway.  Maybe this was a sign?

Since the crash, I have done ZERO writing.  I’ve been too busy working off of a busted laptop and weeding through sent e-mails from the past 14 months for work documents that were lost in the crash.  I just got the new hard drive today and spent most of the day uploading software and salvaging my I-Tunes.

However, in the week I have been away, Death In Common has been released.  It features two of my poems, as well as work by Wrath James White and Steve Vernon.  If you’re a fan of dark poetry or just want to check out a really creative and morbid book, you’ll want to check this one out.

Anyway…here’s hoping I get back into the swing of things by the end of the week.

A slight push for Birdwatching From Mars

I’ve previously mentioned how surprised I was at how much work goes into making a comic book.  I’ve also grumbled about the continuous delays in getting a title published by a team, including me, that is not yet getting paid for our efforts.  For a while there, there was slight dissension among the BFM team and for about a week or so, I became worried that the project was going to go belly up.

We eventually got stuff straightened out…contracts rewritten and relationships mended.  The work flow is smoother and the direction has been altered slightly.  One thing I learned about the comics process is that you need to have at least 3 issues completed before “officially” releasing Issue 1 to the public.  This means yet another set back…as it stands, Birdwatching From Mars Issue 1 will not be available for purchase until March 2010.

There IS some good news to come from this, though.  The penciler we have working on BFM, Luis Puig, was contacted by a certain company to work on a certain pet project a few weeks back.  Not only did it motivate him to no end, but it also gives BFM some added credibility.

What was the project, you ask?  Check it out…you may recognize it.

So we are obviously very excited..not only for Luis, but for the future of Birdwatching From Mars.  Stay tuned folks…we are all getting the feeling that good things may come from this little project.

A Return Trip

Monday morning acceptances MAY just be the best kind.

I checked my mail this morning to find that my story “Letters to God About Sin” will be published in Issue #4 of The New Bedlam Project. This will be the second story to see the e-pages of TNBP.

In other news, I am really trying to set writing goals for myself.  For instance, this week I would like to edit at least 30 pages of the newly discovered Under the Skin (which I strongly believe will be retitled) and write at least 2,000 words on “The Final Studies of Cooper M. Reid”.  Very low goals, I know.  But work comes first, sadly.  And because of that, it is basically impossible to know how much I can realistically contribute to my writing.

Meanwhile, I continue to fight off the new ideas that keep popping up.  I am jotting them down in a notebook for now and counting them last night, I discovered that I have 4 novel ideas waiting patiently to be started.  One of them is basically 100% mapped out and another of them is a very challenging task which I think may end up jumping to the top of the pile (more on this one in a future post, I’m sure).

Now, back to work.  Here’s hoping everyone has a productive writing week.

Friday Randomness

A few things, not really of note, but worth a second blog post for the week I believe.

First, seeing as how there are only slightly more than 3 months remaining in the year, I have readjusted my 2009 goals.  If I can get the following done by year’s end, I will feel as if I have accomplished something.

Finish Broken Skies: With only one chapter remaining and waiting on some research to pan out, this seems very doable.

Finish the oddly lengthed story: This is saved on my hard drive as “The Transcript Story” mainly because I can’t think of a proper title.  I’m leaning towards The Final Studies of Cooper M. Reid but I’m not too sure.  I’m really thinking this may make a nice chapbook sort of thing.  It’s looking to end up in 13-15,000 word territory.

Knock out the first draft of The Masks of Our Fathers: This one is sitting at 25,003 words right now.  It might end up in the 60,000 word range.

And I’m not even considering NaNoWriMo yet (although the story I have planned for it keeps reminded me it’s there).

And that’s it.

In other news, keep checking back because within a week or so, I plan on kicking off a contest for the release of Debris.

Have a great weekend everyone!