Month: June 2017

Purples

I’m finally getting my hair redone. I met a friend for dinner two weeks ago and was absolutely smitten by her hair; booked an appointment Monday at the place she recommended; and am currently sitting here in the salon waiting for my turn. It has that very nice salon smell that’s one part soap sharpness to about three parts lather and rich bubbles.

(Also, it’s been raining like mad for three days and will continue to do so for probably another four out of the next week, so I shouldn’t be too sun-faded for at least a little while.)

Continuing to work through my Hugo readings and towards my Clarion West Write-a-thon wordcount. The weather is pleasant, the cats are cuddly, and I actually got my email inbox down to under 250, so I’m expecting a really nice weekend.

Week 1 Write-a-thon update

1045 words!

Thank you so much, sponsors; it’s been a really busy week, and I think that if I hadn’t promised to get this done for you, I might not have gotten it done at all. (I might have a little more time to write this evening, but I’ve decided to aim for at-least weekly updates, and I didn’t want to let this one go too late. If I write more tonight, I’ll count it towards next week’s goal.)

(Again, if you’d like to sponsor: my profile is here, and the webpage is pretty easy to navigate if you’d like to sponsor someone else.)

I’ve found that my outline needs tightening up in a few places, too, so I’m going to work on that as well. I won’t count that towards my pledged wordcount, though.

Other writing things I have done this week; gotten three rejections, submitted three stories, and managed to make a little progress on another piece. And read two pieces for crit, which is slightly exhausting.

In other news, have had discussions about the definition of what exactly a series is, and the essential elements of the Joker, and may write those up here later. I’m afraid I haven’t had the chance to do a lot of non-fiction writing outside of work lately.

Cheerful optimism (and a chance at free magazines)

Clarion West is a non-profit literary organization in Seattle; it runs both a six-week workshop for writers in the summer, and one-day workshops for writers throughout the year.

They also do a yearly fundraiser to help keep the workshop going, which is the six-week Clarion West Write-a-thon. This year I’ve signed up for it; I’m aiming to write a thousand words a week on my novel for six weeks, and hoping to help raise even a little to help keep the workshop going.

With regards to those free magazines:

I have print copies of the issues in which two of my stories appeared; ‘Palimpsest’ from the second issue of The Sockdolager, and ‘The Gannet Girl’ from issue 102 of On Spec. I’ll draw two names from the people who sponsor me; the first name gets their pick of magazine, and the second name gets the other one. I’ll need a mailing address, but I can send them to anywhere that Canada Post delivers, and I will cover postage.

If you’d like to sponsor me, here’s my page for the Write-a-thon; if you’d like to look at the other authors who are working on it, there’s a full list (137 as of this writing!) available here.

Any sponsorship helps, honestly, and so does passing word along to other people who might be interested. And hey– a chance at free magazines, with stories by me and many other brilliant authors!

Heading into summer.

May was a busy month. In addition to a couple of personal milestones and a chance to meet local writers in person (kind of terrifying, everyone was absolutely lovely), I submitted eight stories and got six rejections (with the one that just came in earlier today, I’ve hit my third centiBrad for the year!), cleared out yet more old books, and started back into physio.

I meant to post something. I did.

Good intentions, and all that.

The next couple of months are going to be interesting. There are two writing/commitment things I’m looking at–all of which would be interesting, some of which I worry would be overwhelming–and I’m thinking very carefully about what I can realistically commit to. (And after the next two months are over, there’s WorldCon in Helsinki, which if it’s anything like the last ones I’ve attended will both be a wonderful experience and a very exhausting one.) I’m hoping to get a plan together this weekend and go from there.

Onwards!