Author: Frances K R

A week, interrupted.

I got less than I hoped to get done this week. Early Tuesday morning, a bat got into our room and would not leave, despite the windows being wide open and a couple of humans waving it hopefully towards those windows with the removed window screens. So after ten or fifteen minutes of that, we trapped it in a laundry basket and evicted it from the house.

I came into contact with it while we were doing this.

I have always thought that bats were cute. I still think that bats are cute, but I have picked up, from several members of the health care community, that I should also treat them as if they are flying pieces of raw chicken infested with herpes.

So I started getting my course of rabies shots on Friday. It is (unsurprisingly) a considerably rougher course of treatment than the annual flu shot, and I lost most of Friday to running around and then sleeping, most of Saturday to sleeping and being lightly out of it, and Sunday morning to sleeping. I’m a little worried about how hard the next shot will hit me on Monday, since the work crunch is starting, but I suppose I can cope with that tomorrow

Finally, September.

So, “Late Night at the Low Road Diner” got a review in Apex Magazine’s “Words for Thought” column on Friday, and I spent most of that day and several hours so far in September grinning like a fool.

(The woman who wrote “In the End, It Always Turns Out the Same” and “Final Girl Theory” said nice things about my story. I squeaked.)

On a weather level, it’s been a hectic summer–the multiple tornado warnings were probably my ‘favourite’ part–and despite the fact that the long weekend has reverted to the kind of weather where stepping outside feels like trying to breathe a wet towel, it seems to be starting to break. I’m looking forward to rain, some grey days, and the option to open the windows at night without being unable to sleep because of the heat.

I finished a novelette draft, and gotten some decent feedback that I want to mull over in the back of my head for a few days before I start trying to write them. I’m also trying to figure out what work I should bring to my Blue Pencil session at SIWC in October. Unfortunately, crunch time at work is starting in a week and is expected to last into October, so I’m going to be low on time for the next little while.

Catching up.

Okay. Time for a quick recap.

It’s been a week and a weekend since “Late Night at the Low Road Diner” got published, and I am still really pleased about it.

I should have another short piece coming out soon, set in the After the War universe–details soon! I’m very pleased to have been invited to write for the setting, and I hope you enjoy it when it comes out.

Crit group was yesterday. I am very lucky to have my crit group; they are a thoughtful, well-informed group who manage to articulate a lot about expectations and pacing and emotional weight and signalling, and even when it’s not my story getting critted it is honestly so good to be able to hear everyone else’s thoughts.

Consider that my writerly advice, rather than going on about adverbs. Find people who can give you good critique and treasure them. I find it’s too easy to be looking at your story and seeing what you meant to put in there rather than what’s actually on the page, otherwise. (Admittedly, I once wrote a story about a couple of fictional characters come to life and completely forgot to mention anywhere in the story that that was what they were. So I’m particularly prone to blind spots. Also I once wrote a story that I forgot to mention was about fictional characters coming to life, so you may want to take any advice I offer with a grain of salt.)

Also yesterday, I finished handwriting the edits to a 13,500 word story, and am now typing them up. I’m suspecting I will need to give it another editing pass, and it’s going to end up in the nearly completely unsellable length of 15-16K words, but it will be done.

I’ve also finished my travel arrangements for Scintillation and the Surrey International Writer’s Conference, so October is going to be a very full month, but at least one that’s well organized.

A stop on a late-night drive.

My story “Late Night at the Low Road Diner” is available now in issue 5 of Liminal Stories. It can be read online for free here (although if you’d like to support them, they’re on Patreon).

A small story on the care and feeding of strange things that may come into a diner at night.

I am really pleased with this one. My thanks to Shannon Peavey and Kelly Sandoval for the acceptance and the editing (much as I love “tatterdemalion”, I have to admit it just didn’t fit), and to N.G. Lancaster for the art.

I hope you like it.

CWW 2018 – final update

ETA: and today we learn that I messed up on post scheduling, for which I am very sorry.

2079 words this week, and a story revised. This brings my total for the Write-A-Thon to 8640 words, and three stories revised.

I am so very grateful to all of you for contributing, and patiently looking at my not-very-interesting updates. I think things are slowing down now a little, and I’ve got a few more things I want to talk about; for the moment, however, I’m going to do some final tidying on stories, and continue revisions, and work out what I can do for contributor’s thank-you’s for next year.

 

CWW 2018 week 5 update

Things have been frustratingly busy, but: 1991 words! This is really encouraging, especially given everything else that seems determined to happen this week. Thank each and every one of you so very much for contributing, or for reading this.

My work on story revision is going slowly, simply because there is just a lot to revise, but I think I should be on track to have it done at the end of next week.

(Again, if you’d like to sponsor before this years Write-A-Thon is over: my profile is here, and the webpage is pretty easy to navigate if you’d like to sponsor someone else. Other people have neat prizes!)

CWW update 2018 week 4

Afraid I’m pretty sick this week – vicious cold going around and it got me.

Still, 1232 words done this week. Nearly done one complete plotline for my current project!

Also, a shout-out to Asha Bardon and Shannon Fay, who helped me figure out something pretty critical about a story I’ve been struggling with. Wanted to write a more in-depth post about expectations and story formats, but this week has been mad busy. Will try and get to it later, but in the meantime, wanted to thank them before even more time slipped away.

CWW 2018 week 3 update

It’s been a very busy week, but a productive one. I wanted to take a minute to say thank you so much to people sponsoring–me or the other writers, honestly, it’s a really lovely feeling.

1077 words this week! It’s still morning, but I’m planning on outlining this evening if I get time, and I’m not going to count an outline towards my wordcount. If I do get any prose done, I’ll just roll it forward into next week.

I also completed my second story revision, so that’s two out of three done, which does give me a little breathing room. I’ve got three weeks to revise the last one, so I may try working on the novelette that I handwrote a draft of in May. (I increased the wordcount in the story by 192, but I figure I’ll just keep revision wordcount changes separate from everything else.)

In other news, the last week’s heat wave is finally breaking. I look forward to going outside and breathing without feeling like I’m trying to iron a soaking wet T-shirt.

(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.)

CWW 2018 week 2 update

1023 words this week! It’s not as much as I’d like, but I decided to not count any of my outlining towards this week’s total, so at least it’s not all I’ve done. Also, last week I revised a story, so that’s one of the three done.

I’m slightly worried that I’m coming down with a light summer cold, so my plan for the long weekend is to largely stay inside, avoid the rather intense stew of humidity and pollen that is descending on us, and make progress on a rewrite. Hopefully what I’m feeling is just a very prolonged allergy attack and a couple of days to recover will have it tapering off.

(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.)