Spring Cleaning
I've been a pretty busy little writer the past little while. I've come up with a few good pieces in the past little bit, and with some editing, I should have a piece sent out to a small press in the maritimes by the end of the month. New Found Spec Fic is looking for pieces for their second issue (with more to come I'm sure). Payout is at $0.01/word with a max of $45 plus one contributer copy. The piece I'm hoping to send out, "Raccoons", currently runs about 1100 words. It won't be much for income, but it will be a piece properly paid and published if I get accepted.
I've also begun work on two other short pieces. "Rifters" is a space-based economic adventure piece. It's coming along a little slower than I would have liked, but I should be able to call the first draft finished in a month or so. I figure I'll probably submit it to NFSF or another Canadian-based Spec Fic magazine in September.
The other piece, "Elder", is a horror piece that I'm getting a little excited about. I won't say too much about it other than it involves a crazy old guy and a spurt of blood. Hooked? Didn't think so. That little bit sounds so general that no one can pull my idea from it. Afraid I don't want the word leaking and someone stealing this bit from me. I don't really have a market for horror at the moment given than most places aren't accepting submissions at the moment.
Of course my big focus for the summer has nothing to do with these short stories. I have to crank out and fix up my necromancer piece. I began weaving the chunks together this past week and cranked out a half decent, but unfortunately melodramatic opening. I want a dramatic opening, not a melodramatic one. So I'll end up having to cut and shuffle about that portion and maybe have it come up as a segment of very vivid backstory after the main story problem arises.
The Sudbury Hypergraphic Society is still having meetings and trying to get things going in the Sudbury area. The radio show idea was supposed to be put into action this month, but so far no one seems to be putting a foot down and saying "Clay, book us a recording time." That means our short-shorts will not be heard on air as soon as we had wanted.
The Sawyer visit in May went off very well however. There were fourteen people present at the Buddha after Sawyer's reading at Chapters. He seemed very pleased to have the chance to talk about the craft with people that were looking to get into the field. Apparently we're only the second group to invite him to a small session like this. There were tons of questions asked and answered, plenty of experiences shared, and lots of learning accomplished.
For the first weekend of July, the SHS has a booth setup at the Northern Lights Festival. This is only a short distance away and we've done very little to prepare for it. I'm busy getting our new web page in order so it can be launched prior to the festival. We're also trying to find ways to pair some of our writing challenge pieces with art so we can have a sort of presentation of the types of things we do at our meetings to help hone our skills. On top of all that, I'm going to need to come up with some pamphlets for National Novel Writing Month so that I can try to promote the event during the festival. Someone else is going to have to come up with some sort of pamphlet to promote the SHS and the book sale at the end of the summer.
Speaking of the August book sale, it seems we've found our charity. The hope is that this will be an annual event, with word hopefully arising from this years event. We will be donating the fund to a particular school in the area for the purpose of helping them buy books for students to read. School libraries are nearly nonexistant and it's hard to convince kids to read when the options before them are their parent's age. So we'll be donating the funds to one school this year, a different school next year, and so forth. The book sale will be taking place downtown at The Market Square on August 22nd, 2009. Anyone in the Sudbury Area interested in donating books for resale is asked to drop them off with Danielle at Mimi & Lulu's or to contact me and make arrangements for drop off.
That's enough of an update for now. I need to BBQ some burgers and get back to writing.
I've also begun work on two other short pieces. "Rifters" is a space-based economic adventure piece. It's coming along a little slower than I would have liked, but I should be able to call the first draft finished in a month or so. I figure I'll probably submit it to NFSF or another Canadian-based Spec Fic magazine in September.
The other piece, "Elder", is a horror piece that I'm getting a little excited about. I won't say too much about it other than it involves a crazy old guy and a spurt of blood. Hooked? Didn't think so. That little bit sounds so general that no one can pull my idea from it. Afraid I don't want the word leaking and someone stealing this bit from me. I don't really have a market for horror at the moment given than most places aren't accepting submissions at the moment.
Of course my big focus for the summer has nothing to do with these short stories. I have to crank out and fix up my necromancer piece. I began weaving the chunks together this past week and cranked out a half decent, but unfortunately melodramatic opening. I want a dramatic opening, not a melodramatic one. So I'll end up having to cut and shuffle about that portion and maybe have it come up as a segment of very vivid backstory after the main story problem arises.
The Sudbury Hypergraphic Society is still having meetings and trying to get things going in the Sudbury area. The radio show idea was supposed to be put into action this month, but so far no one seems to be putting a foot down and saying "Clay, book us a recording time." That means our short-shorts will not be heard on air as soon as we had wanted.
The Sawyer visit in May went off very well however. There were fourteen people present at the Buddha after Sawyer's reading at Chapters. He seemed very pleased to have the chance to talk about the craft with people that were looking to get into the field. Apparently we're only the second group to invite him to a small session like this. There were tons of questions asked and answered, plenty of experiences shared, and lots of learning accomplished.
For the first weekend of July, the SHS has a booth setup at the Northern Lights Festival. This is only a short distance away and we've done very little to prepare for it. I'm busy getting our new web page in order so it can be launched prior to the festival. We're also trying to find ways to pair some of our writing challenge pieces with art so we can have a sort of presentation of the types of things we do at our meetings to help hone our skills. On top of all that, I'm going to need to come up with some pamphlets for National Novel Writing Month so that I can try to promote the event during the festival. Someone else is going to have to come up with some sort of pamphlet to promote the SHS and the book sale at the end of the summer.
Speaking of the August book sale, it seems we've found our charity. The hope is that this will be an annual event, with word hopefully arising from this years event. We will be donating the fund to a particular school in the area for the purpose of helping them buy books for students to read. School libraries are nearly nonexistant and it's hard to convince kids to read when the options before them are their parent's age. So we'll be donating the funds to one school this year, a different school next year, and so forth. The book sale will be taking place downtown at The Market Square on August 22nd, 2009. Anyone in the Sudbury Area interested in donating books for resale is asked to drop them off with Danielle at Mimi & Lulu's or to contact me and make arrangements for drop off.
That's enough of an update for now. I need to BBQ some burgers and get back to writing.
Labels: necromancer, Northern Lights Festival, publishing, Raccoons, radioshow, Rifters, Robert Sawyer, sudbury hypergraphic society, summer book sale, writing
posted by Shawn Gray at
2:54 PM
0 Comments
