writing – Page 2 – Sherry D. Ramsey

Self-Editing For Dummies

By Sherry July 23, 2012 July 23, 2012 editing, publishing, writer development, writing life

Oh, calm down, I’m not really calling you dummies. But after thinking about my post the other day regarding the dearth of attention paid to editing lately, I realized that some portion of the blame must come to rest on the author, as well. The better we are at self-editing, the lesser our dependence on outside editors to catch all those little things that are dragging our stories down. Which, of course, puts us in a better light–both when editors and publishers read our submissions, and when our work (eventually, hopefully) finds its way into the hands of our readers.

So–how do you become a better self-editor?

1. Practice. Repeat after me: the first draft is not a finished work. Yes, you may complete your first draft in a rush of adrenaline and endorphins and think it’s the best thing anyone has ever written, anywhere. It’s not. Never send out something until that first fine rush has ebbed and you start to doubt. Once the doubt is there, you can start looking for all the things that are wrong, and begin to fix them. And fix them, and fix them, and when you think they’re fixed, see #2, below.

2. Other Eyes. My friend Steph has a great post over here about the necessity and value of first readers. The more eyes you can get on your work–knowledgeable, practiced eyes–the more chances you have of finding those things that editors will (or should) only fix later anyway. So those problems won’t be there to trip up your readers later.

3. Tools. Don’t underestimate the value of your word processor’s built-in spell-check and grammar-check; at the very least, they should make you slow down and look at possible problematic areas of your work. But they’re only the very minimal basics. One tool I love is Cliché Cleaner. Run your work through this handy little program to find clichés, overused expressions, and internal repetitions. It’s amazing how much one tool like this can help you clean up your work. You may have your own favorite cleanup tools–just don’t forget to use them.

4. Distance. Remember that first rush we talked about, that comes with completion of your first draft? One way to avoid falling victim to its siren song and sending your story out too soon is to get some distance from the work. Let it sit until it’s no longer totally fresh in your mind–a week, a month, even longer if you have the luxury. There’s nothing like coming back to it with some heightened objectivity to clear away the tint of those rose-coloured glasses.

5. Humility. No matter how competent or skilled a writer you are, you will always benefit from remembering that you are not perfect and neither are your early drafts. Expecting that your work will need polishing allows you to see its flaws more easily. Accepting that others will spot problems that you haven’t seen will make you more open to using their suggestions wisely.

For more advice on good self-editing, I highly recommend Self-Editing for Fiction Writers by Renni Browne & Dave King. Got your own self-editing favorites? Share them in the comments!

Image courtesy of Kadellar (Own work) [CC-BY-SA-3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

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Where Have All The Editors Gone?

By Sherry July 19, 2012 July 18, 2012 editing, publishing, writer development, writing life

Okay, okay, I know that all the editors have not gone away. I know that there are many dedicated editors out there slaving away in the word mines to help writers wrangle their manuscripts into things of beauty. I do not want the entire Internet editorial community to descend upon me, angrily wielding their blue and red pens as weapons of vengeance.

But.

I detect a noticeable lack of editorial input in far too many of the books I read these days.

If you follow me on Goodreads or take note of my occasional reading update posts hereabouts, you’ll know that I am not a snob when it comes to reading. I read traditionally published books, I read self-published books, I read e-only books, I listen to audiobooks and self-produced audiobooks. If it sounds interesting to me, I don’t quibble about the format or the provenance, I’ll give it a try.

In fact, I will even cut some slack to the authors who are self-pubbing, to a certain extent. If the writing and plotting and characterization and ideas are strong overall, I can forgive a few little grammatical or syntactical missteps. I usually find it a bit sad when a story fails to reach its full potential due mainly to a lack of editing, but it won’t make me bail on the story.

But traditional publishers, I have to say: I hold you to a higher standard. I expect that you will have given your authors the benefit of proper editorial input. You are supposed to be the “gatekeepers”, after all; the setters-of-standards. This is not to say that I expect to love every traditionally published book–there’s no accounting for taste, and there are plenty of (IMHO) bad tradpub books. But regardless of how far they fall short of my expectations in story or plot, I expect them to be line edited.

And I am disappointed, with increasing frequency of late.

I expect words to be used properly. “Occupied” is not the same thing as “preoccupied”.

I expect you to weed out repetitions. When the word “faience” comes up five times in three pages, it’s kind of noticeable.

I expect that characters’ names will remain the same throughout the story.

(Sadly) I could go on. But I won’t. Maybe I’m just in an editorial frame of mind lately, having recently finished an intense bout of line editing for Unearthed. And I won’t say I caught everything there, either. But if traditional publishers want to continue to publish good authors–if they want to be thought of as some kind of legitimizing force in publishing, I think they owe their authors something. And their readers, too.

I think they need to spill a little more corrective ink on those manuscripts. Or soon there’ll be nothing at all setting them apart. And then where will they be?

Image courtesty of jppi.

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Title Fight

By Sherry July 11, 2012 July 11, 2012 current projects, just for fun, personal, writer development, writing life

This is not one of mine.

In a recent interview I (and a number of other authors) did over on the Third Person Press News Blog, one of the questions was about story titles–specifically the title of the story each of us had in the new anthology, Unearthed, and more generally, when and how we get our titles.

The title of my story in Unearthed is pretty simple: “The Cache.” It’s a story about what happens to two characters who go geocaching and find more than they bargained for, so the title seemed a no-brainer. However, it’s probably one of the least interesting ways to get a title that I’ve used, so I thought I’d elaborate a little here.

My two favourite ways to get titles are: 1) have the title come to me before I even know there’s a story to go with it, and 2) find a pre-existing line of verse and take the title from it (either directly or slightly twisted). The first way is a product of serendipity, so it can’t really be planned. It can be coaxed, to some extent–by thinking maybe in very general terms about a theme or setting and just letting the words dance and mix and float around until they coalesce into something. But most of the time it just…happens.

The second way, I go about very methodically. I surf over to Bartleby.net (although I’m sure there are other searchable verse or literary databases out there) and start running searches on keywords that have something to do with the story or story idea. I jot down everything that speaks to me, and then usually at some point I know I’ve got the one I need. Some of the titles I like the best have come out of this process: One’s Aspect to The Sun, Spaces Sharp and Bare, and To Where the Aether Failed. (I see, looking over my list of stories and novels, that this method seems to work best for novels. Huh. I never noticed that before.)

Other titles have come from the subject line in a spam email (Operant Moon), online generators (The Murder Prophet), and song titles (The Light of the Silvery Moon). And then the rest…I guess mostly from a word or phrase that comes out of the story or story idea itself. Sometimes I don’t even know how the title ties in to the story for sure until I’ve written more of it.

I rarely change a title. Maybe it’s a holdover from the old superstition that it’s bad luck to change the name of a horse or a boat, but once a story has a title, that’s usually it for me. In truth, I can think of only one that I changed on the suggestion of an editor. So thus far I guess I’ve been lucky.

Writers, what’s your favourite way to get a title? Readers, do titles ever turn you off before you even read the back cover blurb?

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Reduce, Reuse, Recycle (your words)

By Sherry July 9, 2012 July 9, 2012 current projects, ebooks, publishing, writing life

Something old can turn into something new, with a little work…

I’m pretty big on “living green” wherever possible, and lately I’ve been thinking about how it’s possible for writers to get more mileage out of their writing projects by recycling, too. That’s because I have a project underway that’s taking something old and making it into something new.

Writers have always had the option of reprints–re-selling something that’s already been published, to a new market–but we don’t always think of doing so. In part, perhaps, because many markets specifically say “no reprints,” we are more likely to be thinking about the next new thing than something we might have published a few years ago. That kind of thinking can make us miss out on opportunities, though.

Another kind of recycling involves taking short stories and building on them for larger projects. This works in reverse, too–sometimes a section of a novel can stand alone as a short story or novella, or provide the seed for a tangential story. Everything does not have to be brand spanking new and shiny all the time.

My current project–and this is the first time I’ve mentioned it to anyone, anywhere–involves taking an old ebook project and revamping it with a new twist. Much of the already-written text is completely reusable, but the new product will (if all goes according to plan) be fresh and new for a new audience. I’m getting kind of excited about it, since I’ve actually had time to work on it lately.

What about you? Do you have something “old” in your writing folder that you can reuse or recycle? Maybe there’s buried treasure on your hard drive, so take a look!

Image courtesy of kathaer at morguefile.com

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Tales of Tales ~ Part 6: On The Road With Fiamong’s Rule

By Sherry December 14, 2011 December 14, 2011 current projects, ebooks, personal, publishing, reading, To Unimagined Shores, writer development, writing life

Writing some stories is an uphill slog from start to finish, while others are so much fun to write that they practically seem to write themselves. “On The Road With Fiamong’s Rule” was one of those pure-fun stories for me.

Yet another of my stories that was idea-sparked by an anthology call, this one was originally written for an anthology looking for road trip stories–with, of course, an element of the speculative thrown in. The idea of a human-alien partnership in that road trip materialized quite quickly, as I recall, and as I said, the story seemed to write itself. This was one that I actually finished before the anthology’s deadline date, submitted and had accepted. Alas, something went wrong with the project, the anthology itself never made it to print, and I had to send the story out looking for another home. Such are the vagaries of the writing life.

The good news is that it did find another home, in the premiere issue of the Canadian Neo-Opsis magazine. If you look carefully, you can actually see my name on the cover. That was a first for me. Cool!

This story doesn’t follow a strict chronological timeline–there’s a fair bit of jumping back and forth between the “present” of the story and flashbacks to the past and the events leading up to the story’s “present.” I think I was experimenting a bit when I wrote this one, and I’d probably just been reading something that recommended starting a story “in medias res”–in the middle of the action. To illustrate what I mean by that, here’s the opening:

The worst moment of the whole trip came just before three a.m. on Friday. I stood in the driving rain, mud seeping insidiously into my shoes. The alien’s outline looked enormous in the dark, and the tire iron in his hand even more so, silhouetted against the probing glare of the police car’s headlights. When the cruiser had driven past a moment ago I thought we might be in the clear, but no, it had turned and was coming back.

My credit card was still being held hostage by the jerk at the service station and I had lost the rest of my ID in the motel fire. We had to make it to Ottawa by noon the next day or the entire mission could fail. I had about thirty seconds to think of something to tell the police, and if I didn’t get rid of them quickly, the alien would give himself away and we’d both be in the soup.

What was I, a previously normal at-home-mom of two, doing here? Tim was going to be furious when he found out.

Definitely the worst moment of the whole experience. Well, except for what happened later.

“In medias res,” indeed. I think I might have been testing to see just how far into the action one could really start a story. :)

If you missed the earlier blog post, I’m currently running a contest to win a copy of To Unimagined Shores. Click the link to get all the details, and take a moment to enter. Or if you can’t wait, you can buy a print or ebook copy (in multiple formats) from thirdpersonpress.com, amazon.com, Barnes & Noble, or Smashwords.

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Tales of Tales ~ Part 2

By Sherry December 8, 2011 December 8, 2011 current projects, just for fun, personal & miscellaneous, publishing, reading, Third Person Press, To Unimagined Shores, writer development, writing life

Today I’ve picked another story out of the table of contents for To Unimagined Shores to talk about a little.

“Little Things” is my first-ever published story. It appeared in Marion Zimmer Bradley’s FANTASY magazine in 1997. It’s also the first story I wrote about what turned out to be a series character, a young mage’s apprentice named Albettra. The funny thing about this sale is that I vividly remember getting a postcard in the mail simply telling me that this story was “on hold” at MZBFM. At that time I wasn’t even sure what that meant, but I knew it wasn’t a rejection, so I was ecstatic! I don’t actually remember getting the acceptance letter. The brain is a funny thing.

This was also the first story I’d submitted anywhere. Its sale made me think that this whole getting-published thing was not going to be so difficult after all. Ah, the golden optimism of the beginning writer!

“That ill-begotten son of a cantankerous sow has gone too far this time!” he bellowed, stalking the room with beard aquiver. “The man is a mountebank! A copper coin would be too much to pay for one of his spells! A lying charlatan, that’s what he is, and he dares to spread rumors about me!”

“Zipnax?” I hazarded the name in a small voice.

“Of course, Zipnax! Bah! The name makes my tongue shrivel to say it!” Nissio was flailing his arms wildly now, his robe fluttering madly and his beard flying in every direction.

I was cautiously working my way around to the other side of my worktable. I had never seen the old fellow so angry and I knew I’d feel a lot safer with something solid between us. When his erratic pacing took him near a wall he’d take an angry swing at it with a wizened fist. There couldn’t be much physical strength left in the man, but it didn’t take much to set the walls of the rattletrap cottage swaying. Dust was floating lazily down from the ceiling again and I stifled a sneeze.

“To accuse me of stealing!” the old mage was ranting now. “Imagine me, stealing one of his pitiful ideas!”

Bam! His fist hit a wall.*

The origins of Albettra herself and the idea for this story escape me now, they’re so far back in the mists of time. I do like Albettra, though, and I like the way she keeps turning up in my brain with a story idea in tow. She’s sometimes unsure of herself but feisty when she needs to be, and determined to win out in the end. I suppose, if I get all psychological about it, she’s a bit of a reflection of myself as a writer.

There are four Albettra stories in To Unimagined Shores. I’d like to know what you think of her as a character, if you happen to read them. You can do that in the comments section of this blog, on my Author Central page at amazon.com, or over at Goodreads.

*My more astute writerly colleagues will notice a fair bit of passive voice in this excerpt…probably in the whole story. It’s interesting to note that at the time this story was written/published, it was not considered such a stylistic anathema. It’s an example of the ongoing evolution of writing style that I find fascinating. Anyway, it didn’t feel right to me to re-edit previously published stories for this collection, so I left things like this alone.

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Tales of Tales ~ Part 1

By Sherry December 7, 2011 December 7, 2011 current projects, ebooks, just for fun, publishing, reading, Third Person Press, To Unimagined Shores, writer development, writing life

To celebrate the release of my short story collection, To Unimagined Shores, I thought I’d do a series of blog posts about some of the stories in the collection. Where the inspiration for the story came from, or maybe something interesting that happened while I was writing it, or where it was published.

I’m starting with a little story called “The Big Freeze,” since it was one of the stories I read at last night’s launch. It’s also one of my favorites (although as writers, are we supposed to say things like that? I don’t know…but I guess I also don’t care!).

As I look through the table of contents for To Unimagined Shores, I realize that many of the stories I write have a common idea spark: a call for submissions for a themed anthology. I begin pondering ideas to fit the theme, and usually after much mental cogitation come up with a story idea. Now, I don’t always finish writing the story by the anthology deadline, so in many cases I end up sending the story elsewhere. But that’s all right, because the idea spark has served its purpose.

“The Big Freeze” is one of those stories. It was published in Australia’s Semaphore Magazine last year, but I initially wrote it years ago, in response to an anthology call. The idea of the anthology was that all of the stories should be based around a saying about “Hell”–going to Hell in a handbasket, the road to Hell is paved with good intentions, etc. I started thinking about “when Hell freezes over”–what might cause such a thing to happen? How would the denizens of Hell react? And what would be the repercussions on Earth?

Here’s a little snippet from “The Big Freeze”:

“Is it getting…chilly in here?”

Beelzebub, the Devil, the Prince of Hell, (or Lord B., as he preferred his most intimate minions to call him) shifted uneasily on the polished red marble of his throne and stroked the tips of his horns. There was no doubt about it. They felt decidedly and unnaturally cool.

He’d been thinking it for some time, but now that he’d finally spoken the words, they hung hesitantly in the sulphurous air like lost souls unsure if they were in the right place. Imps ranged at humming computer terminals around the perennially smouldering room looked up, then glanced at each other. One rubbed his scaly hands together.

“You know,” he chittered slowly, “now that you mention it, my mouse hand’s gone a little cold.”

Another imp nodded. “And my tail. I thought I was getting a chill in my tail, and now I’m sure of it.”

“Right.” Lord B. straightened on his throne and bellowed, “Mr. Snizzle! Get in here!”

A slight, harried-looking demon entered the room at a trot. A pair of tortoiseshell spectacles perched on his nose, and he wore an unexpectedly conservative waistcoat tailored in tasteful ebony silk. “Yes, Lord B.?”

“Mr. Snizzle, run a diagnostic on the temperature controls. This room is falling below acceptable heat standards. Even the imps have noticed it.”

Mr. Snizzle, Lord B.’s administrative assistant, was well-versed in interpreting the subtleties of his employer’s speech. After several centuries in his current position without a vacation, that was hardly surprising. The relative politeness of the Devil’s request worried him. He nodded briskly and hurried back to his own computer to run the heat diagnostics…

As you might guess, “The Big Freeze” is meant to be a fun story—and it got some laughs at last night’s reading. I also read it for an audience in Second Life a while back.

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Peacemaking at the Barricades ~ 2011 style

By Sherry October 11, 2011 October 11, 2011 personal & miscellaneous, publishing, reading, writer development, writing life

Years ago (October 1999 to be exact), I read Bruce Holland Rogers‘ wonderful essay, “Peacemaking at the Barricades” in an issue of the long-gone-and-lamented Speculations. It was one of the first issues of Speculations I received–possibly the very first–and I shudder to think that I might have come *that* close to missing this piece. It made a very big impression on me and caused me to deliberately change the way I looked at other writers–particularly those who wrote things that, frankly, I didn’t appreciate, understand, or even simply “get.”

The essay begins:

You can’t stroll very far in the City of Literature without coming to an intersection where writers stand at opposing barricades. From behind toppled desks and stacks of books, the two sides hurl erasers and slogans at one another…

The opposing sides Rogers talks about in the original essay spring from debates over such issues as Popular fiction versus Literary fiction, Authenticity versus Money, Process versus Product, and Writing to Inspire versus Writing to Entertain; in short, how we as writers choose what to write and how we define personal success. However, fast-forward to 2011, and I think we have to add another set of barricades: traditional publishing versus self-publishing.

Which is interesting in itself because that is a debate that has been had before, and has been ongoing ever since I first set foot in the City of Literature. But it has been more of a back-alley squabble, a simmering pot on the stove. The last year or so of sea-change in the publishing world has brought the pot to a full rolling boil, and the squabblers front and center at the main intersection barricades. The old debate is new again, dressed in new clothing mainly due to the advent of ebooks.

There’s a lot of…let’s be kind and call it “discussion”…these days about the future of publishing, the future of writing, and the choices and decisions writers should be making. Everyone seems to have an opinion on these matters, and it’s very, very easy of course, in our Internet-centric world, for writers to…let’s be kind again and say “share their opinions.”

Okay, that should be a good thing, right? Because sharing knowledge, experience, and advice with other and newer writers is something that the writing community as a whole is very generous with. Unlike some other professions, where insight and understanding are hoarded like precious secrets from “the competition,” writers in general like to help other writers succeed. And because we’re used to doing that, we want to share our knowledge, experience, and advice on the whole future-of-publishing issue.

However, I think it’s time to take a step back and make sure that what we are doing really is sharing knowledge, experience, and advice, and not trying to re-define other writers’ definitions of personal success. Because when we do that, that’s when the barricades go up and the spitballs come out and suddenly we’re choosing sides and throwing erasers again.

So how do we do that: offer opinions and advice without causing the barricades to go up? In his essay, Rogers offers three bits of advice, which I’ll paraphrase (I would love to be able to point you to the whole essay, but I haven’t been able to find it anywhere online).

First, respect the feelings of other writers and don’t make “sweeping, self-justifying pronouncements about what success is.” You can offer your advice and expertise without disparaging those who hold differing opinions.
Second, when you want to lash out in the debate, stop and think about why you care so much. As Rogers says, “you wouldn’t rise to the bait if the bait didn’t appeal to you.” Make sure you understand why you want to argue your points so strongly.
Third, think about what the other side might actually be able to teach you. Don’t just knee-jerk into defense when they hit a sore spot. Think of it like getting a story critique. Sometimes it’s hard to hear, but maybe there is something you can learn from it.

In this current Great Debate, you may think the “other side” (whichever it is for you) is desperate, ignorant, foolish, selling out, just plain wrong, or fill-in-your-favorite-epithet-here. Whatever you think, of course you should feel free to share your knowledge, experience, and advice. But there’s no need to indulge in any of these epithets to do that, and when we do, we undermine the very advice we are trying to proffer. The more…let’s say strident…we get in making our case, the less likely it becomes that anyone is going to put credence in what we say, let alone be swayed by it.

We are all making our own way through the City of Literature as best we can, and we can’t really choose anyone else’s path for them. We can show them signposts and point out obstacles that we’ve encountered, but each writer is following his or her own map–and we have to let them do that.

Rogers sums it up better than I can:

The longer we stand at the barricades, flinging erasers and recounting the myths of how doomed and deluded the other side is, the harder it becomes to cross the street and find out what those other successful writers know that we don’t.

And that’s a shame

Photo credit: ricohman
Thanks to @ChuckWendig over at terribleminds.com for making me think about things in this context.

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How Writing is Like Packing School Lunches

By Sherry October 3, 2011 October 3, 2011 personal & miscellaneous, writer development, writing life

Writing, and packing school lunches. I realize the connection might not be immediately obvious. It wasn’t to me, either, until this morning, when I was going about the weekday business of–you guessed it–packing school lunches.

And I suddenly realized that this job (although I don’t consider it one of my more enjoyable tasks) is no longer the huge, pain-in-the-butt undertaking that I once considered it. It takes less time now, and the results are better.

To put it in context, it’s only the past few years that I’ve been packing lunches for both my kids every morning. For the first years of school they came home to lunch every day, but as schools and lunch hours changed, we eventually got around to the point where it made more sense for them both to take lunch with them. And I had to learn the necessary skills for making that happen.

I didn’t take to it very well at first. If you’ve ever packed school lunches, you might understand some of the variables that must be considered. Such as, what can I expect this child to eat (likes and dislikes)? The answers generate a list of possibilities, long or sadly short if your child is a so-called “picky” eater. Scratch off this list any foods verboten at School X, such as peanut butter, eggs, etc. The list is shorter. Scratch off foods that don’t meet microwaving criteria like times or days at School X. Shorter again. Eventually you will probably scratch off foods that the child has grown tired of. With the current brevity of the list, everything might fall into that category at some point. And if you have more than one child, it’s quite unlikely that their final lists are going to contain anything in common. Sigh, and hie yourself off to the grocery store.

So I remember a blur of many, many mornings of repeatedly opening and closing the refrigerator and cupboards, hoping to notice something that I’d missed when I looked ten seconds ago, trying to cobble together lunches while supervising wake-up calls, wardrobe calamities, homework emergencies, and any number of other morning trials.

The epiphany I had this morning was simple: it’s not like that anymore (most mornings, anyway). I’ve somehow become better at packing lunches. And I realize that this is not due as much to broadening palettes or relaxed school restrictions as it is to the plain fact of practice. I’m better at many of the elements of lunch-packing. I prepare better, making sure I have enough lunch supplies on hand at the beginning of the week. I monitor likes and dislikes better. I’m more organized in simply gathering everything up and doling it out. I’ve grown better at dealing with or pre-emptively avoiding morning emergencies.

And finally, here’s where I tie this whole strange musing into writing. Writing, too, is all about the practice, and getting better at all the myriad, interrelated skills one needs to become a better writer. Better planning, whether it’s outlining or cogitating or whatever method you use to work out the story idea rattling around in your head. Better time management, both in making time to write and juggling planning, research, and actual writing. Better execution, because the mere act of writing more words over and over improves the end result. Better troubleshooting, in noticing plot or character problems early and dealing with them before they run your whole story off the rails. And finally, better editing and revising, yielding a more polished, professional final draft.

So just as there’s more to packing school lunches than just sticking things in a lunch bag, there’s more to writing than just putting words on paper. Both tasks require several interrelated skills, and becoming proficient in all of them leads to both an easier process and a better end result. Like just about everything else, practice makes…if not perfect, than an enormous improvement.

And now I’m off to make myself a sandwich, feeling thankful that in my job, I don’t have to pack it…

Photo credit: anissat

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15k Short Fiction Writing Challenge

By Sherry June 17, 2011 June 18, 2011 current projects, writer development, writing life, writing log

Back in January, I threw out a challenge to my Quillian colleagues: write 15k words of new short fiction by the end of June. It could break down any way at all–one 15k story, three 5k stories, fifteen 1k flash stories–any combination was acceptable. The only stipulation was that they had to be new words (revising old stories would not count) and it had to be short fiction (not work on novel-length projects).

I came up with this challenge for a couple of reasons. Although we hear a lot about the “death” of short fiction, I think there’s a lot of life in the form yet. Newer writers can finish short stories much more easily and quickly than long projects, which in turn provides something to edit, workshop, and get feedback on. Short stories provide a great introduction to one’s writing and can be offered freely on websites or sold as .99 ebooks as promotional material.

Still, a lot of writers feel they aren’t doing “real” work unless they’re writing novels. Perhaps this is in part that some writers don’t particularly care to read short stories, either. For myself, I really enjoy short fiction, so maybe I’m just partial to it.

At any rate, I threw out the challenge. I think the first to reach the mark was fellow Quillian Chuck Heintzelman who, unknown to me, had already set himself a short fiction writing goal for the year: 50 new short stories. Whoa. I was blown away by the audacity of that goal, secretly struggling as I was with the question of how many new short stories I should challenge myself to write in the year–3, or 5? I felt suitably dismayed, and secretly promised myself to write 5, although that is strictly off the record, you hear? So far I’ve finished one and have three others in various stages of completion. But I still have six months!

Ahem. So anyway, Chuck hit the 15k in short order (and is still writing, of course; you can find a lot of his stories on his website. And you should!) I’ve been trundling along, and yesterday, I hit the goal! Which is good, because, you know, it would have been pretty sad if I’d been the one to throw out the challenge and then proceeded to fail.

I’ll be polling other members of the group at the next couple of meetings to see how they’re doing, and encourage them along to the finish line. At the end of June, I’ll post links for the other challenge-meeters here.

Photo: me. It’s the magnetic poetry on the side of my fridge. And I think the ‘beautiful spine’ poem is by my daughter.