Writing in August, Hurricane Harvey, and Patreon

Well, no new story acceptances to announce from August, unfortunately. I did, however, write two new stories in August. It's kind of funny, I'd had a discussion with my Author Friend Tori pretty recently about how my short stories are indeed very short. Sometimes under two thousand words, mostly under five thousand. Well, in an interesting departure, one of my August stories topped 8000 words in its first draft! I've trimmed some in rewrites, tightening sentences up, but it's interesting to look at the outliers in my collection of stories to submit.

And wouldn't you know, the second September happened, it got COLD and RAINY. Like, calm down nature, I really like it when fall is kind of long and warm.

But now I'm gonna shut my mouth about the weather because holy shit Hurricane Harvey. I'm from the beach, but have never had to endure the hardships and losses of a hurricane (they mostly blew out to sea when I was a kid, and I was living in New York by the time Sandy happened).

I hear tell the Red Cross actually isn't the best place to donate to in the case of disasters, and so here are some places to look into if you have some cash to give:

Here's a list of Texas food banks  Feeding Texas is another organization.

The Houston Humane Society website is here, and they also have a Hurricane Harvey fund that can be directly donated to.


The North Texas chapter of the Society for Children's Books Writers and Illustrators is having a silent auction.

The Texas Diaper Bank helps with supplies for children, but also seniors and people with disabilities. AARP also has a Harvey Relief fund (apparently they've already met their initial matched goal of $1.5 million!) and Portlight Strategies dedicates itself to aiding people with disabilities.


(I don't have a relationship with any of these organizations and don't have detailed info on them, I just poked around a few places to see what people were talking about)


And while we're on the topic of donations, Strange Horizons is having their annual fund drive! I've read them for years and years, and have been submitting stories to them for a long time, and they regularly publish stories and poems that I love to read.

A thing I've been considering is a Patreon. It's how a lot of creative folks are getting stories and poems and a wide variety of other things directly to fans; some people make a few dollars a month, some people make a few thousand dollars a month (*cough*AmandaPalmer*cough*). Occasionally when I've had an acceptance, and acquaintances have read the stories, they've then asked where else they could find my writing, so it could be useful in that regard. I could use it to release exclusive short stories which have not been picked up by other markets (I actually, in conversation with one of these acquaintances, was like "ohhh so this is why Patreon can be a big deal for some people" and they were like "yes, Jen. Yes.")

Additionally, I could use it for teaser content leading up to the release of the werewolf trilogy (which could then help defray the costs of self publishing), that kind of thing. So if you have any experience with Patreon and have thoughts on the matter, I'd absolutely love to hear them!

2016 NaNoWriMo winner!

As I reported on November 20, NaNoWriMo went quite well for me. I validated my winning word count at 57,333 words, which I am quite pleased with.

I had several days in which I wrote only a couple of hundred words, and many more days in which I reached the minimum word count goal (1667) and still others where I wrote more than 4,000 words! All in all, I call that a productive month. 

However, I did not reach "the end", which really was my goal this year, especially with how well my word counts were going some day. However, I have still been working on it, which is unusual for my past NaNoWriMo experiences. Not 4k a day working on it, but some, and that's a pretty sharp contrast to "I validated I'm done now!"

Additionally, I rewrote one of my short stories, committing to making it actually science fiction. Previously it was just a little odd, a little Shirley Jackson-esque (think "The Lottery"), taking place in an unspecified place and time, perhaps a little old fashioned, but a war torn esque country. Well, I replaced the setting with an unnamed planetary settlement, replaced bombs with meteor showers, and thought "well...actually that works." We'll see. I've of course already submitted said story in its newest state (after letting it sit until November was done).

So I consider November to be quite the success. Even if I didn't write "The end" on the novel just yet ,I'm still considering under the umbrella of "write a new story every month". I just need to write a story in December now (have a couple of ideas knocking around already, if you can imagine such a thing), and this year's writing goals will be fulfilled!

NaNoWriMo 2016: cyberpunk sequel madness (and assorted esoteria)

I know you're all very surprised, I'm doing NaNoWriMo this month. And can I say how goddamn delighted I am by the SPAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAACE theme that the flair has? I already bought a participant t-shirt, and I'm debating on when to order the winner shirt (I haven't won yet, but....)


I'm not writing a space novel this year (though I did last year!). No, this year I'm writing the sequel to the novel that I wrote in July for CampNaNoWriMo. I really liked those characters, actually, though I will confess that bits and pieces of their personalities and tics may or may not come from characters I've played, and may end up in some way familiar to people who were in those games with me. Other things, most things, are fresh. But, in July, the novel was a cyberpunk diamond heist carried out by three young independent women. This month, the novel is two of the three, and something to do with militias and hijacking army supplies and what they spent their money on from all those diamonds. Because the characters don't know yet, I don't have to know yet, isn't that great? I think that's great.

I really need a snappy title for my link posts

All right, another lazy link roundup (ooh, should I call it that? Lazy Link Roundup™? Has somebody already thought of that?)

I'm about 4k words behind on my CampNaNoWriMo project. Still doable, certainly. I haven't lowered my word count goal yet.

Found on Imgur, but also on this Buzzfeed post

Your Limits Will Set You Free

In writing classes, when an assignment was handed out, most of the other students sighed, and rolled their eyes, and sometimes even ignored it and did what they wanted anyway. I can't say that I never did what I wanted anyway, but for the most part, I was happy to have the assignment. Writing assignments can challenge you to step out of your comfortable crevice and do something new with your writing, and doing something new can be when you learn and grow.