Mosaics 2 now available!

I announced my acceptance into Mosaics 2: a Collection of Independent Women back in February, and the time has finally come. It's here, it's here!

The Kindle date still appears to be May 1, but if you want to order the paperback, you could have it by Wednesday! Isn't it lovely, sometimes, to be living in The World of Tomorrow?

My included story is "The Lion and the Dragonslayer": when the village of Orford asked for help with a dragon, they didn't expect the king to send a woman, no matter how big her sword is.

(I was particularly pleased with my little story blurb there; I typically struggle quite a lot with producing an interesting summary of literally anything, much less what I've written.)

In conjunction with this publication, I've created a Goodreads author profile . I hope to see titles of other anthologies, and my own books, attached to it pretty soon!

Obviously, I encourage you to get the Kindle or paperback of Mosaics 2 (or get it from your local library! And request that your library orders it; mine is, as volume 1, anyway, was available through the book distributor Ingram) and I also encourage (entreat?) you to review it on Goodreads and/or Amazon. Every time you review a book, an author gets its wings. Or something.

March 2016 goals roundup

As of this writing, I'm up to 6 completed first drafts in 2016. I finished two more stories in March (one on the very last day of March), and have submitted one of  my January stories. There's at least one other I think may be close to ready for its first foray into the world. Or I should let it sit longer, read it again, work on it a little more. I think I'm in the habit of jumping the gun.

I've received a query rejection and two short story rejections last month. I have a number of short stories out (11? I think it's 11) and the wait is starting to really grind on me. It does that; I agree with Tom Petty, waiting is the hardest part. Same with queries. I haven't sent out any new ones in awhile, and I'll  probably work on revision pretty soon. Not now, though.

I've completed all my edits (I think) for the Mosaics 2 anthology. I've written my author bio and my story blurb, and even got an author photo I don't hate with my lovely coworker's help. 

I've begun my "Untitled April 2016" #CampNaNoWriMo project. It's something to do with the Westward Expansion in America, sequoia trees, mysticism, and dragons. I'm aiming for novella-ish length, 25k words, and from there I can either pare down to acceptable lengths for magazines, or expand into a more substantial novel length. I've actually  made a gesture at outlining, which really was more of a list of "this happens. Why?" "this character. What do they want?" Which is a kind of goal-oriented focus I don't always have when writing a story.

I will probably also be working on at least one short story this month, because it seems like I always need at least one alternate project to give my "main" project breathing room. The writing workshop at the library tends to give me a lot of story stubs which can be polished and expanded, and it will likely be one of those that I complete. Or maybe not. I've got some ideas floating, some with a few sentences written. Overall, I feel like my writing is in a pretty good place. I'm glad I've set this "at least one story a month" goal.