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 finished October Madness early. No, I don't care that early is "cheating".

I don't know what it was this year, all those stories on submission made me super frenetic about how I had all those stories on submission. So I loaded up the submission queue super quick and then crouched over my email like



via GIPHY

But, I soldiered on and got it done!

31 submissions for the 31 days of October! Of those 31 submissions, I have received 11 rejections. I'm not going to give you the form/personal breakdown, but I will tell you....one of those rejections was a one hour rejection,which was a first. I mean, don't get me wrong, the agony of Schrodinger's Submission is real, but one hour? Ouch.



via GIPHY

I also know that submissions are very subjective. There could be a specific issue an editor is building, and an editor's taste and vision is always a factor as well. It isn't necessarily a value judgement. Etc. Etc. It's hard to keep that emotional balance on a day when you get 4 or 5 rejections, though.

But, the fact that I still have 20 submissions from just October is staggering. And 5 more from prior to that, with a grand total of 25 submissions, 24 of them unique submissions (I simultaneously submitted that one story which had its submission birthday. What've I got to lose, right?) That's an awful lot of short stories I think are ready enough to be out there, just waiting for the right editor and market to say yes, and that's something I'm pretty proud of.

October Madness 2016!

Well, we're just past the halfway point on the month  (how did that happen?) and it's a good a time as any to give you a submissions update. I know you're eager to hear all about it!

This year, I got impatient and jumped the gun a bit on some submissions, so to date, since October 1, I've submitted 22 times (as opposed to the more correct 17, but whatever, this is my game, I'll play how I want ^^). I've gotten....almost alarmingly few rejections so far, actually.  4 so far, out of those 22 submissions.

I had a story pass it's submission birthday (365 days and counting!), so I went ahead and simultaneously submitted it elsewhere. 

Some of those stories are ones that I wrote just this year, as a part of my New Year's resolution to produce at least one short story a month. Some of the are stories I've written over the years, that I've edited and rewritten and, I think, made better. This is the obvious of objective, of course; I think my stories are pretty great, or I wouldn't bother.

My rejections so far are from Uncanny, Gamut, Fantasy & SciFi, and The Dark. I've turned around and sent each of those stories someplace else, of course, because that's the way it goes. And it helps me not dwell. At least one of those stories is kind of running out of places to go, but that's when I got both The Lion and the Dragonslayer and Sugar and Spice published, so there's that.

I've started a number of stories this month, and at least one of them is this close to being finished. I've also, I think, decided on my 2016 NaNoWriMo project, which will be a sequel to the cyberpunk novel I wrote in July.

September 2016 Goals Roundup

Well. September seemed like a reallllly long month to me. You?

Lots of writing in September. A lot of it was Shadowrun writing (not the same character as in "A Shadowrun Story" which, improbably, has become one of the most popular posts on this blog, but a character with similar elements. She's also a decker, for one. It goes from there), and some of it was workshop writing, as my writing workshop has begun again. Workshop writing is not always complete, though I do have one flash piece to show for it, and what we did today (which is October 1, and will not count for my September goals, mais oui).

October Madness update, 10/10

Well, I'm slowly starting to run out of stories. I think I only have 6 left which are "done" and/or "ready". Have to spit-shine the others, which at one time I thought were ready. Funny how opinions change.

Let's see, on October 8, I sent a story to Apex. October 8 is also the day I received my first rejection of the month, from Fantastic Stories of the Imagination. That story will go out again before the end of the month.

On October 9, I sent a story to Urban Fantasy Magazine, and then jumped the gun (went to bed before midnight) to send a story to Buzzy Mag.

We've got people visiting this weekend, so I've already sent Saturday's sub to Shock Totem.

Honorable Mention

Almost every time Janet Reid has a 100 word flash contest on her blog, I enter. Most of the time I get nary a mention, which is fine. There's tough competition over there, and a lot of talented, thoughtful writers. But twice (!) now, I've gotten into "special recognition" categories. The first time was for "not quite a story but man oh man", and now in this most recent nod, the category was "Special recognition for entries that weren't quite stories, but if they were the start of novels, I'd want to read on". It's hard to write a beginning-middle-end in 100 words.

But, for your perusal, here is my entry in the "We Are Not Good People" giveaway flash contest (it's by Jeff Somers, and is the sequel to Trickster. I haven't read it yet, but I loved Trickster. So you should check 'em out.) The words to include were "cat, blood, spirits, magic, pants"

I was careful to set things up just so: salt circle, folded-pants with their customary dusting of cat hair, with an old fashioned dial phone resting on top. Music was always optional; the spirits didn't guide me one way or another, so I slipped a record on the turntable.

The witching hour. I pricked my finger and flicked my blood into the flame of a balsam candle. The record cut out and I waited in the silence. The magic's tidal pull rolled around me, and finally, the phone rang. I reached across the circle to pick it up.

"Hi Dad."  

Who knows, maybe there's a novel in that and maybe I'll send it to Janet Reid when it's finished. That's personalizing a query for ya! 


(for October Madness, I send a story to Shimmer yesterday, and to Apex regular submissions today.)