18 posts tagged “anthologies”

Okay, I've got time and motivation. Here's a real blog entry.

I've been absolutely swamped with stuff recently. This, needless to say, is good, but it is also tiring and less-than-ideal when it comes to blogging. This is why I've been neglecting my Vox.

I've had to read a lot of books for uni. Time-consuming. It also leaves me almost fed-up with reading--which is why it took me such a ridiculously long time to review Dead Men and Women Walking for Flames Rising.

I haven't heard anything back from Pseudopod, but I wasn't expecting to. It's only been a few weeks.

I'm currently plotting a novel with Matthew, as well. It'll be a cyberpunk novel heavy on mythology. The research has been extremely fun and very interesting. Once we're done working on the GC sub, we'll get back to that. So far, it's looking quite promising.

This week I'm also proofreading an upcoming novel for Permuted. I'm actually really looking foward to that--I've been wondering for months when this particular work was going to be released, and now I'm basically getting a sneak-peek. Awesome.

I'm also reviewing another upcoming Permuted title for Flames Rising, which is, again, awesome.

Also, I got a 'special thanks' on the legalese page of the other novel I proofread for Permuted--Empire. Weird idea, but fun nonetheless.

When the stores open again, I'll be buying a microphone for yet another project. Me and a friend from the Permuted Boards are recording an audio version of Eric Shapiro's excellent novella, It's Only Temporary. It'll debut on Library of the Living Dead, and we're hoping to get it on Podiobooks afterwards.

So yeah, that's why my updates have been few and far between recently, and why I've taken this past weekend off. My brain is slowly recuperating. Aah, brain.

Infected Girl didn't make it into TBW. I'm not surprised, but I'm glad I've finally got confirmation. Time to rewrite it. Hardcore.

I got an email today, telling me that I can pick up my copy of Wuthering Heights on Monday. I have to read it for Tuesday.

SparkNotes, here I come.

In fan-bloody-tastic news, I'm collaborating on a short story! This is something I've wanted to do for a while now. This week, a friend from the Permuted Press forums suggested we work together on a short story for the Giant Creatures anthology. He has a concept, I have time to write. We're in the process of bouncing ideas off of each other right now, and so far it's looking good. If it turns out as intended, it'll probably be the best things I've worked on.

At first I was a little nervous about working with someone who's a better writer than me, but the brainstorming process has been going so well that I'm actually pretty sure that the story we're working on will turn out better than my regular stories.

Also, I'm going to have to start work on the new Angler soon. The meeting for the next issue will be either Monday or Friday of next week. I'll most likely be interviewing the boss of Permuted for the lit-related articles they want me to do, and I might have to do another article on an Anglophone country. I hope I don't, to be honest. I've already run out of Anglophone friends, and I don't like writing about countries that I've never visited.

Actually, I know a load of Yanks, but I think it's a bit silly to write an article about America. The less obvious Anglophone countries are a lot more interesting, and will have much more on offer that the audience won't already know.

Also, went on a big reading spree this weekend. It was mostly to avoid reading Huckleberry Finn (it's probably fantastic but the language annoys the hell out of me). So, I started and finished both Breakfast of Champions and Every Sigh, The End.

Next time I'm procrastinating, I'll probably type some reviews up. This will probably happen later on tonight, knowing myself.

Very quiet on ye olde update front from me recently. I suspect that this is because I've been too busy actually writing and critting to write about writing and critting. This is a good thing.

Got a rejection from the Giant Creatures anthology. The editor thought that my story was well-written, but not B-movieish enough. I also got an invitation to resubmit.

So right now I'm combing my brain for better ideas. I also just sent off the rejected story to the Pit, so I should soon see what the good folks there make of it.

So, I've been working on OCR. I sent it off last night, heard back today.

Right now it might go into the 'probable' category, but that could change at any time. I'm going to edit OCR up again and re-send it when I feel like it's done.

I'm still in the running for GT's TBW anthology. The official TOC has been announced, but they're having troubles finalising it completely. I haven't had a rejection or acceptance yet, and according to their forums, that means I could still get in. I'm counting on not getting in, so I'm basically just waiting for a rejection mail in the coming week or two.

Also should be hearing something from CGC at some point, although nothing's certain.

Right. That's it for writing updates. Other than that, I've been chilling, basically. I passed all of last semester's exams, which is awesome, and I've been enjoying the fact that I don't really have to do anything till the beginning of February. Of course, now the beginning of February is coming up, so I'm going to have to get my behind into gear.

And get my sleep cycle back on track.

I really really do.

Today I began and finished my first attempt at a robot story, Of Course Reginald. See, I even named it! And the name is really cool, I think. It refers to multiple things in the story. Whee.

First it was just ten words shy of the maximum word count of 7500, but I managed to shave 500 off when I did my edits. I've posted it to the anthology-specific PP crit board. The anthology's editor has downloaded it, by the looks of things, so I should get the vital feedback soon enough.

7500 words in one day. A complete story. If I kept this up for a little over a week, I'd have a NaNoWriMo.

And so I have a new Vox theme.

It's the cute robot one. I had two reasons for choosing this particular theme:

1: I like cute stuff.

2: I'm writing a story for the Permuted Press Robots Beyond anthology, so I'm trying to get myself in the mood.

One thing I've noticed about writing for a particular theme, is that I rarely start a story from scratch. For the Cross-Genre Cthulhu anthology, I wrote a number of Susan and Mitchell stories. For Giant Creatures, I wrote a story based off of a story my dad told me (which may or may not be true). This time, I've written something that is set in the same world as my NaNo project from this year.

I wanted to write something from scratch, but it just wouldn't come. Then, *poof*, I had an idea for something in one of my established narrative settings. I was considering doing a Susan and Mitchell story with robots, but that just didn't want to happen. Robots don't fit in with their stories.

Anyway, now I'm working on a steampunk-ish thing with Lovecraftian influences, drawing on the King In Yellow mythos. I think this is quite cool, personally, but I'll have to wait and see what the editor thinks.

Luckily I'll be able to get his opinion before I actually send it off. I've recently joined the PP forums' crit group. I had a lot of fun going over the works that were submitted for review. I've submitted something myself, that should come through in a crit cycle or two. I'm dreading it, to be honest. I've never had a truly subjective group of people look at a text of mine just for the sake of critting it. Up till now, Marijn has proofread them for me and various editors have rejected them.

So yeah, this is a new experience for me. I'm hoping it will help me improve. I reformatted and edited the story I sent off to the crit group. I wrote it in the first half of 2007, and I already picked out a lot of things that I missed during the first few rounds of editing.

I sent them one of my two zombie stories, because it is Permuted, after all. After this I might send them my other zombie story, which is about an undead bunny. Because I'm Leah.

In other news, still haven't heard anything on the CGC anthology, or the lycanthrope antho from GST. The GST editors are down to the last fifty or so, of the 20 they want to accept. I'm pretty chuffed that I've gotten this far through the rejection rounds, considering they received a few hundred submissions.

The rejections for CGC are going out as we speak. John Sunseri, the editor, is giving detailed crits with the rejections. I'm not expecting to get into the antho, but I still can't wait for my email. I do like the story I sent off, and once I've incorporated the crits from the rejection email I'll throw it into the crit group.

Of course, it would be nice to get my story accepted. Publication, and a contributor's copy! Still, I'm not going to get my hopes up. Lots of people submitted to PP for the CGC anthology (ooh all the acronyms), most of which are probably a lot better and a lot more experienced than me.

Anyway, time to get back to work on the as-yet-untitled robot story. Au revoir.

So, I didn't win anything in that competition, but that doesn't surprise me. I was trying to write in my second language, and I was up against real lit students. The free books would have been nice, but alas. It was not meant to be.

Tonight I sent off Stories My Dad Told Me Which May Or May Not Be True, which I am just going to refer to as Stories from now on because it's a bloody long title. It's for the Permuted Press giant creatures anthology, and I'm curious to see if I'll get rejected straight away. It's probably not what they were expecting from a tale with giant animals in it - or maybe it is. Who knows? Time will tell.

So, I sent off the short story for that Christmas competition. No idea when you're supposed to hear back - I'll just keep checking the paper that was running the thing. I'm not counting on winning anything, but it's good to stay on top of things. At least I know it'll be a less than four week turnaround - Christmas is fast approaching, after all.

I wrote another short story today! Based on a story my Dad told me. It's for the giant anthology over at Permuted Press. I had pointed out that based on the description I gave it's rather similar to Big Fish. I honestly didn't even think of that while I was writing it, because although the beginning may be somewhat similar, the actual meat of the story is different entirely. Homicidal bikers ftw.

Anyway, that needs to be run through the editing machine before it can be sent off. I'll keep working on other submissions for the thing in the mean time, for if/when this one gets rejected outright. It's a rather challenging theme. After all, there are only so may variations on the OMG GIANT ANIMAL/PERSON/MONSTER theme.

It feels good to be writing short stories again. Woot!

So, I completed NaNoWriMo. This is great - not only do I have a third of a novel done, I've also proved to myself that my 2005 win wasn't a fluke.

All that writing left my brain a bit dead, though - I'm much more suited to binge writing rather than a thousand words a day. If I have an idea, I sit down and write. If I don't, then I don't force it. I think that when I move away from short stories and on to novels, I'll change writing habits. However, I don't think that will happen any time soon.

Right now I'm quite happy just writing short stories. There's a certain magic to them that a novel misses.

I've currently got 2 short stories being considered for anthologies - CGC at Permuted and TBW at GST. I'm not expecting to get accepted, but I haven't received rejections yet, and that's good enough for me.

This weekend I'm going to be taking it easy. I need to recharge before attacking the two essays and a creative translation next week. It's the end of the third semester - half way through my bachelor's already, what a horrible idea - and the deadlines are looming once again.

But, all that comes Monday. Right now, it's Ramsey Campbell, Phantom Hourglass and brainstorming for future short stories. Oh, and a new haircut and a shopping trip tomorrow. Relaxation is good.