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Posts Tagged ‘yay’

What Have I Been up To? Dr. Seuss Knows!

Posted in Writing, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , on April 11, 2013| 2 Comments »

You can get help from teachers, but you are going to have to learn a lot by yourself, sitting alone in a room.
— Dr. Seuss, in “On Becoming a Writer,” The New York Times, May 21, 1986

In related news, I just got a terrific rejection. Yes, acceptances are great but there is a lot to be said for a rejection that offers praise while pinpointing the one thing that’s problematic. I’ve been asking myself what was missing from this piece for months and now I know. That’s helpful in terms of this particular story but also for future work over the long term.

So thank you, Every Day Fiction submission readers, for doing what so many markets can no longer take the time to do: provide useful feedback.

Onward!

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A Duotrope Replacement, & It Looks Good

Posted in Reviews, Writing, tagged , , , , , , , , on March 14, 2013| Leave a Comment »

Like many I was disappointed (if not terribly surprised) to see Duotrope go to a paid subscription model. This market database and submissions tracker is a great service, no mistake, but the subscription barrier felt a little high. There are some potential substitutes and while I was able to put together a system for story research, tracking, and submission, the process took time. Time I’d rather spend working or sleeping.*

What’s that? You know I’ve found a replacement and you just want me to spill the good news? Well then:)

Welcome to The Grinder, from the good folks at Diabolical Plots. It is a market database and submission tracker with Duotrope-style summary data and response time statistics. Those statistics will improve as more users add submission info, but I was surprised that after just a few months their data look similar to what I remember from Duotrope. And if you have an unaltered .csv export file of your Duotrope submission records, The Grinder has the option to import that information. See this summary page for more details on what it can do. And did I mention this service is free?

Drawbacks? It’s in beta so they are still building the market list and some of the features you might expect aren’t yet in place. (For example, I can’t find the Favorites list but as I just started using it that might be me.) It’s currently for fiction only but plans are in place to expand to non-fiction and poetry soon. These issues aside, The Grinder has a lot going for it, and the team seems genuinely interested in user suggestions and making improvements.

If you are in the market for a market list and submission tracker, this looks like a very good option.

* Or enjoying a frosty glass of some adult beverage with friends. Because there’s more to life than working and sleeping, people!

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More With the Free! This Time From Mary Robinette Kowal

Posted in Writing, tagged , , , , , , , , , on February 13, 2013| Leave a Comment »

More free stuff available, this time it’s Mary Robinette Kowal putting out a novelette in honor of her 44th birthday (it was on February 8th, but better late than never). Here’s her intro to the piece:

This is “The Lady Astronaut of Mars,” which I wrote for Audible.com’s anthology, RIP-OFF!, edited by Gardner Dozois. It’s a fun anthology. Each story starts with the first line of a classic novel. Mine starts with the first line of The Wizard of Oz.

Happy belated birthday, Mary, and thanks!

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Happy Sunday!

Posted in Likes, Other, tagged , , , , , , , on February 3, 2013| 2 Comments »

I know, in internet years Kid President is past retirement age by now. I don’t care. I tried to ignore this video for a whole week but finally broke down, and I’m glad I did. This kid is great, and his message is even better. Watch it. And be awesome.

 

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Today in Spectacular Bookseller Practices: A Random Used-Book Vending Machine

Posted in Other, tagged , , , , on November 16, 2012| 1 Comment »


 

Today in Spectacular Bookseller Practices: A Random Used-Book Vending Machine | The Range: The Tucson Weekly’s Daily Dispatch

Now this is cool.

You may not know, gentle reader, that yours truly spent some time in Tucson, but they had nothing as out and out awesome as this back then. Ok, the Sonoran Desert is pretty spectacular, but we’re talking human crafted for the nonce.

This machine reminds me of a fair in Somerville, Massachusetts. It was the sort of festival where people in bright colors and face paint close down streets and act happily silly, with art! art! art! everywhere. Most of that art was framed or in plastic sleeves or in display cases. It was a beautiful day, full of cotton candy and bright sun and interesting people. But what I remember most was the truly clever Art-O-Matic* at the Somerville Red Line exit. For a dollar this repurposed soda machine would pop out a random cardboard tube containing art. In my case I got a three-inch tall roll of archival paper with an abstract hand-drawn sketch of feathers. Beautiful. I stood in the subway station with people streaming by and wondered how anyone could pass up an opportunity as effervescent as this.

That’s how art should be, I  think. Not up on a distant pedestal, isolated behind velvet ropes. (Ok, obvious exceptions for the Mona Lisa, etc. because people can be jerks. But still.) Easy as buying a Coke.

 

* Oh look, it’s a thing! Different form factor and a slightly less appealing association (cigarettes and all) but same idea.

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Good NaNo News: Finally Back at Par

Posted in Writing, tagged , , , on November 14, 2012| Leave a Comment »

photo by Shayan (USA) on Flickr

I swear, I’ve felt like Tiger Woods* these last few days. I couldn’t get to par on my NanoWriMo word count to save my life. Too much going on, yes, but perhaps more importantly, my story engine hadn’t kicked in yet. You know what I mean, it’s that point when things really start happening. The bad guy comes out of the woodwork, the building collapses, the Galaxicon ice worm wriggles into the away team member’s pancreas and stows away on the ship. Like that.

Note to self: next time forget about setting up the story. Do that later, some time when you aren’t ridiculous numbers of words behind schedule. Instead, go straight to the meaty stuff.

Focusing on the action makes writing so much easier. My best day so far this month was 2,800 words before today, but this morning I managed almost 5,000. Because today I got to blow up a ship. A space ship. With my main characters on it.

Good times.

* For all I know Tiger is back on top again, but last time I stumbled on golf news he wasn’t doing particularly well. Still, Tiger is a global icon, and even if you (like me) are essentially uninterested in golf, you probably still get the golf tie. Feel free to tell me how out of touch I am in this department.

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Sale: Heaven’s Lot

Posted in Writing, tagged on September 6, 2012| Leave a Comment »

I’m very pleased to have sold the short story “Heaven’s Lot” to Not One of Us.

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