My, it's been a while ...

... And although a good few things have happened since my last post, I don't think I have the energy to talk about them all. Suffice to say that we got the funding for the anthology, and it's gone very well, although we do still have a few books left to sell. So, if there's a gap on your bookshelf ... :)

Still on the Semaphore track, the March issue is coming up, and should be fantastic. We're standardising the issue contents to 5 stories and 2 poems / issue (dependent on quality of submissions received), which will be good - I've occasionally floundered over how many pieces to accept and reject, but with a guideline, it'll be much better. This issue's going to be illustrated, too, if I can manage it.

As for my own life, I'm taking advantage of the fact that uni hasn't started yet to get a bit of writing done, or at least started. I have a few short stories simmering away, and "The Fairy Ring" is going to feature in March's issue of Aoife's Kiss. I've been waiting for this one for a while, and I can't wait to see it!

Ho hum ...

Have begun whittling away at the list of titles I published at Semaphore in order to select the best for December's anthology. Looking quite good so far. Have already sent off congratulations to the very best - M. Lawrence Keys proved to be quite mysteriou and hidden for a while, but no one can hide for long on the internet - and will get the others done when my lovely co-editors have done their own sorting through the list.

I haven't heard anything from either of the two places where I applied for funding, but that's to be expected at this stage - I'm just too impatient. And if everything goes to pot I can always fund the damnthing myself, after all. Eep.

Getting my schmoozing shoes on

Aaak. I'm on edge, nerves jangling, senses singing - and why? I've just approached an artist about doing the cover of this year's Semaphore anthology. And his work is so gorgeous - especially one recent piece in particular, and oh, how easily it could be converted to the proper dimensions and format - that if he declines my offer, I'll honestly be heartbroken.

And he may well decline. He accepted before, and provided work for the March issue - but making a cover involves more work than that did, and I've little enough to pay him with. Royalties alone may break me (separate rant: do better maths before publishing royalty offers online), and all I can offer my artist is a complementary copy with free postage or a token fee, ie, what the book and postage would have cost me had he chosen that.

All sufficiently flexible extremities crossed, and good night!

Infamy!

The bookbinding tutor of the Writing and Bookbinding course I'm taking at the moment has heard of Semaphore.

I am dizzy. People in my city have heard of my ezine. People in my city think my ezine is neat stuff.

OMG.

Printery failure, and writing again

I sent out requests for quotes for Semaphore Annual to a couple of print places a few days ago, and just now realised that I specified 290 leaves rather than the more sense-making (and less brick-like) 290 pp. Whoops. I has professionalism, I swear!

I've also been working on my writng, by which I mean, working on getting some done. I've discovered two things during my experimentation:

- Firstly, challenging myself to write a set number of words works. The only real experience I'd had inthis before was NaNo, which wasn't exactly conducive to a healthy relationship with my scribblings, but five weeks ago I told myself that I would write 1000 words a week for the next forever. Five weeks later, and my words-per-week tally hasn't dipped under 2000 once. So, that's working, somehow.

- Secondly ... and this one is a bit embarrassing. For a long time I've been a proponent of writing on the copmuter - type first draft, then print and edit, then type final draft. Rinse, repeat. But I've been leaving the laptop at home lately due to its weight giving me a sore back, and without it around I've had to resort to writing my stories longhand in an exercise book. And, by God, it's worked. There's no Microsoft Work cursor taunting me when my brain dries up! There's space in the margins to doodle while I wait for the next thought! I can pick it up anytime and work on it! It's fantastic. Thanks for nothing, technology.

So, I've written around 14 000 words on three different stories so far. One story is going well, one has been abandoned pending me becoming interestd in that world again, and one is going to be rewritten to make the opening less dull and more sense-making. And I'll be rewriting it on paper. Oh, yeah.

Semaphore Surveys

It's an easy enough problem to diagnose. Surveys for the third issue of Semaphore start coming in - but what's this? A flurry of half-completed surveys, all of which rate a particular story high and most of which don't even have responses to any other piece from the issue? Enter me, sneaking over to statcounter to see if there's a similar pattern to where my visitors have been coming from, and what do I find? A blog post advertising the publication of a friend's story, and exhorting readers to scurry over and show their support.

Subtlety, guys. You no has it.

It's not that I'm opposed to people advertising their publishing successes - or, in this case, their friend's success - but I think this sort of thing is a bit cheap. It's glaringly obvious that most of the people who came from this particular blog for this particular story didn't bother to read the issue; they might as well just be sockpuppets or a bot.

A bit disappointing.

Writing again!

The biggest of my assignments are all done with, so I've had some time to stop thinking about how depressing American Lit is and start being creative again. It's such a good feeling.

I'm working on two things at the moment, and hope to be starting on a third pretty soon. The first two are a short comic strip story about the various misadventures of Kakapoboy (power of - er - sit and stare bemusedly at the weird thing that's eating your head?) and a short story about virtual reality and AI and all sorts of other sciencey stuff that I just handwave in order to get to the plot.

Third thing is this month's writing competition for Deus Ex Machina - two prompts this time, "armageddon" and "create your own myth or legend." Never ended up finishing the other one, so I'm hoping to do better this time around. I have an idea for it, but these other projects are just that much more interesting at the moment ... le sigh.

Honestly, the next time I actually finish a short story, I've got to do something spectacular to celebrate, it'll be that momentous an occasion.