I keep wondering whether I should just stop worrying about short stories and focus on novels. I just finished Unnatural Creatures, a short story anthology, but it took much longer than it should have because I just didn’t want to read it. Short stories are so hit or miss for me. For every good one, there’s a terrible one where I’m so bored I want to toss the book away. Plus there’s having to jump into another world, then another world, and it’s tiresome. It’s like playing eight video games at the same time, one a day. You are too distributed into one world to fall into another. The plots…
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Trooble with Shawrt Stawries These Dais
I’m having a lot of trouble writing short stories these days. I think I really need to outline the entire story before I write it, (which can be dangerous because you’re never quite sure how long the outline will be). The more I write, the more I realize how helpless I am without an outline. Every story I’ve written, I’ve started hating it halfway through. Most likely because there’s no real big ending. Cause usually the seeds of my short stories are cute concepts, like “What kind of guy would Red Sonja marry?” or “The Shawshank Redemption with elves”. Something that asks an intriguing question or lends to an interesting…
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Not Dead Just Depressed
I’m not dead. Just depressed. Last week has not been the greatest, with things at work and home. Nothing significantly traumatic, like a death, but lots of stress and feeling forever alone. But I think that’s all over now. I filed my papers, said my pieces, and I feel better now. And through it all, I was able to stay true to my one hour a day of writing. Whether or not that hour was productive is it a bit fuzzier. That’s the funny thing about depression. It’s like a force. You try and combat it, and it doesn’t bat an eye. You bring in reinforcements and it shrinks back……
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Needs
You ever have one of those days where you feel like you need something, but you don’t know what? You’re not thirsty, you’re not hungry. Maybe you had too much coffee or too many pretzels and your body’s full of unbleached flour. Maybe the sushi you had for lunch was a little heavy on the seafood sauce. Maybe you didn’t get enough sleep last night, or too much. You’re not even sure if it’s your body that needs something or your mind. You spent all day reading or looking at pictures of snake-women (it’s research for the book, I swear!), but nothing very stimulating or rewarding or challenging. You basically…
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These Days
These days. I’m more interested in writing my erotic fan fiction than working on anything publishable. Not sure why that is. Maybe it’s the sexual nature of it — gets me excited. Maybe cause I know I can’t get rejected from fan fiction. Sure my acceptance ratio is 10%, higher than normal. But some days, especially during this winter season, it feels like playing handball against the curtains. And writing queries and submitting short stories is such a pain in the ass. I don’t care that each agent has different requirements, I’m fine with that. But each one is always in some different place on the website. In a different…
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Rut
As you can tell, I haven’t been doing well with keeping off the Internet these days. Perhaps more so, I feel like I’ve been in a rut. Except for my designated time at lunch, I haven’t been doing any writing. Of course, that’s why I have my designated lunch period. Maybe the autumn allergies are getting to me–I wake up every morning with a runny nose and grumpy demeanor. And haven’t been getting proper sleep because one kid has a nightmare and the other coughs all night. I’m starting to get sick of revising Merm-8, just because I’ve been working on it for… how long? (checks blog entries) Started integrating…
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Merm-8 Critiques are Finished
I’ve finished going through all the critiques for Mermaid Story. That means I’ve gone through what everyone’s said, and made my notes. Now I need to organize those notes and integrate what needs to change into the story. And this is the part that always depresses me. The great thing about beta-readers is that they find the plot holes and inconsistencies. They find the places where you missed the mark emotionally. And they tell you what scenes are boring, and what they want to know about. That means I’ll have to rewrite some small sections, like the ENITRE ENDING. And now it’s my job to fix all that. That unfortunately…
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Writer’s Block
Writing is hard these days. With Merm-8 being peer reviewed, and all my short stories completed, I don’t have anything left to do but composition. And composition is hard. It’s made doubly hard by the fact that I don’t really have anything to write about. Oh sure, there are ideas. Ideas that I’ve kept in the backburner for just such an occasion where I needed some short story ideas. But those ideas are old, and I’m not very interested in them. I’m not even sure if I was interested in them to begin with. I’ve tried writing them, but my heart just isn’t in it. Instead of looking forward to…
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Another Crying Writer
Waah, waah What’s that sound? Waah, waah Why, it’s the sound of another writer that can’t take criticism. The vast majority of writers, ones who are serious about their craft never say boo anytime they receive a critique, no matter what sort of language is used. If every sentence comes with “I feel” or “Most sources say that you should…” it doesn’t matter. If they’re smart, and they are, they know not to look for how it’s phrased, but what was phrased. That’s why I do at least. I’m looking for the things that more than one persons says. But there are those trolls out there who believe that their…
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An Unscheduled Rant about Direct-to-DVD Sequels
I really have nothing to say at the moment. I just finished a hardcore reading session for some catch up, and I’m ready to get back to the business of writing. Got to finish up two short stories and make them presentable for publication, and then it’s onto composing some new stuff. But besides that been busy with work stuff. So let’s talk about stuff that irritates me. This past week, I had the TV on in the background, and saw that the sequel to Beverly Hills Chihuahua — Beverly Hills Chihuahua 2 (Chihuahua Harder) was coming out, and I could only think one thing. What the hell are you thinking? Seriously,…
