This started as something else entirely.
Not really sure what to do with these. Use as pot holders? Stuff in strangers’ pockets? Hide them in plastic easter eggs?
Right now they’re on the coffee table, next to my feet and a neglected guitar tuner.
Improv Embroide-poetry
Today I bought one of those embroidery hoop thingies, some thread, cut up an old shirt, and decided to write a poem.
At first I thought I’d write it first and then sew it, but then I decided just to make it up as I went along. Hence the “improv.”
The inspiration was an article that the ever-inspiring An Owomoyela linked to. I was particularly drawn to this section:
4. Use your hands
…I think the more that writing is made into a physical process, the better it is. You can feel the ink on paper. You can spread writing all over your desk and sort through it. You can lay it all out where you can look at it.
Oh and also this one:
5. Side projects and hobbies are important
…By side projects I mean the stuff that you thought was just messing around. Stuff that’s just play. That’s actually the good stuff. That’s when the magic happens.
So? Well… my embroidery is terrible (never done it before) and my poetry is worse (though not as bad as that diary filled with poems from high school) but it felt good. Really good. Can’t wait to do another one.
Advice and the giving of it
I’ve been writing a novel for almost three months now, so I think it’s safe to say that I’m an expert at novel writing. In other words — you can pretty much take my words as the gold standard on this particular endeavor and success, women, and riches will inevitably be showered upon your person.
Wouldn’t that be nice to hear? I’d love some definitive advice on novel writing. But it isn’t to be. Each novel, they say, is different. Each writer is different. Each writer is different while writing each different novel. How irritating is that? So I found when I turned to Twitter for advice on whether or not to start editing my novel from the beginning before finishing the first draft. The resounding answer? Yes! And also: No!
What’s a girl to do? I decided to do both. When I feel inspired to write new stuff, I plow ahead in the rough draft. I’m not much of an outliner, not yet anyway, so I usually set my sights on a distant plot point and try to swim steadily toward it. When I’m feeling more analytical, I take a look at my first chapter, ripping it up, writing new stuff, taking notes, thinking about character. And you know, this method has been working really well for me. It satisfies both my need to create new stuff and to feel like I’m making progress toward a story that actually makes sense and that I wouldn’t be upset about the world seeing if I got run over by a bus.
I’ve also been steering clear of buses, just in case.
But of course, if there’s any advice to be given about writing, it’s that no one way works for everybody. And I’m always open to new ideas… so does anyone have new ideas to share? What writing/editing combo works for you in shorts or long stuff? How much has the advice of others worked for you?
Support Our Zines Day!
Happy Support Our Zines Day! As the proud parent of one of these ‘zines, I can’t tell you how important it is that we all (writers and non-writers alike) continue to read and financially support short story zines. I feel a little bit like a panhandler with a Starbucks cup in downtown Chicago, trying to stand out in the crowd as the one worthy of your change, but whether you support Brain Harvest or any of the scores of other worthy zines, I hope you will do something.
Caren, Shane, and I started Brain Harvest in March of this year with nothing but a vision of the kind of weird fiction we wanted to read, an awesome website, and some change in our pockets. We’re lucky in that BH doesn’t have much overhead (as a flash fic market with no print counterpart), but it’s too expensive for us to pay for all on our own, being aspiring un- and underemployed writers ourselves. But we are adamant in our desire to provide a quality pro-rate market to our community. And so we rely on the generosity of our loyal readers to help us through.
Because of this low overhead, even a donation of $5 is huge. $10 gets you a hand-knitted mustache (by yours truly — see Paypal link on the main page. You can also send donations directly to our Paypal account at fresheyes(at)brainharvestmag(dot)com)). $25 gets you a critique by one of us (and ask our Clarion West classmates — we’re pretty damn good at critiquing). So if you like what we do and want us to keep doing it, won’t you chip in?
And while you’re at it, check out what our other comrades are producing — make a point to read and comment on at least 2 online stories today! And check out this page to see what more you can do, if donating just isn’t in the cards for you.
Long live the short fiction zine!
Time to pre-order your copy of *Things We Are Not*!
It’s official! The book looks gorgeous, and if you pre-order the print copy you get a sweet deal — it’s only $16.95 including shipping, and you also get a one year (12 issue) subscription to M-Brane SF (a $12 value)… starting with issue #9, which is the issue with my story “Wildlife” in it! You can also pre-order a PDF of the book for $6.99 if you prefer an electronic copy.
Check out all the details here. This is going to be a fabulous book… I can’t wait to get my copy so I can read the shit out of these stories!
The cliche of loving fall.
Yup. I love fall. The trees stop producing chlorophyll, allowing their more interesting carotene and anthocyanins to show… then the leaves fall and get crunchy. It’s scarf and layers weather, rather than big bulky coat weather. Various root vegetables come into fashion. I start to think seriously about making pies. The only thing not to love about fall, as far as I’m concerned, is football. October seems to be the sharpest demarcation of this season, and it just so happens this year that several other exciting things are happening on or around October 1st as well.
1. As I’ve said before, and will probably say again because I’m self-absorbed (and hey, isn’t that what blogs are for?), I have three publications coming out on or around October 1st – in M-Brane SF #9, the final issue of Farrago’s Wainscot, and the SF queer anthology Things We Are Not. This queer anthology is going to be especially awesome. You can pre-order the book starting on 9/28!
2. My beloved Clarion West classmates and I will begin our second annual writing contest on October 1st. Spearheaded by the dashing Shane Hoversten, this contest involves a rigorous set of rules, a complex point system, and an addendum that I added yesterday which requires the competitors to good-naturedly heckle each other. The basic gist of the contest is to write as many “structurally complete” short stories or novel segments as possible between midnight October 1st and 11:59pm New Years Eve. Extra points for submitting the story to markets during the contest window. The winner will receive the prize of his or her face on a coffee mug, which all of the participants will buy. That way everyone wins, but everyone also knows who really won. Last year, the prize was a t-shirt where the winner was depicted behind bars “in the prison of his own genius.” (Pam has some nice pictures of herself, Kira, and An in these shirts, which you can see here). Shane was the big winner last year because he cranked out an 8000 word story a day for the last week of the contest, stunning us all into silence. Not so this year! I will triumph and they will all drink out of my face!
3. To be fair, this is unrelated to fall or October 1st, but it is related to writing. On Thursday, I had the pleasure of meeting Jamie Grove of hownottowrite fame. He was in Chicago at a big fancy conference for his super-awesome job, and we met up at a bar downtown. We talked about the stuff writers talk about — you know, writing — and tried to hear each other over the terrible 90s music that was blasting from the speakers. The reason I bring this up is actually two reasons. One — Jamie is awesome. Two — he just wrote an interesting blog post about meeting other writers. It’s so easy to make connections online, and yet sometimes it feels just as hard to take that first step as it is to introduce yourself to a stranger at a bar. I’m terrible at it, personally. But we need each other. Plus it’s no fun to toil away all alone in your dank apartment. This way, you can toil away in your dank apartment… with lots of Twitter friends. And everyone wants Twitter friends. So check out his post. And then check out my “Writers” links to meet some great writers and awesome people. Tell them I sent ya.
4. Oh, and one last thing to look forward to — as we speak, Mr. Jeff VanderMeer is making his list and checking it twice, judging who will be the winners of the Brain Harvest Mega Challenge! So keep an eyeball on the Brain Harvest page… we’ll be posting the winners very soon!!
Check me out! No seriously, check me out!
Firstly, check out the awesome cover art and stellar line-up for M-Brane SF #9. I’m delighted and a little intimidated to be in such illustrious company.
Nextly, check out the news and updates from the Things We Are Not blog. Chris is a master of publicity and is very generous with praise for his writers… he calls Brain Harvest “probably the single best venue for flash fiction,” (WOW!) and has some very kind things to say about my stories. This book is going to be so awesome, you’ll barely be able to keep your head from exploding. So be sure to buy it! And if you have some spare change in your Paypal pockets, donate a buck or two to help cover the costs of publication. Indie publishing is no easy task, friends, so if you love fiction and want to see more good stuff and less Dan Brown, please do what you can.
Thirdly, I have lots of stuff to report, but I’ve come up against a familiar brick wall… which is that I hate blogging. There. I said it. I know I have to get over it, but I just had to get that off my chest. Maybe I can blog about hating blogging. Or, better yet, maybe I can outsource blogging responsibilities to someone else. Any volunteers?
Queer as a $3 bill
I won’t belabor the point here, but there was a bit of a kerfuffle earlier this week concerning a certain author’s certain inflammatory and homophobic blog post, which resulted in quite a bit of uproar and backlash in response. The post in question, however, is less important than the response, which led to the creation of a brand-spanking-new organization of queer and allied SFF writers and editors: The Outer Alliance. I joined, and so should you:
The Outer Alliance is a group of SF/F writers who have come together as allies for the advocacy of LGBT issues in literature. Made up of individuals of all walks of life, our goal is to educate, support, and celebrate LGBT contributions in the science-fiction and fantasy genres.
The Outer Alliance’s founder, Natania Barron, started the group because somehow such a group had not been started before. So? Here we are.
And all of this is a fantastic segue to something I should have done weeks ago, which is to promote the upcoming SF queer anthology Things We Are Not, in which I have a story! The anthology was curated by Chris Fletcher, editor extraordinaire of MBrane SF, and is due to be published in October of this year, I believe. Go ahead and check out the table of contents, and I hope you will consider buying a copy of the book. It’s not easy to single-handedly curate and publish a book (particularly while also running a magazine), and Chris needs all the support we can give him. Speaking of support… he’s also running a fund drive to raise money for publication costs. You can sign up to be a sponsor and/or pay a measly dollar to vote for the cover art of Things We Are Not, a contest for which there is a PRIZE! Who doesn’t like prizes? Chris is about halfway to his fundraising goal… let’s help push him over the edge! Support small presses that publish unique writing! They can’t do it without you!
New-fangled time management skills
So I’ve been trying this new thing called “time management” recently. It’s kind of a new idea so I don’t know if any of you have heard of it. It involves scheduling the things you want and/or need to do, and then doing those things within an allotted time slot. This is complicated, I know, so here’s an example. I go into work at 11:45am every day (I know, lucky me, right?), so I have my mornings free to write, piddle around, make coffee, what have you. Previous to my “time management” plan, I would sort of vaguely assert that I wanted to “write” in the mornings, but what this usually entailed was opening a file at 9am, staring at it for 5 minutes, going to make coffee, staring at the file and/or writing 2 sentences, piddling around on the internet, watching cars get towed on my street, tending to my plants, making gluten-free frozen waffles… you get the idea.
NOW, however, I am a model of efficiency. I have decided that from 10-11, I will write, and that is all I will do. The compromise is that from 9-10 and from 11 until I bike to work, I can fritter away the precious moments of my life however I choose. This technique works surprisingly well. Now, two-plus hours is not a terribly long period of time to manage, and I have a whole day off coming up soon, which I usually spend roaming around the city, drinking too much coffee and “trying to write.” Can I manage a whole day? Can I actually save some of that day for doing OTHER things I enjoy? I shiver with excitement at the prospect.
Here’s an unrelated question (does anybody actually read this thing, or am I just talking to myself?) I was thinking of documenting the weird things that happen at the sex shop, both for my own enjoyment and possible future mining of ideas… but y’know, if there’s an audience to consider, I’m happy to consider their preferences. The stories are funny, usually, but can involve some naughty language and salacious content.
Also, today is the last day of Clarion West. I can’t quite believe it, and I’m not even there this year.