Aeryn Rudel's Blog, page 48

Back to Basics: The Cover Letter

Hey, let’s talk about cover letters again. I see this subject pop up a lot when it comes to submissions. There are a lot of opinions, and my opinion goes something like this: keep it short, keep it simple, and follow the guidelines. Let me show you what I mean.

The Basic Cover Letter

If the publisher doesn’t ask for anything specific in the cover letter, I generally go with the basic letter below. It ticks all the boxes I think editors generally want in a cover letter, and it’s easy to add (o...

A Week of Writing: 4/2/18 to 4/8/18

Another week has come and gone, and here are my writing triumphs and failures laid bare for your amusement and edification.

The Novel

So, uh, yeah, I’m like writing this horror novel with a desired goal of 15,000 words a week and a minimum goal of 10,000 words. Well, friends, I didn’t hit either of those numbers, and this week was, to put it bluntly, pretty much shit for novel production. Behold my shame.

Date Day Words Written 4/2/2018 Monday 0 4/3/2018 Tuesday 0 4/4/2018 Wednesday...

“The Food Bank” & The Arcanist Trio

The Arcanist just published my flash fiction piece “The Food Bank,” and it’s free to read on their site. This is a post-apocalyptic horror story with a dash of sci-fi for seasoning. It’s also got giant bugs in it. Simply click the big bug below to read.

“The Food Bank”

[image error]

This is my third publication with The Arcanist, and if you write or read speculative flash fiction, you should definitely give them a look.  If you’re so inclined, you can check out my previous two stories, “Cowtown” and “Reun...

Submission Statement: March 2018

I often start these submission statements with a subtle (or not-so subtle) complaint about my production for the month. Well, not this time. March was a really good month, one of the best of my short story submittin’ career.

March 2018 Report Card

Submissions Sent: 8 Rejections: 7 Acceptances: 3 Publications: 0 Withdrawal: 1

Eight submissions is good volume, and that puts me at a total of 35 submissions for the first three months of 2018. I’m also on a good pace for my goal of 100 submissio...

A Week of Writing: 3/26/18 to 4/1/18

One more week in the trenches working on various writing projects. Here’s how it all shook out, complete with word count goals, short story sundries, and submission shenanigans.

The Novel

As I said last week, my big project for the moment is a horror novel called “Late Risers.” I’m making pretty good progress, with a weekly goal of 15,000 words, which I often fall short of. Still, I have a minimum do-or-die goal of 10,000 words I can hit pretty routinely. Here’s how I did this week.

Date D...

A Week of Writing – 3/26/18 to 4/1/18

One more week in the trenches working on various writing projects. Here’s how it all shook out, complete with word count goals, short story sundries, and submission shenanigans.

The Novel

As I said last week, my big project for the moment is a horror novel called “Late Risers.” I’m making pretty good progress, with a weekly goal of 15,000 words, which I often fall short of. Still, I have a minimum do-or-die goal of 10,000 words I can hit pretty routinely. Here’s how I did this week.

Date D...

A Week of Writing: 3/19/18 to 3/25/18

Starting a new feature here on the ol’ blog. Every Monday or thereabouts, I’ll update you on the writing I did for the week prior. How many words I wrote on which projects, how many stories I competed, how many I submitted, and so on. The purpose of this is partly to keep myself on track and also to explore my, uh, “process.”  So, without further ado, here’s my writing week from Monday, March 19th to Sunday, March 25th.

The Novel

My big project is a horror novel I’ve been working on for a cou...

A Week of Writing – 3/19/18 to 3/25/18

Starting a new feature here on the ol’ blog. Every Monday or thereabouts, I’ll update you on the writing I did for the week prior. How many words I wrote on which projects, how many stories I competed, how many I submitted, and so on. The purpose of this is partly to keep myself on track and also to explore my, uh, “process.”  So, without further ado, here’s my writing week from Monday, March 19th to Sunday, March 25th.

The Novel

My big project is a horror novel I’ve been working on for a cou...

Even Good Stories Get Rejected

Stop me if you’ve heard this one. You finish a story, and you know it’s just the best damn thing you’ve ever written. Proud of your shiny new word baby, you send it out to a publisher you’re pretty sure will dig it. You wait with breathless anticipation for a few weeks, and then, BAM! The form rejection drops like a ten-ton weight into your inbox. Now what?

Well, sometimes I see authors want to overhaul a story based on that single rejection. A lot of the time, I think that’s a mistake. In my...

One-Hour Flash – Big Game

Here’s another installment of One-Hour Flash. Yep, another flash piece written in one hour that has been languishing on my hard drive for years. I’ve deemed all the stories in this series not quite good enough to submit (for various reasons), but there are elements I like in each one that might warrant revision or more likely expansion at some point.

Today’s story is called “Big Game,” and I’m pretty sure it’s the only piece of true military sci-fi I’ve written.

Big Game

General DeVeers walk...