Renee Carter Hall's Blog, page 11

Maybe fall will be better…

As much as I was looking forward to it months ago, it looks like the best thing for me to do is bow out of the August session of Camp NaNoWriMo, that I was planning on participating in. It’s been a difficult summer real-life-wise, and issues with our mortgage (namely, attempting to refinance it) that I thought were going to be resolved by now most definitely aren’t. Given the stress I’m already under, I’ve realized that I really don’t need to add more to it, even for something positive — and I already have enough works in progress to finish, without putting them all on hold for another month so I can just add another project to the pile.

I considered still participating, but just doing what I can and accepting that I won’t cross the 50K word mark to win, but… well, I’ve done NaNoWriMo three times now and camp once, and won every time, and I hate the thought of just setting myself up to fail — or worse, winding up determined not to fail whatever the cost to my emotional, mental, and/or physical health.

At this point, I think what I’ll do is wait for the original NaNoWriMo in November and try again. By that time, I should be able to have a better idea of what the novel is supposed to be and what’s supposed to happen, anyway, since I never had enough time or energy this month to work on brainstorming and outlining the way I wanted to. And by that time, something has to have been figured out that lets us keep the house. :/

So, apologies to my cabin mates, but maybe I’ll see some of you in November…

Black Static #29 now available

Issue #29 of the UK horror magazine Black Static is now available, which includes my short story "Horseman":

http://ttapress.com/blackstatic/currentissue/

It's a print publication which can be ordered direct from the publisher, but it should also be available soon in electronic format from Amazon and Smashwords:

http://www.smashwords.com/profile/view/ttapress

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Black Static #29 now available

Issue #29 of the UK horror magazine Black Static is now available, which includes my short story “Horseman”:

http://ttapress.com/blackstatic/curre...

It’s a print publication which can be ordered direct from the publisher, but it should also be available soon in electronic format from Amazon and Smashwords:

http://www.smashwords.com/profile/vie...

Just a general update...

...now that the power's back on. We got hit by the derecho in the midwest/mid-Atlantic Friday night, so our power (and then the phone/Internet) was down until yesterday afternoon. Living without power (read: air conditioning) wasn't much fun, but the worst part is that since we have a well (and our generator isn't powerful enough to run the well pump), being without power also meant being without running water for more than 72 hours. >_< Yeah. That was lovely. Normally I fill up the bathtub when I see storms coming in, but this one took me by surprise, so instead we kept our dehumidifer running with the generator, and used that water to flush with. Water drained from the coolers (that were holding the stuff from the fridge) became water for washing, and bottled water took care of drinking and brushing teeth. All in all, I have a new appreciation for the blessing it is to be able to turn on a faucet and have essentially an endless supply of clean, drinkable water.

As far as creative exploits go, the other irritant is that thanks to the combination of my procrastination and the outage, I missed sending in an entry to Writers of the Future this quarter, and I also never finished what was going to be a last-minute submission to the Rocky Mountain Fur Con conbook. Oh, well. For WotF, at least, there's always next quarter...

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Just a general update…

…now that the power’s back on. We got hit by the derecho in the midwest/mid-Atlantic Friday night, so our power (and then the phone/Internet) was down until yesterday afternoon. Living without power (read: air conditioning) wasn’t much fun, but the worst part is that since we have a well (and our generator isn’t powerful enough to run the well pump), being without power also meant being without running water for more than 72 hours. >_< Yeah. That was lovely. Normally I fill up the bathtub when I see storms coming in, but this one took me by surprise, so instead we kept our dehumidifer running with the generator, and used that water to flush with. Water drained from the coolers (that were holding the stuff from the fridge) became water for washing, and bottled water took care of drinking and brushing teeth. All in all, I have a new appreciation for the blessing it is to be able to turn on a faucet and have essentially an endless supply of clean, drinkable water.

As far as creative exploits go, the other irritant is that thanks to the combination of my procrastination and the outage, I missed sending in an entry to Writers of the Future this quarter, and I also never finished what was going to be a last-minute submission to the Rocky Mountain Fur Con conbook. Oh, well. For WotF, at least, there's always next quarter…

"Sweet Dreams" charity anthology now available

A few weeks ago, via a book review blog site, I stumbled across a call for submissions for an anthology ebook to benefit a young woman with an inoperable brain tumor. I sent the editor my flash fiction piece "The Garden" as a reprint. It was accepted, and the anthology's now available for purchase at Amazon:

Sweet Dreams (The Lyndsey Roughton Anthology)
http://www.amazon.com/Dreams-Lyndsey-Roughton-Anthology-ebook/dp/B0089DMTH2/

The cover makes it look like a straight-out horror collection, but it's actually a mix of horror, fantasy, and science fiction. I haven't had the chance to read it yet, and I'm not familiar with any of the other contributors' work -- but some of the titles are definitely intriguing (especially the editor's contribution "The Great Zombie Pot-Plant Love Thang"). XD

All of the stories were donated by their authors, and the proceeds are going toward making Lyndsey's last days the best they can be.

To find out more about Lyndsey Roughton, see the editor's blog post:
http://jhsked.blogspot.com/2012/05/lyndsey-roughton-anthology-call-for.html

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“Sweet Dreams” charity anthology now available

A few weeks ago, via a book review blog site, I stumbled across a call for submissions for an anthology ebook to benefit a young woman with an inoperable brain tumor. I sent the editor my flash fiction piece “The Garden” as a reprint. It was accepted, and the anthology’s now available for purchase at Amazon:

Sweet Dreams (The Lyndsey Roughton Anthology)

http://www.amazon.com/Dreams-Lyndsey-...

The cover makes it look like a straight-out horror collection, but it’s actually a mix of horror, fantasy, and science fiction. I haven’t had the chance to read it yet, and I’m not familiar with any of the other contributors’ work — but some of the titles are definitely intriguing (especially the editor’s contribution “The Great Zombie Pot-Plant Love Thang”). XD

All of the stories were donated by their authors, and the proceeds are going toward making Lyndsey’s last days the best they can be.

To find out more about Lyndsey Roughton, see the editor’s blog post:

http://jhsked.blogspot.com/2012/05/ly...

Free short story collection and other writing-related updates

I'm a bit behind on publication announcements, so let's get caught up...

First, I've put together a sort of 'sampler' ebook called Six Impossible Things, made up of six of my short stories. The collection includes "Childish Things," "Moon, June, Raccoon," "Norma the Wal-Mart Greeter Meets the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse," "Swear Not By the Moon," "Drawn From Memory," and "The Garden." It's available for free on Smashwords, where you can download it in Kindle format, EPUB, PDF, plain text... pretty much everything except semaphore and interpretive dance. (It's also on Amazon, but the process of making a book free on Amazon has taken longer than expected, so at the moment the Amazon price is still 99 cents. It will eventually be free, permanently; it may just take a couple more weeks. I'll make another announcement when the price finally changes.)



Six Impossible Things
http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/166245

Second, the issue of Black Static including my story "Horseman" is due out next month, and as a preview, check out the awesome illustration done for it by artist Rich Sampson. It'll be in black and white in the actual magazine, but at least you can enjoy it here in all its glory. :)

Third, this month saw a really exciting acceptance for one of my stories -- "The Bear with the Quantum Heart" was accepted to the online sf/f magazine Strange Horizons , tentatively slated to appear sometime around December. It's a place I've dreamed of being published in for some time now, and tough to get into, so this was an especially satisfying ego boost. The story is about a state-of-the-art educational toy who grows up alongside the child he was bought for, and ends up having a much deeper relationship with her than either of them expected. Call it "Velveteen Rabbit" meets "A.I.," I suppose. :)

As for writing new stuff, a lot of real-life issues have interfered with my writing time and energy over the past several weeks, but at this point I'm still planning on doing Camp NaNoWriMo again in August. Before that, though, I'm working on my next Smashwords/Kindle offering (a novella called "Signal") and trying to get a short story together to submit to this quarter of the Writers of the Future contest before the deadline slips past me.

And, of course, I'll try to update here more often so I'm not doing these long omnibus posts instead of sticking to one topic and keeping things short, the way all the blog-writing how-to blogs say you should. (Which is one of several reasons I consider this an online journal and not a real "blog.") :p

comments

Free short story collection and other writing-related updates

I’m a bit behind on publication announcements, so let’s get caught up…

First, I’ve put together a sort of ‘sampler’ ebook called Six Impossible Things, made up of six of my short stories. The collection includes “Childish Things,” “Moon, June, Raccoon,” “Norma the Wal-Mart Greeter Meets the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse,” “Swear Not By the Moon,” “Drawn From Memory,” and “The Garden.” It’s available for free on Smashwords, where you can download it in Kindle format, EPUB, PDF, plain text… pretty much everything except semaphore and interpretive dance. (It’s also on Amazon, but the process of making a book free on Amazon has taken longer than expected, so at the moment the Amazon price is still 99 cents. It will eventually be free, permanently; it may just take a couple more weeks. I’ll make another announcement when the price finally changes.)

Six Impossible Things

http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/...

Second, the issue of Black Static including my story “Horseman” is due out next month, and as a preview, check out the awesome illustration done for it by artist Rich Sampson. It’ll be in black and white in the actual magazine, but at least you can enjoy it here in all its glory.

Third, this month saw a really exciting acceptance for one of my stories — “The Bear with the Quantum Heart” was accepted to the online sf/f magazine Strange Horizons, tentatively slated to appear sometime around December. It’s a place I’ve dreamed of being published in for some time now, and tough to get into, so this was an especially satisfying ego boost. The story is about a state-of-the-art educational toy who grows up alongside the child he was bought for, and ends up having a much deeper relationship with her than either of them expected. Call it “Velveteen Rabbit” meets “A.I.,” I suppose.

As for writing new stuff, a lot of real-life issues have interfered with my writing time and energy over the past several weeks, but at this point I’m still planning on doing Camp NaNoWriMo again in August. Before that, though, I’m working on my next Smashwords/Kindle offering (a novella called “Signal”) and trying to get a short story together to submit to this quarter of the Writers of the Future contest before the deadline slips past me.

And, of course, I’ll try to update here more often so I’m not doing these long omnibus posts instead of sticking to one topic and keeping things short, the way all the blog-writing how-to blogs say you should. (Which is one of several reasons I consider this an online journal and not a real “blog.”) :p

Video - "Garden of Your Mind" (Mr. Rogers Remixed)

For those of you who haven't seen it several times already today, I give you the awesomeness that is Mr. Rogers, artfully combined with some Autotune and a catchy beat...



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