Fi Michell's Blog, page 3

Writing News – July 2013

Some great news for me this month. My story, ‘Attila’s Throne’, a 1000 word contemporary fantasy with some mildly ‘mature’ content, has been accepted by Big Pulp magazine (their current issue is pictured), and will probably be published in their March 2014 edition.

I had fun with this story – one of the few that seemed to come in a flash, in this case when my eyes fell upon some photographs from a trip to Italy some years ago. In an instant, I had a character and a predicament…

Thanks to everyone at Critters who gave me feedback on this one, and thanks Big Pulp for taking it on board!

How we wrote ‘A Book in A Day’ for charity.

Well, we did it. We wrote a book in a day.  The challenge was totally worth it!

Our team of ten, from the Northern Beaches Writers Group, included six writers, two illustrators, layout and support. Our story reached over 10,000 words. The experience of working as a team against a production deadline was fantastic.

The day began when we took over an empty office early on Saturday morning and set up our gear. Then, we waited until 8am for our email to arrive, with our characters and subject matter.

We were assigned:

characters: a sculptor, a cleaner and a dinosaur;
a setting: a pub;
an issue: ‘over the rainbow’.

Needless to say, none of these were anything any of us could have imagined in advance.

The entire team immediately sprang into action, plotting as a group. Ideas came from all directions. With only an hour and a half to come up with a cohesive plot and characters, we had to accept ideas fast, hammer them into rough shape, and develop and define our direction. Zena Shapter, our organiser, filled a whiteboard, then several sticky poster sized sheets of paper. We filled in finer details and connections as fast as we could, with a cohesive beginning, middle and end, then assigned the six writers their chapters.

Our plotting took us an hour longer than we’d planned, so we were racing the clock. Intense concentration filled the next two hours, and the only sound was typing. Everyone displayed incredible focus as they turned their rough outlines into story or produced illustrations of key elements.

Then, while we came up for air and ate lunch (homemade lasagne generously contributed by one of the team), we listened to the first reading of our story.

Amazing. There really was a story!

Of course, it needed refining, and again, once the reading was complete, comments flew thick and fast on each chapter, and each author took notes about logic, discrepancies, redundancies and things we needed to add. The illustrators honed their plans for specific pictures.

Heads down again, as the next round of furious writing began – ‘extreme editing’. Once we writers finished our changes, those of us assigned overall editing tasks began fixing grammar, point-of-view or tense discrepancies, or tried to ensure the characters and story had consistent voices (a challenge with six different writers of different genres), or proof read for any other inconsistency or omission.

At the same time, the chapters were cleverly combined in a single document, illustrations assigned places, and promotional blurbs composed.  We were still editing but we had to make the decision to print regardless. Adrenaline was at a high.

At 8pm we sent the email with our book to the Write-A-Book-In-A-Day Competition. I think our brains were all fried.

I don’t know about the rest of the team, but my mind replayed parts of the day and the story all night long. The challenge was intense – and I’d definitely do it again. Already, today, I can think of one or two things I’d add to enhance the part I wrote, but that’s part of the challenge of writing a book in a day. It won’t be perfectly polished; there’ll be things you’d still like to hone. But regardless, reading over the finished, illustrated story, it’s there, and it’s strong. An amazing accomplishment from such a varied team, in such a short space of time.

If you write, and you ever get the chance to participate in such a thing with a bunch of talented people–jump at it.

Our fund raising efforts are going well – thank you to all our incredibly generous sponsors!  All money raised goes to Kid’s Cancer Research at Westmead Children’s Hospital. There’s still time to sponsor us if you wish – read how in my previous post.

Writing a Book in a Day

On July 6, I will be getting together with a team of nine others from the Northern Beaches Writer’s Group, led by Zena Shapter in Sydney, and we will write a book in a day. I am both terrified and excited. I’ve only attended the Northern Beaches Writing Group a couple of times so far, but this opportunity sounded too good to pass up.

Six writers, two illustrators, a layout/cover designer, and other helpers with plotting, will produce an 8000 word book for children aged 10-14. At 8am that morning, we will be given a boy and a girl character, an animal, a setting, and an issue to write about, and we will have until 8pm that night to complete the task, including printing and binding a final copy of the book.

It will be exhausting and exhilarating!

So why would we do such a thing?

Partly for the challenge. And, more importantly, to raise money for The Kid’s Cancer Project at Westmead Children’s Hospital. If you’d like to sponsor our team, you can donate by credit card online here. (You can also read more about the challenge.)

Select ‘Sponsor a team‘ on the left side, followed by ‘The Kids Cancer Project, Westmead (NSW)‘. When the teams come up, select ‘Northern Beaches Writers Group‘. Donations are tax deductible in Australia.

Donations make a big difference in what can be done to help these kids. To anyone who donates: thank you so much on their behalf.

All the books produced in this nationwide challenge also go to the sponsored children’s hospitals. I can’t think of a better way to put writing skills to work!

Writing News June 2013

A good month, because I finished two brand new stories. One took place over three weeks, including rewrites based on beta critiques. (Thank you everyone who helped me!) The other took about three months, including passing through the queue at Critters twice. It’s funny how the experience of writing stories can be so different.

This time, the reason for the difference was the clarity I had about each story idea. I had a very clear idea for the faster story, and it was fairly simple from the beginning. With the other story, I took a long time to get rid of large details that didn’t matter to the plot. I had all kinds of sub-plots running around in my head. Writing the faster story in a different voice and genre gave me the distance I needed to come back to the longer one, make the needed cuts, and rewrite where necessary. And they’ve both been subbed for the first time today. That makes me happy.

In other news, I had another story acceptance. Yay! I’ll write more about this one when the contract arrives next month.

Plasma Frequency Anniversary Giveaway

Plasma Frequency Magazine, is having its first year anniversary. Within its pages, you will find entertaining science fiction, fantasy and horror stories, and great artwork. To celebrate their birthday, they are having a prize giveaway including $50 Amazon Gift cards, and paperback and Kindle copies of their Year One Anthology. You can enter the giveaway here.

The anthology will include two stories from each of their six issues, one chosen by the editors, and one by readers.

You can vote for stories to go into the anthology by taking their quick reader survey here. It contains a few questions about reader preferences regarding the future direction of the magazine, and lists the stories in each issue. Many excellent authors are represented, however, if you choose to vote for my short sf/horror story, The Kyne Extraction, in Issue 5, then you have my sincerest thanks.

And magazines like Plasma Frequency can only support the work of aspiring writers like myself if they have readers.  Their stories are always a great mixture, enhanced by some excellent art, and an e-subscription is free.

Abandoning the Novella

It’s been a while since I’ve posted here, and I should update my progress, particularly since a couple of posts ago I wrote ‘Beginning the Novella’.

I intended to write around thirty thousand words. In the end, I wrote twenty thousand, including most major scenes, but found I wasn’t enjoying it. Since I write for enjoyment, this seemed like a good enough reason to stop.

It wasn’t just that it was a horrible first draft, because most of my stories begin that way. I think the problem for me was that I had not found the story I wanted to write. I was writing a novella to learn about writing in a longer form (which I still see as worthwhile), rather than for the sake of a story I wanted to tell.

However, I gained from the experience. Every day, regardless of my mood or feelings about the story, I sat down and added a minimum of another thousand words. When I finally moved on from that project, I generated six new short story drafts of varying lengths, taking place in different worlds, within four or five weeks. For me, this is a great rate of production.

I now have a lot of editing and revision to do, but love having so many different stories to develop. Whether they are any good or not remains to be seen, however, I think my ability to develop new drafts grew stronger by trying the novella.

At some stage, I’ll give a novella another go, probably after I’ve another few shorts doing rounds of submission.

‘Shoeless’ published in ASIM #57 – out now!

Andromeda Spaceways Inflight Magazine #Issue 57 is out now, edited by Lucy Zinkiewicz. It includes my story, ‘Shoeless’, a light, contemporary fantasy. I love the steampunk cover art by artist Kathleen Jennings, who just won the Best Artwork Ditmar award at the 2013 Conflux, for her cover of Midnight and Moonshine (Ticeronda Publications).

ASIM is one of the first magazines I read when I began writing speculative fiction short stories, so I’m thrilled to bits to be on board – and I can’t wait to read the rest of the stories. And it’s lovely to have a print copy that I will be able to keep on my bookshelf. (My kids will be so proud. They think this means I’m famous, though I’ve assured them that is not the case.)

You can order a copy of ASIM #57 here, in either print or electronic form.

 

Beginning the Novella

In my first year at university, our design professor chalked a square on the blackboard* and asked,  How many ways are there to divide a square in two?

Answer: As many ways as there are possibilities when writing a story.

Today I began my novella, by which I mean I actually wrote the first draft of a scene. By the time I finish the novella – presuming I do finish – that scene is likely to have metamorphosed into something utterly different. Right now, despite having an outline, I feel helpless, floundering on the waves of an enormous ocean, having to choose a single direction from amongst an infinite number.

I love writing short stories, but since I’ve not written a single piece longer than 8000 words before, a 30000 word novella feels intimidating. The inevitable fear, what if the story is no good?, will take a lot longer to answer. For me, the only solution is to try not to care if the story is any good or not, and to remember my purpose here is to learn.

Writing with the kids home on school holidays is also a small challenge, I must say!

* Yes, we had blackboards when I went to university. And over-head projectors. Do they still use them?

How’s Twitter Going?

So I’ve been using Twitter for a few months now, long enough for a first impression. I still regard myself as a newbie, and I’m still learning more about  it, mostly by osmosis as I explore.

Context:

I don’t like Facebook and have engaged with that very little, often not checking in for months. I don’t use Tumblr or Pinterest, or other similar sites. My main online interactions are in writing forums, which I find very useful. I’ve come to know people there whom I’ve never met in person. Also, I once ran a blog under another name where I did get to know an entire community before handing it over to others.

I have no book to promote – I’m looking for information and interaction. Though I do tweet if one of my short stories is published.

The beautiful side of Twitter

I love:

Hearing first when someone I follow is performing in Australia, so I can buy good tickets. Thanks to Twitter, I planned to be online at the right time, and bought awesome tickets to Neil Gaiman’s last reading here in Sydney.
Hearing live updates from friends I know personally who use Twitter – I love this aspect, and it’s more immediate than Facebook.
Hearing events develop live, as tweeted by people going through them. This has given situations a world away from me a vivid reality, such as the flooding in Hoboken, NY. Through Twitter, I felt connected. To me, this is one of the most important aspects of Twitter. It makes the world a smaller place and joins us in global community.
Updates on local events that affect me. Eg: Emergency warnings affected my travelling plans when holidaying in Tasmania earlier this year.
Updates from publishers whom I have submitted to or hope to submit to. I love being able to follow publishers and editors on Twitter.
Links tweeted by others who share similar interests. I couldn’t possibly look at all of these, but I like browsing them occasionally.
Hearing when an author I know or admire has released a new story or novel.
Writing industry news. For example, tweets emanating from writing conferences I can’t attend can be interesting, or award nominations and so forth.

The evil side of Twitter

It can become a gigantic spam service.

That one thing encapsulates everything I don’t like about Twitter. It makes it difficult to sort the interesting stuff from the waste-of-my-time stuff.

I like the ordinary updates from people about their days. I like the sense of a big community out there doing ordinary and extraordinary things, and having the same frustrations as myself, and the shared humanity in that.

I dislike the tweets I think are sent by Twitter bots, where the same Tweet is sent multiple times. I also dislike the tweets where someone promotes their book over and over, including multiple quotes. (‘Over and over’ being the key phrase here.) Especially when that comprises 95% of their tweets.

I dislike the public tweets that thank strings of @names for following, and clog up my feed. Unless someone is a celebrity, very witty, or sends out a lot of useful links to information, I am now suspicious of Twitter accounts with thousands of followers that seem to have been gained through bots, yet where the feeds themselves contain only hype about their books or books they are cross promoting. I have yet to want to read a single book promoted in this way, unless it is by an established author. And those authors make announcements, but don’t seem to engage in that kind of spam.

I enjoy following authors who tweet about their lives, not only their books. I want to hear when they fail at baking a cake, or when they’re out about trying new things. When I get a feel for the person, I want to celebrate with them when I hear about their award or publication.

Twitter can also suck up your time.

Any form of social media can suck all your time up if you let it. It’s important to recognise that feeling of getting sucked in when you really don’t want to be. I close Twitter if I feel that happening. I need to write more than I need to Tweet.

My own tweets:

Right now, I have a toe in the water. I don’t have a novel to promote, nor a particular issue. I tweet if I have news – if a story of mine is published, if I have a post on this blog, or about my day, or if I have a strong reaction to something. I retweet stuff I find interesting or funny, and I enjoy communicating with people I know, or people I’ve met online. However, I don’t have a particular goal right now to tailor my Twitter usage to.  For me, it’s more about connecting with people, keeping up-to-date with industry news, and for the camaraderie in an isolating endeavour.

How have you found Twitter, and how have you engaged it to suit your own needs?

‘The Kyne Extraction’ out now in Plasma Frequency Magazine Issue 5

The fifth issue of Plasma Frequency Magazine is now out, and I’m pleased to say it contains my short story, ‘The Kyne Extraction’, the log of an alien experiment. You can download it for free here, along with all the other great stories this issue is packed with, and some excellent art.

This story began with the ending. I asked myself why it had happened – and the story emerged. Although I first wrote from the human’s perspective, the story only began to work for me when I changed it to the alien point of view. That was a lot of fun to play with.

According to wikipedia, ‘kyne’ is thought by some to be a pre-modern English word for ‘cow’. I hope you enjoy the story.