Weekly update #1

(1) Story finished, mailed to market
(1) rejection for LSCTS received.

School started this week, so I've felt slammed, so not much writing has occurred. However, the story mentioned above was completed and mailed this week, so I'm counting it, even though it was actually written in December.

I am nearly done with whatever it is I'm doing with Something. Mapping out the chapters is somewhat useful, but now I need to get them in order and fill in the blanks. I do want to finish the book by the end of the month (which, if you look in this blog's archives, is what I wanted to do with LSCTS, last year...not very successfully).

I have a friend who says he wants to trade a chapter for a poem. He likes the way I edit/critique/revise his poems, and I value his opinion on writing, so it might work out. He's not much of a genre fiction fan, though, so I have to remember that when I read his responses. :)

So, not bad for the first seven days of the month. whoopee.

m

Weekly update

This week, I got a novel rejection from Simon and Schuster, but whichever little intern read it, carefully folded the packet and stuffed it into my #10 SASE! Bonus. I had a glimmer of misguided hope when I held the weighty envelop in my hand, though.

I also received an email confirmation from Tin House that they had entered my (snail-mailed) story into their online submission form. It should be easier to track, I suppose.

I am mailing a fantasy story tomorrow to a fantasy magazine, though I have since realized that the story is actually the first vignette of the novel I'm going to write for NaNoWriMo. Dragons meet Outbreak meets Jurassic Park. Should be fun to write. :)

Writing-wise, I started a story about a girl and some alpacas, which wants to become My Friend Flicka with alpacas. I'm pretty sure I can sell a story to an alpaca magazine I subscribe to, but as a novel idea, it'll have to wait until after Nano.

The NaNo class begins on Tuesday! Yikes! That means I only have two weeks to commit to a novel idea (Dragons Amok is only the leading contender), and I have to finalize what I'm going to teach. I've got the first couple weeks under control, but it's the four in November that I really need to plan out before they happen. I'll be too busy to plan once NaNo start.

By the way, anyone who wants to follow me on the NaNo website, my handle is "marenster," just like it is on Twitter.

That's all for now!
m