Bliadhna mhath ùr a-huile duine! Happy New Year everyone!
Tentacles and Bagpipes (sounds like the name of a pub)
First of all, my big news is that The Drabblecast accepted my “Earth Music” story!!! I am truly thrilled. This is a story I’ve previously blogged about writing and editing (also known as my alien and bagpipes story). It began about a year ago on 1 January 2012, whilst I was attending a “First Footing” event and thinking about a writing prompt from Cat Rambo’s SF&F class.
If you aren’t familiar with Drabblecast.org, you should be! Check out their short story podcasts – it’s free and awesome! They really live up to their byline, “strange stories written by strange authors for strange listeners”. To be perfectly honest, not all of the stories appeal to my personal taste (I suppose my strangeness is not fully developed), but all of them are beautifully produced. I am honored that they accepted my story, and I can’t wait to listen to it (so far I don’t know when that will be).
Miriah in (beginning) Archery Class
A little over a year ago I sent in my first story submission – and got my first rejection from Daily Science Fiction on 20 December 2012! The email print-out is prominently displayed over my desk, next to a framed copy of my first acceptance.
My stats for the past year:
Acceptances: 2
Rejections: 12
Pending: 1
Number of different stories submitted: 5
(Writing-rpg posts: a little over 100)
I will resist (sort of) the temptation to make a list of New Year’s resolutions about writing. “Resolution” seems like one of those ill-fated words. A word destined to result in failure, a word that weighs you down with its negative subtext.
Instead I’m going to declare some writing Intentions for the New Year. These are my personal goals, subject to change and in effect only for so long as they motivate me in a positive way!
Writing Intentions (NOT resolutions) for 2013
1. Write AND submit ten new short stories (goal: one a month)
2. Finish the first draft of my novel (goal: 2,000 words per week)
3. Blog more frequently (goal: weekly)
What writing intentions/goals have you set for yourself in 2013?
Happy Writing!
viewpoints 
Is it acceptable to ask how NaNoWriMo went?
If you can provide guidance on how to blog (in Gaelic, for me) more frequently, that would be appreciated!
Fáilte Geoff! I blogged about how NaNoWriMo went on 5 December, “Nano Excuses”. How it went can be inferred by the title:-)
To be honest, I’m not sure exactly how I’m going to achieve that “blogging more frequently” goal! I’ll see you at “first footing” if you’re there, and in the mean time I’ll send you an email;-)
If you want blogging ideas, you might try plinky.com. They have a daily question/statement to give you something to blog/journal about.
If you just need more time to blog (like me!), well, I can’t help with that. I’m in the same boat. LOL.
Congratulations on your published pieces, by the way! I’ve heard It’s harder to get short stories picked up than novels. And when you start to query your novel, you can list your published pieces and that will give you a leg up.
HI Keri! Thank you for the plinky.com idea. I had not heard of that site before, and even if I don’t use it for blogging prompts, there are still plenty of great ideas there. For instance, I could write answers to the plinky questions from the POV of a character I’m developing;-)
I like writing short stories because (I think) it helps me improve my writing. One of the things I’ve learned from being a First Reader for Strange Horizons, often an author’s cover letter bio doesn’t even get read until after the story. So I think author “credits” are secondary to a great story.
I like the idea of doing the Plinky prompts from the POV of your character! I’ve sometimes thought it might be funny to do Facebook posts or Tweets by my characters. (Mainly because I have a hard time thinking of interesting things to post there.)
When you query for novels, almost no one wants to see any part of your actual story–not at first. Agents want a letter of 250-300 words telling them what you’ve written and who you are so they can decide whether or not to spend their time reading your stuff. So your publishing credits will have a lot of weight then; seeing that you’ve been published before (especially if it’s in magazines they’re familiar with, have a similar readership to what they publish, etc.) will encourage them to actually read your stuff.
Hi Miriah. I’d glad you found my site, because that let me find yours :-)
While blogging may be fun, it leads some to forget that the fiction writing should be scheduled first and the goofy blogging stuff (which is way easier for me, at least) later. Sigh. Which means, back I go to the computer. Right now. After I finish this cup of tea…