Tag Archives: short stories

The Long and Short of It.

When I was working on my first publication, Bowlful of Bunnies, I thought I’d hit on a pretty good idea. As a collection of short stories, I could easily put together a collection of the short pieces I’d been cultivating and hawking for the past ten years, and then add some newer material to the pages as well.

And I knew, when I finally published, that I wanted to put out at least one book a year, which seems like a reasonable pace, except for the fact that I’m a pretty slow writer. There are seventeen stories in BoB…seventeen stories over the course of about ten years. So when those seventeen stories are used up, what is left? I’ve been working on Serpent in a Cage for ten years, and I’m trying to push that through, but what if that’s not ready in time? What do I do then? I know I can’t pull seventeen more short stories out of my butt in less than a year.

So I got to thinking: maybe I’ll only need to produce one good short story, and I can let others do the rest of the work! Basically, in the long and short of it (ha!), I’m thinking that, if it’s looking like SiaC is still too far off, perhaps I should put together an anthology, open it up to submissions, and have people bring their own work to the table and put it together in a book.

I love anthologies; I love the variety and the introduction to new authors and it’s a great way for people to get involved. I like to think, especially if I start getting back into RoW80, that people would be interested in submitting, too. That leaves just one question, I think…

Should the anthology be themed? Or should it just be open-ended, topic-wise?

Okay, that’s two questions. But they’ve been rolling around in my brain since I thought of doing an anthology. More than likely, if I started it this year, I’d make it a annual thing, too, so having a different theme each year could be a lot of fun, while it being open-ended would allow more freedom and variety of authors.

I’d love to have some thoughts on this. Have you ever submitted for an anthology? Do you like reading anthologies? Do you find you like them more when their focused on a particular topic? What topics would you like to see?

Happy writing, everyone!

Two in a row! I’m getting back in the game. :)

Review: “Squirrel Seeks Chipmunk” by David Sedaris.

“It wasn’t the best story in the world, but, as the mouse had told him on more than one occasion, it wasn’t the worst, either.”


“Squirrel Seeks Chipmunk: A Modest/Wicked Bestiary” by David Sedaris.

I am unique. I am an individual. I want to be known for my own voice and my own creative abilities. However, if I were to aspire to be compared to any writer, David Sedaris would be toward the top of my list. I have attempted to write with the brazen whimsy and quiet wit of this man, to perhaps little success, but that’s okay, because, even though I might not be able to weave my words in the same way he may, I can always just read them.

Sedaris mostly writes memoirs, and that is mostly what I’ve read thus far. I remember hearing him read the titular tale from Squirrel Seeks Chipmunk on NPR one day, and loving it. It had the dry humor and frank honesty of his memoirs, but with an Aesop-like twist in the surprisingly human-like animal characters. And that’s the brilliant thing about these tales. Everyone knows someone like the birds that migrate to Mexico instead of Florida to brag about the exoticness. Everyone knows the motherless bear who just can’t stop seeking attention for her tragedy. Everyone has known the squirrel who, built up with fear from the status quo, cuts things short with the chipmunk. In a lot of these cases, that person might even be ourselves.

Sedaris has a gift for weaving a tale in a deceptively simple way that sheds a light of truth on the world. While I adored most of the stories in this little collection, I think I was missing some of the personal connection that really makes Sedaris’s memoirs so incredible. An incredibly cute, an incredibly quick, and a surprisingly insightful little book, highly recommended, and makes me slightly wonder if I should have my ow hand at a few witty little modern fables myself…

Books read this year: 1/100.

Free Book Giveaway!

Well, okay, not exactly free, but I did get your attention, didn’t I? Stay with me, though, it may as well be free.

So, I’ve got ten copies of my collection of short stories, Bowlful of Bunnies, to give away to interested parties. I’d love to sign them and personalize them a little bit, too, and there’s only one thing I ask in exchange. I’m looking for sincere, honest reviews of the book, posted in your blogs or on Amazon or GoodReads, or wherever you’d like, because I’d love to see a few more out there. I wasn’t able to do a lot of leg work in promoting the book before it was out, but there’s no reason why we can’t make up for lost time, right?

Interested? Let me know! Shoot me an email at ellis.engler@gmail.com and let me know where I should send the book, and I’ll send it off as soon as I’m able. There’s no obligation to write a review, or no obligation to write it quickly, it’s a pretty soft “requirement.” But if you do read it and you are able to whittle up something honest and sincere, love it or hate it, I’d love to have the word out there.

See? Pretty much free. But a writer is not much without readers, so I want to take the chance to thank everyone who’s been reading, and everyone who just may start reading sometime soon.

The Chronicles of the Missing Notebook.

So, an interesting thing happened two nights ago, as I sat down and went to type up my “at least a page” of Serpent in a Cage. I was typing away, frowning a little to myself because things weren’t panning out as I thought they had. At first, I chalked it up to that distance one gets between drafts, when the details need a lot of attention and hemming so that they fit in with the rest of the piece better. As some of you know, this version of SiaC I’m working on is actually the third draft. I had the first draft that I finished sometime in 2007 (I think), and then I was rewriting it in an attempt to revisit it. Then I decided toward the end of that draft that things weren’t working right and I scrapped the entire thing and started putting the pieces of the plot together in a different way, one that worked much better, made more sense, and was generally more enjoyable and better crafted. The evolution of this book has been astounding, and I’m pretty sure there’s more evolving ahead, too.

I’ll be honest, though; I was troubled. Anyone who follows this blog has a good idea of how important SiaC is…it’s the opening act of an opus I’ve been crafting for over a decade. Yes, as I was transcribing the draft, things didn’t seem right. Here I had restructured the whole thing to avoid the wavering plot from collapsing, and yet I was getting those same feelings that made me stop with the second draft. What was happening? Did I need to reconsider and restructure the plot yet again, as the opening was struggling to reach the pitch that I thought I had accomplished in the rewrite?

And then a thought hit me: was this the rewrite?

Cue frantic flipping through the pages, hoping to find a part that I knew for certain was cut or completely changed. I find the evidence and realize that this whole time, more than 20,000 into transcribing it, I was working with the second draft the whole time.

And then another thought hit me: wait. Where’s the third draft???

Cue frantic scavenging through the library, which is currently still covered in strewn-about notebooks as though some literary hurricane swept through. My heart sank to the bottom of my toes as I realized I had located all of the little notebooks I used for that draft to discover that none of them contained the rewrite. It was gone. I couldn’t find it anywhere. Maybe it was elsewhere, but, right then, I had to bolster myself for the hard truth that Serpent in a Cage might have to find itself facing a fourth draft, and this one relatively from scratch as I wanted to follow the new plotline, not the old.

Maybe I knew things would work out well, or that I’d eventually find it, because I didn’t feel too stressed about it. Maybe it just hadn’t registered yet. But when I sat down at my computer and looked over and saw two other notebooks I had previous forgotten about because they weren’t in the library, my heart leaped. I reached for one, flipped it open, and let out a relieved sigh to discover those familiar words of the third draft staring back at me. The clouds broke and sunbeams burst down, despite it being night time by then, and the angels were a-singing. Hallelujah!

I only have to retype 20,000 words to be back where I was…

…Ahhhh, writing.

Considering the third draft is in tact and I don’t have to completely rewrite it, things turned out well, but it was definitely one of those moments that encapsulates, for me, what a weird profession this is. Has anyone else ever had this happen to them? Or other similar stories about missing drafts, working on the wrong thing for a certain amount of time, or just plain stupid things while writing?

I have to say, one happy side-effect of this whole adventure is that I”m even more excited to get to the actual transcribing now, with the scrapped second draft so fresh in my head! Wish me luck!

And don’t forget! There are three more days left for submitting your poems and stories to my autumn anthology! Will I receive enough to publish them? Time will tell! Get those submissions in!

The 100 Books Project: Tune in Toyko.

“Oh, and Brad Pitt would not play me in the movie adaptation. Sandra Bernhard will.”


“Tune In Tokyo: The Gaijin Diaries” by Tim Anderson

The ghost of David Sedaris haunts the pages of Tim Anderson’s Tune In Tokyo. Okay, no, David Sedaris is (thankfully) not dead, but his own memoirs and experience in culture shock, especially in Me Talk Pretty One Day seemed to reverberate through the words written by Anderson, right down to the fact that Anderson, like Sedaris, is incredibly awkward, decidedly nerdy, and very gay. And while Anderson seems to trade out some of Sedaris’s wit and prowess with a little bit more blatant love for pole-smoking, the similiaries are still strong and make for a great, amusing memoir, while, at the same time, convincing me that, hey, if these two can do it, I can do it, too.

I mean, I’m pretty far removed from a sassy gay man in a long-term relationship living in a foreign country, but I’ve got a quirky story or two up my sleeve, too.

Anyway, though, enough about me. This is about Tune In Tokyo, not its ability to remind me of David Sedaris and wonder if I could write a collection of humorous vignettes about my own adventures in life and love. Tune in Tokyo is a great little book, filled with interesting stories that definitely reignited my interest in one day going over and visiting Japan. Having been a little bit of an anime nerd in my past, there wasn’t anything particularly shocking or surprising in any of Anderson’s culture shock adventure, but they were still quite entertaining and he writes with a deft humor that, while not always as on point as, say, David Sedaris, usually gets a grin out of me. One of my favorites is the tale of his visiting a student of his who is helping him with his Japanese, too, and the crises he meets as he tries to determine what is proper and polite in Japanese society and how it weighs against what he would like to do…and then an ultimate discovery that leaves him devastated after the fact.

In general, though, Anderson’s vignettes left me wanting more. Not necessarily in the sense that I wanted more of his work, but mostly just that I wanted a little more flesh to the stories. I wanted to know more about the cadre of friends that appear briefly on his adventures. Some of the stories end just as you feel they’re about to get started. You’re more often than not left with some misty haze of an experience rather than feeling as though the whole event has come about in a well-rounded and satisfying way. Having since taken a stab at a memoir-like story, I can understand that the worry about being too detailed and too drawn out can probably stay a pen pretty well, but I think Anderson could have given us more.

Ah, well. I guess I’ll just have to go there myself and take care of it that way, right?

Books read: 32/100.

And remember! There are still five days left in my Autumn Anthology Contest! The more entries I receive, the more likely the chances that the anthology will make it to print, so get those short stories and poems in! Pester your friends to submit their stories! Flood my inbox (ellis.engler@gmail.com) with tales that will make me not want to sleep tonight! You know you want to.

The “Look” Challenge.

Over at Frame Tale, Kate did a challenge post that she had come across that I just had to give a stab at myself. I love these little games, where you get the chance to showcase a little bit of your work. It’s also pretty useful for those days when you don’t have much else to write about, either.

So here’s how it works:

Take your current manuscript and find the first instance of the word “look”. Then post the surrounding paragraphs as an excerpt of the book on your blog. Lastly, tag five more blogging authors who you think would be a good choice for the game.

What I have typed of Serpent in a Cage right now is a hot mess; I’ve been doing my thing where I inflate the paragraphs to whittle down into more concise words later, but it didn’t seem fair to skip it entirely since a variation of the word “look” appears in the first page. However, I didn’t want to leave it at just a really rough draft, so I’m including Bowlful of Bunnies to it, too. Which also has a variation of “look” right at the beginning. Perhaps something I need to look into not doing so much…

Anyway, without any further ado, here’s a little snippet of Serpent in a Cage‘s rough draft, built around the word “look,” which so happens to be the beginning prologue, heavy and dense as it is in its current unedited state:

      “When she pulled her arm back, tearing the blade away from the soft, warm body, she just wanted it to be over. She wanted to collapse and close her eyes and finally rest, letting the weight of her steel drag her down to the floor, where she wouldn’t have to get up again until she was good and ready. The sweltering heat of the fire was almost as suffocating as the thick smoke that filled the air and choked her lungs, made her eyes sting and start to water. Overhead, the rafters strained with a loud, threatening crack, struggling to keep the roof held under the intensity of the heat. Underneath, there were pitiful groans from the scattering of bodies left for dead. It was a nightmare, something out of a hideous dream, and she just wanted to fall back and let it finally end. Close her eyes and perhaps, when she opened them again, it turned out it was all just a figment of twisted imagination after all.
      But she couldn’t stop. She had to keep focused, she had to keep moving. She had to find the others and make sure they were safe. Auferrix Ferrore gave her sword arm a quick jerk, shedding off some of the wet blood from the blade before it started to stick. Splatters of it landed in the fire and hissed like serpents.
      “Kadue!” she lifted her voice, calling out over the chaos and destruction. Smoke rushed into her lungs, and she gasped from the sudden pain, fighting against a cough. Scanning the area, looking for him, was useless; her eyes were so damp from the stinging smoke that they rendered her blind. She staggered forward, exhausted but determined. If only she could find a way out! In the fresh air of the cool evening, she could collect her thoughts and her wits. She could breathe and begin to see more clearly.
      The smoke was so dense, so thick, that she didn’t even notice the big, hulking man in front of her until she had practically collided into him. She stopped just short of contact; he has his arms lifted over his head, ready to plunge his axe down into a figure on the ground. Panic swelled inside of her as she realized she had no idea if the attacker was one of her own or one of the enemy, but if she did not act, the person on the floor would be just as dead. She moved on instinct, trusting her gut feeling and praying to the gods that she was right. It was justice; it was defending those who could not defend themselves, not matter what their position in this crazy war might be.
      “Firae, give me strength,” she whispered, as she always did before she braced herself for an attack. The axe started to fall, but it didn’t get far. Every action except the bulging of the man’s eyes stepped suddenly as Auferrix drove her blade firmly through his shoulder blades, through his heart, and then out on the other side. The tip dinted against his armor, and she yanked her blade out again.
      A moment passed where the man seemed to be suspended only by the last thin thread of Life, and he fell into a crumpled mass at Auferrix’s feet. She looked down on the poor, lifeless bastard, feeling only a small bit of pity while the heat swelled behind her with a crackle of fallen wood. After nudging the body with her toe, he thrust out her hand to the cowering person she had just saved, hoping she had slain the right one.
      “Come on,” she ordered, firmly, but hurriedly. The smoke had cleared enough that she could now recognize the face gawking up at her. Not his name, but definitely the person, the owner of the tavern they were in, the owner of the tavern burning down into a bloody rubble around them. She closed her eyes a moment to thank the gods and pushed her hand closer when he didn’t grab it. He was in a state of shock, that much was clear, having expected to be cleaved in half by the man between them. Auferrix barked out her next words to get him back to reality. “We have to get you out of here.”

And, as a bonus, here are a few paragraphs surrounding the first instance of “look” in Bowlful of Bunnies, which happens at the beginning of the first story, Dragon Rising, which means it’s nothing special because it’s exactly what you’d read in the book preview, lol:

     Possum, Rabbit, and Prairie Dog had all gone to the river to do the washing, and I had followed to watch them. The sun was bright in the cornflower sky, and hot, so after they had dunked the clothes in the gentle rushing stream, after they had scrubbed and scrubbed and scrubbed, they laid them out on the big flat rocks that had been soaking up the sun’s heat. There, the clothes would dry, basking like salamanders, and the girls would splash around in the water themselves, laughing and playing, tossing handfuls at each other until they were drenched and cooled. Then they, too, settled down in the long grass, turned their browned faces toward the sun and soaked it up.
     Quiet and still, I crouched next to a boulder too tall and round to be used for drying, underneath a fern for further shelter. I curled my tail in, which was the only way I could prevent it from twitching happily at the serenity of the scene. They had no idea I was watching; the three of them were such pleasure seekers that they had none of the carefulness and caution of their friends, who would have surely caught me. Rabbit was perhaps the most skittish of them, and her bright brown eyes flicked my way on occasion, her pert little nose wrinkling as it tried to pick up the scents carried on the wind. Mostly, though, it was just the sweet grass and the soap still floating by on the river, the fresh linen and the lavender flowers from up the hill.
     She looked at me at least three times, straight at me, without seeing me. My ears pressed back with the pleasure of my successful camouflage. The others wouldn’t even believe me when I told them that I was peering into the intimate, quiet respite of these three bright-eyed girls, knowledge so valuable that I would instantly be skyrocketed up in their ranks. If only Deer and Fox had laundry duties today! They, out of all the girls in the village, were easily the most eagerly sought after. Next time, perhaps I should try my stealth in the kitchens or the temples to see what other wonderful things girls did when they were alone, but I couldn’t imagine anything as splendid as their splashing and laughing, their hair catching in the sun as they tossed it freely around.
     And then they began to talk.

So there you have it. Apparently, “look”s appear pretty quickly in my work, and I hope you all enjoyed this…look (ah-ha!) of Serpent in a Cage. Don’t forget, I’ve got a really cool scary story/mystery contest running until the end of September. I’ll even give you a new prompt with the following picture, found at favim.com, accompanied with the word “clandestine“:

And, lastly, I have a few new subscribers! Hooray! So a shout out and a thank you to Meghan Elizabeth, Amber West, and Cheryl Moore! So good to have you all along!

An Autumnal Antholgy Contest.

After giving it some thought, I’ve decided that I’m going to go ahead and do it. I’m going to hold a writing contest. This thought seems new and strange to me, though, really, it shouldn’t, since I produced an anthology for my writing group in college, though that wasn’t so much of a contest as all of us submitting our best work to show off. Still, the idea of asking people to submit their work so that I can cleave their blood, sweat, and tears into a collection under my publishing brand seems like a pretty weighty and presumptuous task. But you know what? I’m going to do it anyway. I know I leap at the chance to try to get into these sorts of things when they crop up; why wouldn’t other people be the same?

So I’m here to announce the opening of my contest to build a great Autumnal anthology of stories in horror and mystery genre. The idea was inspired by my roommate, who suggested I put together a collection of stories to be released on Halloween after yet another inspiring episode of SyFy’s FaceOff. Knowing fully well how I work, I knew I couldn’t put together a few stories (much less more!) by the time Halloween rolled around, so I thought perhaps I could get one or two stories out, and the rest can be filled in with the works of other people. I really love the idea of throwing together an anthology of stories, and I knew I wanted to do one eventually, so why not now?

Why not now, indeed! So here’s how it works. Submissions will be accepted between Wednesday, September 12th and Sunday, September 30th. I know this isn’t a very long contest, but hopefully it’s not so short that my readers and fellow writers won’t have something to submit. All submissions must be in short story format, though there will be no word count limits. Anything from flash fiction to just short of a novella will be considered. The only restriction is genre. This is a Halloween collection, so please submit your best scary stories, ghost stories, murder mysteries, or anything else that might be suitable for a collection intended to thrill and chill.

Submissions will be reviewed through the first week of October, and the slated publication date for the anthology will be October 31st, 2012. Unfortunately, at this time, I cannot offer monetary compensation for winners of the contest, but I will gladly reward winners with several print copies when they are ready (I would offer ebook copies, but I’m still not sure how to do those free yet). Hopefully, this is a great chance to get some work published and out there, even if in a small and fledgling little compilation.

Please email submission to ellis.engler@gmail.com in a Word doc or Text file. Every day of the contest (or just about), I’m planning on posting a prompt if you’d like inspiration. I’d love to have the submissions be inspired by the prompts, but it is not a prerequisite for eligibility. Stories that do take advantage of the prompts, however, will likely have a higher chance in consideration.

Submit as many stories as you’d like. If you really want to wrestle the challenge and get mega accolades, take on the challenge of writing a story for each prompt! This aspect of the contest is inspired by the contest Morgan Dragonwillow ran a while ago; I think I made it through a week before I fell out of the “story every day” part, but, boy, even if that anthology didn’t take off, a lot of really great stories came out of it! So challenge yourself, even if you’re not going to submit, because you never know what might come out of the efforts.

In the event that I feel there is not enough material submitted to warrant an anthology, I will instead choose to honor those who did offer up their work in some way on the blog.

In the meantime, let’s start with the prompt that started it all, from the Pirate episode of Sy Fy channel’s wonderful special effects make-up show, Face Off. The following image is the brilliant work of Sarah Elizabeth. And, the “inspirational” word to go along with it, to be used by itself or in conjunction with the image, will be “urchin.”

Happy writing! I can’t wait to see what everyone comes up with!

RoW80 Check-In: What Happened to the Weekend?

“     ‘We’re paying you to care about rescuing the girl,’ Estialog stated simply. ‘What happens afterwards is categorically none of your business.’
     ‘And if we have a moral concern?’
     Tayahyla snorted again, but held back comment. ‘An odd bunch of brigands,’ Estialog murmured, ‘to be concerned with morality.’
     ‘We never claimed to be typical.’”

As I was writing the title of this Wednesday’s Round of Words in 80 Days check-in, I’m thinking to myself, “But, L, it’s Wednesday. You’re halfway to the next weekend already.” And that just really highlights how busy last weekend has felt, in the fact that my brain is still back there on Sunday or something, while time rushes on through to the next weekend.

I’m used to the weekends being busy and a little crazy; it’s par for the course when you work in retail, and it’s usually the weekdays that mean relaxation, especially the earlier, mid-week days that aren’t so hot for shopping. There’s a lot of crazy, exciting things going on where I work, so everything’s in a whirlwind, things are really crazy, and I was really looking forward to spend today getting back in touch with my writing, and then a coworker asks if I can cover for her tonight. Sigh. This means working six days this week, including one day for 9 hours in an 11 hour span (I got a 2 hour break in between, half of which was driving between locations). I want to shake my fists and just yell “ARRRGGGH,” but I know that this is just the start. There’s a good chance things will get crazier, so I’m bracing myself.

And using all the wonderful writing and reading to keep myself centered and Zen. Everyone’s been noting how I really seem in control of my shit lately, and I intend to keep in control and ride through the chaos like an unfappable breeze of serenity. And I think it’s my writing and the fact that, no matter what happens with my Day Job, things are happening with my Dream Job, too, and that’s just incredible.

The print proof for Bowlful of Bunnies arrived the other day, which is such a trip. I took it to work and showed it off to everyone, too, but I think I want a much smaller size, so today I’m reformatting and resubmitting it for review. Part of my brain wanted to just go with what I have now, but then I had to remind myself that patience is a virtue. While it would be exciting to start shilling this print version now, it’s much better to make sure it’s exactly what I want it to be before I let it out in the world. CreateSpace was incredibly fast…much quicker than they had projected…so I doubt I’d have to wait too long again. Plus, the excitement gets me in a fabulous mood, and, whenever I start to get irritated, all I have to do is think about how, in a few days, I’ll have a print proof of my potential book that people without Kindles can actually buy, whaaaaaat?

I’ve been plugging along with Serpent in a Cage, too, finally getting to the point where I think the dragging middle expositionary section gets back into the action again, which should pick things up. I played around with the idea of bringing in Tayahyla as a narrator again, but I think three is enough for now. Her story can be told better in the next book. I’m also poking at Soulless, the haunted house, and the western with dragons a little bit, too, and wondering if I should skip NaNoWriMo this year or go for it. There’s still time, I must remind myself. People are already talking about it, though, which gets me flailing slightly. I have trouble refusing a challenge when it’s presented, yet maybe I should force myself to show some restraint. We shall have to see.

I’ve still got those book reviews to do (I’ve realized that I’ve been putting them off because I don’t particularly like doing negative reviews, and these ones are not glowing, no), but, other than that, all my attention has been mostly on BoB and SiaC and this craziness that is my life lately. Next week, I might be taking what I’m going to call a brief “writer’s retreat” for a few days, and that should definitely help me anchor my center through the chaos…and allow me some uninterrupted, undistracted chunks of time for writing!

How everyone else doing? Did you get a chance to check out any other RoWers today? (If not, you can find them here!) I’m off to do more formatting and reading and scribbling.

Happy writing!

RoW80 Check-In: Microsoft Word Hates Me.

“Thankfully, Taluin had enough compassion and empathy to know what he meant without him having to say. ‘Oh, Locke,’ she said, her voice catching, breaking in her throat. ‘You were her world.’”

So, some of you may have been reading about my recent awesomeness revolution lately; some of you may not. In a nutshell, life is awesome right now, but that doesn’t necessarily translate into some epic progress on my Round of Words in 80 Days goals, and that’s okay. I’ve been making some steady page-a-day progress on Serpent in a Cage, and that has been most of my writing focus lately.

I’ve attempted to work on some short stories and typing up some of the first part of SiaC, but my computer has been acting a little…strange whenever I use Microsoft Word. I’ll get maybe half a page or so into typing, and some virus or some glitch in my computer is causing the Save As screen to pop up. I save frequently, so, at first, I thought I was just clicking it, but this is not the case. And then I go to save, and the window prompt keeps showing up, until I have to shut the program down entirely. It’s odd, it’s strange, it’s possibly something potentially harmful, but it’s an old, battered laptop, and that’s bound to happen eventually. Right now, I don’t want to deal with it, so I just do what I can and then call it a day when it pops up.

Nothing too exciting, then. I’m in the phase where it’s mostly just write, write, write, so I’m trying to use my time not at the notebook getting back into the blogging community and picking at a few short stories so I can start submitting to magazines again.

I would like to throw out a question, though: Anyone know of any good contests going on right now? Even if it’s just something to help prompt me…I know the contest Morgan Dragonwillow ran ages ago inspired a lot of really great new work from me. I’m looking for something like that to spark my creativity again, so if you can think of anything, please pass it along! I’d love to get back into something like that, but my focus is all skewed and I might need a little help.

How is everyone else doing? Have you had a chance to check in with any other RoWers (it’s real easy, you can just go here!). I’ve got the next three days off, so I’m really looking forward to a lot of Happy Writing!

Before I go, though, I’ve got a new follower to welcome to the blog. Hi, f-Stop fun! Thanks so much for subscribing!

RoW80 Check-In: It’s Sunday Already?

“‘Locke!’ Taluin’s voice was suddenly a whip, sharp and commanding…and stinging, too. ‘Don’t ever say something like that again! They were your parents; it’s your history. You should ask! Ask everything; you have a right ot know, and no one can blame you for your curiosity. Ask. Especially since I have answers. Please, ask, but one question at a time!’”

This week was certainly a whirlwind for me! It’s hard to believe that it’s already Sunday and time for another Round of Words in 80 Days check-in; it feels like I was just whipping one of these Sunday check-ins the other day. I think that’s a good thing, over all. I think it’s nicer to have a week fly by than to have one that just seems to drag on and on, even if I feel I haven’t been as productive as I could have been. I haven’t been a complete loss, though, like last weekend.

Nothing too thrilling has been happening as far as my goals are concerned. I’m getting the first part of Serpent in a Cage typed up to sort of get a head start on typing it all up when it’s finished. I’m thinking of running the same sort of contest I ran with Battarack Girls: encourage a little spike in Bowlful of Bunnies‘s sales which lead to a reveal of the prologue. I’m also scribbling away in the main text, on one of my favorite chapters where Locke learns about his mother from Taluin, and it’s all heart-tugging and you just want to give him a great big old hug.

I’ve been working a little bit on some short stories, too. Not much, and my classic dilemma of being able to start things without finishing them is ringing true. So, I have a lot of stories started, but not a whole lot of them finished. One needs to be polished and sent out, though, so there’s something. I’m hoping to poke at them a little bit more on my upcoming days off, but most of my energy on days when I work has been channeled into SiaC.

I’ve been trying to be better about visiting my fellow RoWers lately, too (you can find them all here!), as well as doing plenty of reading and what have you. Quite a few good things have been happening in life in general, balanced out with some not so good things, so right now I’m feeling a pretty decent zen about everything. I’m not sure I really feel about delving into the depths of my brain with everything going on, but I do know that I can say there might be some really, really interesting things coming my way. Of course, usually when I say that, things tend to plod on as usual, but maybe this time I’ll actually be right.

How are things going for you? Have you ever had something going on in your life that you wanted to tell people about, but knew it was more prudent to just wait and see? I hate waiting, but at least the zen helps me keep my patience in check.