End of the Year Push

I banged out about 5000 words in the past three days, almost half of it yesterday. Finished the story I had been struggling with for the past two weeks, and more importantly, I surpassed 102,000 short story words for the year with three writing days left.

I only have about three more short fiction pieces I want to write before I turn my attention back to long fiction. On deck is the end of the year challenge from Liberty Hall, which is being run in conjunction with Shimmer magazine. In this challenge, the story should be triggered by a painting that will grace the cover of the magazine. Of course, most of those folks are fantasy writers, and it's been difficult for me to put an sfnal spin on it, but I have an idea solidifying.

I also want to write a short-short for a certain themed children's magazine, and I have the misty beginnings of a sfnal story involving W. A. Mozart near the end of his life. When I finish those, I'll turn my attention to redrafting my novel Neanderthal Swan Song. I'd like to have that finished before the kids get out of school for the summer.

Carl Sagan

I've posted my contribution to the Carl Sagan bloggathon on my Scottsdale Republic blog. You can read those comments here.

Reanna's on a Roll

My daughter, Reanna, just had a poem titled "The Air" accepted by Wee Ones magazine for their Kids Korner section. It will appear in their Jan/Feb 2007 issue.

Progress

I sit here waiting for the last minutes to tick away before I get the stuff removed from my face. I managed to write 974 words last night, despite my malaise and discomfort. I finished the story I had in progress. I proofed it this morning and mailed it off to F&SF. I've got about 4000 words to hit my goal of 100K for the year. With two weeks left in the year, it should be pretty easy to hit that goal.

Clear those sinuses

Yesterday, I went in for sinus surgery. People with bad allergies have a tendency to grow polyps in their sinuses, and this was the case for me. Even on the best of days, I sounded congested, and I've struggled with this since I was 16, maybe earleir. Now, at age 41, I did something about it.

I underwent three hours of computer guided surgery via cat-scan. The whole set-up is pretty slick, even if it requires the patient wear vice grips on their head. It doesn't matter much, the patient is unconscious.

I'm recovering today with plastic tubes in my nostrils and gause over the end of my nose. I won't describe this in any more detail because it will turn your stomach. I've recovered enough that the hardware is the most irritating part. I'm still tired and slow, but mostly I want this stuff off and out of my face. It will be removed tomorrow just before lunch, and supposedly I'll feel a lot better after that.

Submitted a story to Writers of the Future today. It's not the one I had been working on. Instead, I sent a short novelette that I couldn't send anywhere else because all my other options are currently saturated. I want to try to finish up the story in progress this weekend. I'm closing in on that 100K for the year.

Double Sale!

I sold a story called Little Dark Nebula to Beyond Centauri toappear in the July 2007 issue. What makes this story particularly special is that it will appear in the same issue as a poem my daughter wrote. That's right, Reanna's poem Fade Away will appear in the same issue!

I'm so psyched to have a father-daughter combo!

Scottsdale Republic Blog

My Scottsdale Republic blog is here.

It's a-comin'

Monday, I spent an hour at the Scottsdale office of the Arizona Republic, learning how to use their blogging software. Actually, it was mostly listening to trivium, but regardless, I now have a local blog. The thing should go live later this week, targeting tomorrow evening. When I have the chance, I'll post a link here. When I have more time, I'll add it to the list at right. You can always get there from my home page, once I add that link, that is.

Audrey played her winning flute solo at the school band concert last night. She played a 3-minute solo in front of a standing-room-only crowd. That's a pretty tall order for an 11-year-old. However, she played almost flawlessly and received a raucous ovation when she finished. I can imagine how good that must have felt. Amazingly, she's very modest about her talent. She's no braggart, and a performer should have humility.

Fantasy?

Last night, I put the finishing touches on my first pure fantasy story, "The Great Basilisk Race." I mailed it off to Realms of Fantasy this morning. I'm about 7000 words short of my goal for the year, and not making much progress lately due to other commitments. Likely I can hammer that out in one story, but right now I'm in one of those ruts where I don't have a story in mind. It can take up to three days for me to get going again. Once I get going, I usually get three or four ideas and fall into my next rut when I exhaust those.

I made a goal of 5000 words per week for 2007. that equates to well over 300K for the year. With everything else in life, I'm not sure if I'll hit that. I'm only at about 1100 for this week. I should have fewer ruts in 2007 since I'll largely work on long fiction. Two novels alone should account for 200K.