Shortly after I graduated from Seton Hill University with my MA in writing, I responded to a help a reporter query from Lori A. May who was writing a book about low-residency MFA programs.

I told her how awesome the SHU program was and shared my many wonderful experiences. A few other Alumni and faculty responded as well.

The Low-Residencey MFA Handbook is now availible! If you are looking into going for an MFA in writing, go read it (especially the parts about SHU)!

This entry is cross posted at Greater Portland Scribists

Currently Reading
Fantasy:
Scholarly: Wizardry & Wild Romance, A Study of Epic Fantasy – Michael Moorcock
Writing:

Submissions out
Flash: 0
Short: 0
Agent: 0

Workshoping:
Beyond the Cemetery

Just submitted “On Fate’s Waiting List” to Beneath Ceaseless Skies!
average response time is 3-5 weeks.

If this goes poorly I’m going to think about revising this thing again…

Currently Reading:
Fantasy: Moonwise – Greer Gilman
Scholarly: Wizardry & Wild Romance, A Study of Epic Fantasy – Michael Moorcock
Writing:(I’m slacking here)

Submissions out:
Flash: 0
Short: 0
Agent: 0

Workshoping:

Greater Portland Scribists: Writing Fears: “Former literary agent Nathan Bransford recently posted a question to writers on his blog: “What is your greatest fear as a writer?” I’m goi…”

But, oh, have I been busy!

I’ve been working on this special project, and I haven’t really talked about it here yet. I believe I mentioned it two months ago (?!?) in my last post. But I thought it was time to formally cross-blog about it.

A couple writer friends and I have put together a group, Greater Portland Scribists, or GPS. We meet weekly (yes that’s why I’ve been so busy), to discuss our group progress, each other’s writing and to write. Hopefully by next summer we will be able to produce an anthology ebook of our stuff. In the mean time we are keeping our blog up to date with ebook news and weekly (Wednesday) articles written by us. I just posted yesterday myself. Go read it!

Of course, I’m also still working on getting published in the magazines and will try to publish my novel after it is revised, which I will do after I have a short story published. And my 3 year plan is to become a member of SFWA.

So with all that going on, I’ve found myself kinda burnt out of my own writing goals. Time to change that. With winter coming, I think I’ll be able to look inward and really get what I want, and soon. 🙂

Currently Reading
Fantasy: Moonwise – Greer Gilman
Scholarly: Wizardry & Wild Romance, A Study of Epic Fantasy – Michael Moorcock
Writing:(I’m slacking here)

Submissions out
Flash: 0
Short: 0
Agent: 0

Workshoping:
On Fate’s Waiting List

I’ve been working on the artisan story that got rejected by flash fiction online last March. I’ve given it a lot of thought and even workshopped it with my fellow scribists. It is now 6 pages long, and it ends. That’s right. I wrote a short story that ends. And I really love the way it is turning out.

I’ll be workshopping it with my meetup group, Rocketship Unicorn at the end of the month. And then hopefully submitting it.

Now I just need to work on rewriting my old story, The Making, from before Seton Hill. It’s a creation myth and I’ve been recently inspired on how to end it :).

I feel a trend coming on.

Currently Reading
Fantasy: Brotherhood of the Wolf – David Farland
Scholarly: Wizardry & Wild Romance, A Study of Epic Fantasy – Michael Moorcock
Writing:(I’m slacking here)

Submissions out
Flash: 0
Short: 0
Agent: 0
Workshoping:
Soul Starved

“Genre is a matter of knowledge, which some people have (e.g. those writers who produce genre fiction and those readers who make their way through it) and other people don’t. It is impossible not just to write, but to market and sell and to review or read, a crime novel (for example) without a good understanding of the history of the genre and the various ways in which it has worked. Genre, in other words, has no time for naivety or ignorance.” –POPULAR FICTION by Ken Gelder

You only think this is a post….

I’m just showing my excitement because I’m leaving for Readercon in Burlington, MA tomorrow 😀

Currently Reading
Fantasy: The Magicians – Lev Grossman
Scholarly: Wizardry & Wild Romance, A Study of Epic Fantasy – Michael Moorcock
Writing:(I’m slacking here)

Submissions out
Flash: 0
Short: 0
Agent: 0

I’ve finished writing the rough draft of my labyrinth story. 🙂 I just need to fix a ton of things and add a scene or two. Hopefully I can keep it below 5000 when I’m done revising.

I hope I don’t do what I did with this story ever again. I started writing it months and months ago. I knew the ending of it and then just got bogged down in the middle. It sat and sat and sat and I never finished it.

As a writer who tends not to write outlines, I think that by knowing the end I just wasn’t excited about writing it as I already knew what it would be. However I am using outlines more and more these days.

If I want to be a professional writer, I need to stick to the writing no matter what. I need to make myself outline and blow through the rough draft then revise. Otherwise I just won’t make the deadlines and therefore a living.

Currently Reading
Fantasy: The Magicians – Lev Grossman
Scholarly: Wizardry & Wild Romance, A Study of Epic Fantasy – Michael Moorcock
Writing:(I’m slacking here)

Submissions out
Flash: 0
Short: 0
Agent: 0

Despite not posting, I have been wandering around the words. I’ve been working on finishing my current book so I can move on. One of my resolutions is to catch up on “the classics.” By classics I mean Fantasy Classics. There are 4 or 5 books that I constantly hear about that I have never read. So I am going to remedy this.

As a writer, I sometimes feel that I don’t have a good reading background. The fantasy novels I read that made me want to be a fantasy author were inspirations, but not real heavy hitters. Another reason to which I attribute my delinquency is a slight obsession I had with reading through the authors I loved, one at a time. And I only read from my small-town public library. I’ve since given up that habit–I think college broke me of it. And now I try to read a combination of the best Fantasy coming out now, classic literature and what I call “good writers.” Good writers consists of authors whose styles are AMAZING but still didn’t win any awards.

So I’m trying to finish the Cook omnibus (and getting there) so I can move onto I think I’ll read John Crowly’s Little Big. I like to see where my next step is.

While I’m on my way, getting through the book, what happens but the lightning of inspiration strikes me down. I’ve got a really cool idea for another short story. I’m not in the writing stage yet. I’m in the stage where I’m puzzle cubing two cool ideas together. I know there’s a place for them to click. After enough “meditation” on it, I know it will click.

Off I go!

Currently Reading:
Fantasy: Chronicles of the Black Company – Glen Cook
Scholarly: The Mabinogi – Patrick K. Ford
Writing:(I’m slacking here)

Submissions out:
Flash: Soul Starved, to Flash Fiction Online
Short: 0
Agent: 0

I haven’t been posting regularly lately and for that I blame the Holidays. Too much was going on for me to reflect on my writing in addition to everything else that’s been going on. I’ll try to do better in the new year. That sounds like a resolution to me… more blogging and more um submitting…

Ok, so Christmas has come and gone and you can see down at the bottom I still haven’t submitted anything. Shame on me. But I am close. I am satisfied with the structure, the language and the pace of my story, usually my biggest weaknesses. But something is holding me up. I am incredibly dissatisfied with the end. So I’m working on that exclusively. Well maybe not exclusively to ALL else…

I’ve been doing lots of reading online lately, blogs, web zines and the like, pertaining to SFF and the writing of it. I feel like this immersing myself in the business is paying off.

What I read tonight as I put off coming up with the end of my story was very interesting. I read two interviews, one with Steven Erikson and one with Glen Cook over on Pat’s Fantasy Hotlist. Part of what makes this interesting is that they are two authors with similar work, from the same generation and both of whom I’ve read recently.

What provoked me to write this up here tonight were the similarities in their responses to similar questions.

Both authors claimed that there is a “generational difference” between when they started writing and now. Both are aged 50 + and launched their careers in the 80’s/90’s heyday of Fantasy. The differences they spoke of in each of their interviews revolved around the internet as a tool for self promotion and author/reader interaction. Both nearly verbatim to each other agreed that (paraphrased) books are the most-whole author/reader interaction. This in itself is a direct effect of the previously mentioned generational difference. What makes this interesting too is that these interviews occurred a twelve months apart from each other.

The second interesting bit my intellectual hooks clamped onto what that both authors hedged on answering queries about their own writing, evolution or strengths or weaknesses. I wonder if this is also a generational difference? I’ve heard authors praise their editors or books they’ve read since starting their writing… but not these two. ‘What are you talking about?’ or ‘I do what I want’ is about all I got from it. Cook admits to being what we call a “pantser.” I wonder what he would say to that term, or the fact that there is a term for it now.

My favorite line from Erikson’s answers: “What begins as balls ends up as confidence.”

I didn’t have a favorite line from, Cook but his punchy answers had me chuckling quite a bit.

Currently Reading:
Fantasy: Chronicles of the Black Company – Glen Cook
Scholarly: The Mabinogi – Patrick K. Ford
Writing:(I’m slacking here)

Submissions out:
Flash: 0
Short: 0
Agent: 0