I am impressed with the amount of snow we had this week.
Category: about writing
February 2019 Year of the Pig!
Happy Chinese New Year! We are experiencing a few days of below zero cold! But the sunsets are great!
Creative – Have been reading a bit more lately. I think it’s important to read within your genre as well as outside it. I find as a busy professional single mum with a child to raise, I’m already heavily scheduling time to write my creative work in. Therefore, it’s even harder to find time to keep up with reading!
It is easier because my genre is science fiction and fantasy (SFF). I do love getting free books, like the ones http://www.tor.com gives away monthly. These give me a feel of some of the best writers and novel series out there. There are real disadvantages to writing without knowledge of what else is out there.
Projects on the go:
Got an idea for a tv series yesterday… which I may write up. I’ve wanted to have a pitch ready for a full new tv series for a while. The ones I have now don’t have pilot scripts with them.
Got my first short story drafted for 2019. It’s not done yet and was helped (research-wise) by a Monty Don British gardening show I watched in the middle of the night…so that tells you it’s going to be a fantasy story.
January 2019
It’s been a foggy day here. Plus we had some bad weather that brought down one of the gigantic trees on Larch Street.
Creatively still awaiting word from some magazines, and sent out a new story today. I was struck by how much work rewriting is. Typically I do a rewrite when a story comes back unsold. Also, on tv shows I’ve worked on, the scripts have usually been rewritten maybe 10 times. This is beyond the legal drafts and polishes specified in the contracts, these are the showrunner or story editor passes. So, I’ve always been sceptical of the school of thought that says write it once, then revise once and you’re done. Maybe, too it’s about the style of story one is telling. So some stories are not that complicated I guess.
December 2018
I’ve been busy lately. The creative work got pushed to the back burner for a while. However, I completed and sent out two new stories in the last couple of months. So that’s progress. I received good news regarding a reprint of a story. Plus, an editor has asked me to rewrite a story that he liked but found some difficulty with, so I’m hoping I ultimately sell that. I’m pleased to hear from a Canadian magazine that my story is in the last selection round there. Crossing my fingers because if I get into that magazine, it’s a new one to me and very well distributed. December 9th – I had another ‘2nd round’ email which makes me very happy as this one was for a prestigious USA magazine!
This morning I received my contract for the poem “Dangerous Gods” to be published in Polar Borealis #8 this month. So I’m excited about that.
Also, it’s the holiday season and I’ll take some time off my day job to work on creative endeavors.
October, 2018
It’s been a sad month really. My father died and although he was 89 and had a full and interesting life, I still mourn him as does my kid. I did the tribute for him and the PowerPoint they used at the funeral. I felt like that was a fitting response. He had a good funeral, which tells you how old I’m getting. No one young can understand the concept of a ‘good’ funeral.
Here’s one of my favorite photos of Dad, that I’d never seen as a kid.
September
I’ve been busy and haven’t updated the blog in a while. I just found a new app to do images with so have been playing with @canva. I hope it’s better than @piccollage, which I love but isn’t that sophisticated. So here are some images from our summer vacation. It was a bittersweet vacation. I love seeing my relatives and friends, but my father’s 89 and slipping away from us now due to cancer. So it was sad but I was very glad I splurged out to take us there. Plus, we did a lot of enjoyable visiting.
“Card” Nominated for 2018 Aurora Award
I’m very please to announce that my poem, “Card” was nominated for a 2018 Aurora Award. Please vote and show your appreciation for Canadian SF. There are categories for novel, YA novel, short fiction, graphic novel, best related work (magazine publication), visual presentation (TV, film, theatre), artist, fan writing & publication, fan organizational, and fan related work.
To vote, go to https://prixaurorawards.ca/
There you can become a member of CSFFA for $10, if you are a Canadian citizen or landed immigrant. The site has online forms that make joining, paying, nominating and voting very easy.
Voting begins July 28th and members get to download a Voters Package with all the materials in it. It’s a great read!
@PrixAuroraAward will be held this year at VCON in Richmond, BC – @VCON
