I just finished two Saturdays of presentations for the APEX writers group. This is a great group of mostly science fiction and fantasy writers who are trying to learn to be better at what we do. I’ve met a lot of new friends in SFF who are, like me, interested in getting better at their creative writing.
My presentations were on Writing for Film and TV. The first one was about the field in general, answering a lot of questions about ‘who’s who’ and what ‘pitching’ is. The second presentation was on how to turn a short story into a script.
For those interested in being part of APEX, you find them at https://www.apex-writers.com/. Originated by David Farland, an award-winning writer of fantasy and science fiction, the group continues on after his passing, providing encouragement, motivation and learning opportunities for members.
#WOTF Writers of the Future 2021 Q4 – Honorable Mention for my story “The New Tudors”. This is a tale of first contact marred by a historian, leading to very strange transactions for the Trading ship, the Quotidian, and Captain Abraya.
I also added the list of local producers I met in March at the WIFT-V festival during their pitch sessions.
It was wonderful to realize that there are people actively looking for new scripts.
I’ve now sent it to producers who agreed to read it during our meeting.
I loved the experience of meeting the producers and was pleased with the level of interest the script garnered.
More Writer News
Two of my poems have been chosen to be in “Stellar Evolution” a ‘best of’ anthology coming out this Autumn/Winter in Canada. Really pleased about that!
Also, I won an Honorable Mention in the WOTF Quarter 2 results for my story “Tail Creek”. I’m still hoping to sell that one, now with the ‘win’, maybe I can.
Starting another weekend of writing. Hope to get another 2500 or so words done. I’ve plotted out the end of the novel, however I know that sometimes the characters take off on me and new stuff happens!
I’ve really enjoyed the process of publishing on Draft2Digital.com and am gearing up to do it again!
This time my plan is to publish the various short stories and poems that I’ve had success with plus some new material. This would all be science fiction and fantasy, at least in this volume. It makes sense that I republish stories that saw the light of day in the 1990s or are published in an esoteric magazine.
I’ve been working on the imprint name and logo, so I’m going to upload a few here and see how I like them. I’ve had to discard “Space Cat Books” as there just are too many like it. The logo should be good for other SFF books, if I want to venture out into being a small publisher. Also, for other volumes of ‘collected works’ by moi.
I’m liking the clean design of the small rocket logo but with the name Space & Time Books. The design is from Canva.com a terrific application for designs.
April’s NanoWriMo Camp month was good. I got about half my goal done. This is fine in my mind because I am crazy busy as usual: after day job, dance mum work and so forth, there is very little thinking time left. I’m famous at home for falling asleep on the laundry I’m folding. We had a big competition that required most of a week’s extra time and I can’t write while listening to dances in the Michael J. Fox theatre in Burnaby. Although I did keep my index cards with me and have thought of a few new plots.
My garden’s been planted now, too. That doesn’t take much effort, and I love my plots at the community garden at 39th and Alma. Sadly, it’s got a large sign up advertising the condos they’re building there. I hope we get a couple more years out of it.
Submission Portals for Short Story Writers
Just submitted some stories that had been returned. It feels good to find new market sources. I just got an account on a submission portal called:
Hey Publisher . Hey Publisher is used by only a few SFF magazines but it has some interesting entries.
I always use the terrific site The Submission Grinder created by Diabolical Plots. Initially, it took a little getting used to, and if he had more $$ it could be far sleeker, but it does the job the very best of all of them.
I love the fact that it offers me searchable SFF markets with valuable data that I like to know. For example, is a market dead? they tend to know at The Grinder. They invite updates and are open to changes. Also, the statistics are comforting. How long have they held your story? Is it typically-long for them? Or not? Lots of great data there.
Then there are the electronic submissions portals such as: Moksha and Submittable. I use these to submit when a magazine requests this. I don’t use any other services on these am not certain if they have any.
I recall receiving a survey earlier this Spring wherein they were trying to figure out if writers would pay to submit. The answer is “No”. I was not impressed. We’re mostly submitting to markets that hardly pay (at least in television $$ terms), and it’s ridiculous to also be charged to do so.
The quote in Science fiction circles is:
“The money must always flow to the writer.”
I’m sorry I can’t recall who originated that one, but it was one of the greats.
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.
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.
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!
Got this blog Google verified tonight. Not that hard to do. Working on writing a lot lately even though the day job is being stubbornly time consuming. I don’t mind 40 hours a week, but 60 recalls the bad old days of film & TV…
Accomplishments this week
Finished first draft of a new story and sent it to my beta reader.
Found out about another Polar Borealis upcoming poem publication.
Got a very nice rejection from Strange Horizons.
Sent out my On Spec and Tesseracts 22 submissions. These are important Canadian publications to be in and I hope I make it in!
Sent out another short story that is a hard one to get published. Unlike a lot of authors, I find my comic stories easier to sell than the more tragic ones.
Getting my own garden plot and going to first meeting about it.
Planted some more early flowers on balcony. I have a few 2 leaf plants now from last week’s early attempt. The petunias didn’t come up but the mixed hardy wildflowers had a few sprout!
Hyacinths almost done but were great! Street is full of cherry blossoms!
Enjoyed an hour at Southlands Nursery and bought way too much for a balcony and a small garden plot.
Emailed Garden Manager to see if I can have another plot.
