April 14, 2018

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.

February 2015

It’s spring weather here in Vancouver. Time to get focused for the writing year.
I have put a lot on my plate, but for me this is the way to do things. I never really know what’s gonna turn out the very best, but if I concentrate on one project, sometimes that one goes nowhere. It’s better to have several ongoing. I think this also helps me to create excitement in my own head.

The novel needs to be done and rewritten. I’m now aiming for the end of the first draft, hard. Then I need to get to the rewriting.

I have one or two short stories I want to write, too. I currently have 4 stories out doing the rounds. There are markets I’d love to be published by – from On Spec in Canada to TOR.com and F&sf or Asimov’s – but I’m pleased to find a fair number of new markets. It’s been a really long time since I wrote short stories and I’m loving it at the moment. It gives me a real feeling of satisfaction to complete a story and email it out.

I’ve finished the Blake Snyder book ‘Save The Cat’. It’s intrigued me enough that one of my next possible projects is to follow his method along to see if it really can help me to write a big movie script. I liked the book and felt like I was learning, which is great.

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