Tag: stettler

December 2015

My beautiful picture
Bill Pochylko, Stettler, AB 1950s.

Recently received another SF award! The story Steamer Plane, is a Writers of the Future, Honourable Mention 4th Quarter, 2015.

It’s always great to get this in an email:

Your story has been judged and is an Honorable Mention for the 4th quarter. (entry between 1 July through 30 September 2015).

OTOH: Strange Horizons had one of my stories for nearly 6 months and sent me an ‘oops, it must have gotten lost in the email’ response complete with copy of email, carefully undated.

Sometimes you’re winning, with a hot car in a daring color, driving down Main Street – thanks WOTF – and sometimes you’re not…(the other guys).

This is my 2nd WOTF win this year: Absinthe Kind won

Honorable Mention for the 3rd quarter of the L. Ron Hubbard Writers of the Future contest. (entry between 1 April and 30 June 2015).

I always wonder if I qualify, but then I decide that I do because all of my short story sales have been to non-pro markets.  And that pesky novel isn’t even done yet, let alone sold!

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The 1950s picture is from Dad’s collection Bill Pochylko, Stettler, Alberta. He’s  driving past Thirsk’s 5 to Dollar Store.

 

 

 

November Writing Initiative

November 30, 2014

At the end of the NaNoWriMo initiative.

I reached  14,038 words in November. This was an achievement for me and is more than usual.  I did some short story work and some on my novel. A ‘win’ there is 50,000 words. That’s hard to do, even for professional writers like me.  Plus, I’m doing a corporate day job, living my life, raising the child, cooking, cleaning, et cetera.  I can’t just lock myself up like people with supportive spouses can.

Also, to be fair, I got sidetracked by some television work I was doing (more on that in another post), which took a couple of weekends from me.

I highly recommend the wonderful pep talk by SF author Brandon Sanderson. I really love his analogy about the scuba diver.  If you love to write, keep writing.  I think he’s onto something there.  I’m not as happy when I’m not writing. Life keeps intruding 🙂 but it’s all material, too.

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November

Robert Sawyer announced he was going to do the National novel writing month sprint earlier today. I looked it up and decided that it sounded like a great idea. Robert is a very good SF writer and some of his work has been made into great TV as well. Check out his site at http://www.sfwriter.com (yes, he has that URL.)
So, today I signed up at http://nanowrimo.org
They suggest you try to write a 50,000 novel in the month of November. It’s a great deal of writing for a busy single mum with a corporate job, but it’s also a good challenge for me. November’s usually a hard month for me, so it could be good to be very busy.
I will try to use the initiative to finish my novel. I’m at 57889 words now. I need to get to the end. I don’t know how many words it’ll take to get to the end, but that’s what I’m aiming for.

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Stettler Museum Typewriting machine from the Stettler Independent

Inspiration? Desert or fossil treasure trove?

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Where do we find inspiration? Being a prairie gal at heart, I see the land differently than outsiders. It holds so many mysteries and stories.
But I’ve never been one for realistic styles. Or genres. Yes, I wrote for some realistic & some docudrama shows, but I love SF & fantasy. Sometimes I think it was the small town library with its collection of Golden Age SF novels. I re- read several short Andre Norton novels lately. I still loved them but can now see their flaws- and I hate that because they still are shining beacons in my childhood imagination.
Bit by bit your imagination grows and I thank Andrea Norton, Clifford Simak, Asimov, Heinlein and others for creating an imagination of great breadth in my generation of writers.
I’m hoping, in my own talented child, that some of her experiences will help her creativity. In fact, she’s the collage artist for this blog.
We saw Drumheller – one hour south of my home county and she was impressed.
And here’s what a whole Tyrell museum full of dinosaurs can cause a 12 year old ‘director’ to stage after a few hours!

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