My wer-skunk short story “The Lady M” received a tentative acceptance for publication, pending edits, from a prestigious Cdn SFF magazine! I’m waiting for the contract to properly announce this with full details, but it’s made my month! I’m so pleased! This was the story that won a Finalist position in WOTF 2022 Q1.
Thinking about annual goals is difficult for me. I hate setting wildly optimistic ones but later having to admit, that life and the day job got in the way of the creative writing.
Maybe the best thing for me in 2023 is to have a few key phrases to stand in for formal goals:
I think many writers put undue pressure on ourselves I regards to performance goals.. Every screenwriter thinks they should output more. Every novelist is in awe of someone who writes more novels per year than they do. I believe the key is still balance. Those who sacrifice quality of writing for quantity of words don’t keep their audiences. Balance is key, write as much as you can write well.
It’s hard to get time to write, but it’s also hard not to write 🙂 because I have so many ideas and projects to work on.
Currently, I’m working on an idea for our Wordos Halloween party – we each write a flash fiction piece and read it out during the meeting.
It’s fun and a challenge. Much of writing is puzzle-solving, I find, although I do love using language, creating metaphors, etc.
For this challenge, we get 1000 words and three prompts, one of which or all of which we can use.
My story is going to be called “Shambolic Manor”… and more on that once it’s done!
#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.
Photo by Tom Podmore on Unsplash
Enjoying my WOTF badges! It helps me to feel like a creative writer when Corporate Job makes me feel like a technical person.
Plans for the Christmas break include trying to get back into my novel and also writing a pitch up for the Women In Film Horror script contest More on that at: Women in Film (Canada) genre writing contest.
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.
