Category Archives: Writing Updates

The big news is that I submitted a story to Daily Science Fiction and sold it this week!  Hurray!  This sale puts me over the required minimum to upgrade my SFWA membership to Active.  Now I can vote on the Nebulas.

My goals this year, and how I’m doing (here there be some fails!)

Submit a story once a week:  Well, I’ve submitted three since Jan 1st. Not so good.  Currently have only one outstanding, yikes.

Continue writing a story a week. Oh yeah.  I’ve not only done this, but have exceeded!  Continued to write a 90 minute flash every single weekend, but also wrote stories for the Codex Writers Group Weekend Warrior challenge.  And one of those was the one that sold!

Finish up the novella. Hm.  Well, this has been stalled, mostly because I’ve started to worry that my main character is too much like the singer she is modeled on.  I either have to get permission from the singer or try to detangle her from the story.  Set it aside to ponder.

Blog at least twice a month here. FAIL!!

Upload a recipe on my cooking blog once a week. Another fail.  But – big news!!  After living with homemade cabinets for 22 years, we finally are tired of the kitchen cabinet doors falling off, using stools to block the cabinet with the garbage so the dog won’t get at it, and having drawers get jammed.  We’re redoing the cabinets, and then that means redoing the tile and wood counters (since they were handdone along with the plywood cabinets, and will be destroyed when they pull out the cabs.  Since those match the floor, redoing the floor too, and then of course that means the trim will look beat up and old in comparison…so yeah, we’re redoing the whole kitchen.  So my cooking will be interrupted for a time and my cooking blog…well, maybe I can work on posting up the photos still sitting in my camera.

Submit reviews on Smashwords and Amazon on short story collections that I’ve read.  Ok, fail so far, but now that I am able to vote on Nebulas I hope to really work on this.

Update this blog with better links. Hm.  Ok, will try, forgot about this.

2011 was a pretty good year for me!  I stayed focused on my writing, and made every single Liberty Hall flash challenge.  I also submitted a story for the Short Story contest there, as well as a story for the Halloween contest at Codex.  I also participated in two NYC midnight madness contests.

I critted stories every week, at Liberty Hall and a bit at Codex.  I read and studied writing, mostly through other writers’ articles and blog posts.  I participated in Codex as much as possible.

I submitted stories 24 times, got 19 rejections and have three outstanding (bites fingernails).  I sold three stories this year, one of which I saw published at Daily Science Fiction.  This qualified me to join SWFA as an associate member.

I wrote approximately 85,000 words of fiction (guessing – 52 flashes averaging 1K, several short stories, and almost finished two novellas) and revised/edited countless words.

I did not blog as much as I wished to, either here or at my cooking blog.

Professional goals for this coming year:

• Submit a story once a week.  (Gulp)
• Continue writing a story a week.
• Finish up the novella.
• Blog at least twice a month here.
• Upload a recipe on my cooking blog once a week.
• Submit reviews on Smashwords and Amazon on short story collections that I’ve read.
• Update this blog with better links.
• Add more goals to this as they occur to me!