Behind the Stories – Agenda

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In my continuing series where I describe the inspiration behind my stories, I have one that’s hot off the presses. (It felt old to type that. Do kids these days even know what a printing press is?)

My story “Agenda” appears in Planetside: Science Fiction Drabbles, which was released yesterday! As the anthology’s name suggests, mine (and all of the other stories in the anthology) are 100 words–no more, no less.

It’s hard writing exactly 100 words. There’s a lot of counting for starters. For this particular story, I took a work that was 160 words and cut it down to 100. I think that was even harder than setting out to write only 100 words from the start–killing your darlings an all.

This story has a very unique, and I dare say experimental, format. The title gives it away, but the story is in the form of a meeting agenda. I wrote this a couple of years ago when I was president of two volunteer organizations, both of which required me to prepare agendas for the organization’s monthly meetings. At some point in doing this every month, I had the idea of trying to tell a story solely through a meeting agenda. I’d seen other authors tell stories through lists or even recipes but never an agenda. I thought using an agenda format was creative at the time and still do.

I plan to include the 160 word version of this story in my forthcoming short story collection of related tales. (I say “forthcoming,” but I haven’t made much progress on putting it together.) This summer I realized over the last several years that I’d written at least three stories where aliens invade Earth, and it didn’t go well for us humans. I decided those stories should all be in the same universe, so I plan to harmonize several details, such as the name of the race of alien invaders. These I’ll include in my short story collection, along with several other groups of related short stories, i.e. each story in a group is related to the other stories in that group but not related to stories in other groups.

And that’s “Agenda.” Have you ever tried an experimental format in your writing? Did it work or not? Let me know in the comments.

An Unusual Behind the Story – Livelihood

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I have an unusual Behind the Story for you this time. My story “Livelihood” appears in the Northern Virginia Writers Club’s 15th Anniversary Anthology. It’s unusual for a couple reasons. First, it’s a fantasy story, probably the only one I’ve written. While I consider myself a speculative fiction writer, that has really meant science fiction and more recently horror.

I wrote “Livelihood” in response to the submissions call of a specific fantasy market. The call wasn’t specific; it was that this well known market was briefly open. This was fairly early in my writing adventure, and unfortunately, I don’t remember the inspiration for the story.

The story has a little humor in it. Okay, the premise may be based on a pun. It’s not the first time I’ve written a story based on a pun. I can’t help it and have the excuse of being a dad.

The story has a strong, young female protagonist, who is modeled after my younger daughter. My daughter is not at the protagonist’s age yet, but I can see her in a few years being this resilient. My older daughter has a story with a character based on her as well, but that will be the subject of another blog post.

The story also is unusual because not many will get to read it despite its publication. The 15th Anniversary Anthology celebrates (as the name suggests) 15 years of the NVWC’s existence and features fiction, nonfiction, and poetry works from current members. However, the club published the anthology only long enough to order a certain number of copies but did not leave it up for general sales. If you want a copy, you’ll have to come to an event where the club has a booth, like Art on the Avenue in Alexandria, Virginia on November 12! If you’re in the area, stop by and have a chat and maybe pick up a copy. I’ll be there.

3Q22 Update

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It’s that time of year again. Yes, the Halloween decorations need to go up. Yes, the decorative gourds need to be put out. Oh, and I should provide an update on my writing progress during the third quarter.

Words written = 6,591
Submissions = 42
Rejections = 32
Acceptances = 0
Shortlists/Holds = 0
Publications = 1
Rewrites = 0
Withdrawals = 0

Those numbers on the top look amazing. Outside of a quarter with NaNoWriMo, I haven’t written that much in ages. Even more impressive, only about 1700 words of that were additions to existing stories, which has been where a lot of my writing has gone this year. Instead, I actually wrote 5 new stories – 4 flash and 1 short story. I had an awesome vacation in August to thank. Not only did the family go out west to see some amazing national parks, but work left me alone enough that I could write in the evenings rather than catching up on things.

Also, that submission total is one shy of my all time quarterly record. I’m basically sneezing distance from reaching my goal of 100 submissions this year already.

On the other hand, the big fat zero in the Acceptances column hurts. While I still have 3 acceptances on the year, thus meeting my one acceptance per quarter goal, that zero in the Acceptances column looms large. Thankfully, a ton of markets opened to submission as of October 1, and I’ve already fired off 5 this month. I just need one to hit to meet my acceptances goal.

The sole publication snuck in at the end of the quarter in the Virginia Writers Club Journal. I wrote about that here including the inspiration for the story. If you like humorous science fiction or are a fan of dad jokes in general, give it a read. You won’t be disappointed.

Now it’s time to look forward to an exciting time of the year. Yes, there is Halloween, then Thanksgiving, and then Christmas (at least in my household), and I love all three of those holidays. But the 4th quarter also means NaNoWriMo in November. I already know the book I plan to write, and I’ve been plotting it in my head all year. Honestly, I thought I’d have the entire book mapped out by now, but there are still a couple scenes missing. If past experience is a guide, those will come to me while writing what I’ve already got.

I’m excited. The book I plan to write during NaNoWriMo is the third in a middle grade series, the first two of which I wrote during NaNoWriMo 2020 and 2021. Chronologically, this one will be the second in the series. It’s just how things have worked out. Next year I plan to have them professionally edited, and then I plan to make the tough decision of whether to query agents or move directly to self publishing. I’m sure I’ll be blogging about that next year.

The only goal I’m worried about for the 4th quarter is finishing my NaNoWriMo middle grade book. Last year, I got a great start during NaNoWriMo but didn’t finish the first draft until the calendar rolled over to 2022. This year, I’d like to finish the first draft in November. If I can do that and then give it a very rough first edit before the Christmas break, my first reader for these middle grade books (my 8 year old daughter) can read it over the holiday break.

That was my July – August 2022. How’d yours go?

Behind the Stories – Dyson Vacuum Sphere

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A fellow blogger Lady Jabberwocky on her own writing journey that I recently discovered gave me the idea to discuss the inspirations for my stories. I’ve sometimes mentioned in this blog snippets of the inspiration for certain stories when I announce their publication, but I thought it’d be interesting to revisit a little and do a deeper dive. I still only plan to discuss those that have been published. I simply need to keep those acceptances up to continue this line of blogs. 😀

Luckily, for this first installment, I get to announce a publication and give a behind the scenes tour of the story. And do I have an interesting one for you!

First, the announcement – my story, “Dyson Vacuum Sphere,” appears in The Virginia Writers Club Journal 2022 released last week. I am a proud member of the Virginia Writers Club and its Northern Virginia chapter. A couple years ago the Virginia Writers Club began publishing a journal of works by the club’s members. I’ve appeared in a prior issue of the journal. However, since then, there has been a revision to the editorial standards. Let’s just say the barrier to entry rose.

Now on to the fun part – the backstory.

I had recently written my first comedic story in response to a publication’s extremely detailed called. Though that story wasn’t accepted by that publication, it was later accepted but by a market that then went defunct. That story hasn’t found a home yet, so I’ll have to talk about that one another time.

After practicing my comedic chops, I wanted to keep going. The Dyson Sphere episode from Star Trek: TNG was one of my favorites. It brought back Scotty! Combine that with the similarly named Dyson vacuum, and I had a story that essentially was one long dad joke.

I’ve always liked a good dad joke, but I’ve come to appreciate dad jokes even more now that I’m a father of two. Mixing my love of sci fi and dad jokes only seemed logical.

I enjoy writing most of my stories (or why would I be doing this), but I especially enjoyed writing this one. Not only does the premise include several dad jokes, but one of the characters tells a couple more dad jokes in the story. I’m proud of those since I made them up myself! Maybe I have a future in standup comedy. After Bob Saget’s death, I tweeted about how comics at their core are writers, and I still feel their writing talents are underappreciated.

If you want to groan at a couple of dad jokes, give “Dyson Vacuum Sphere” a read in the The Virginia Writers Club Journal 2022.

2Q22 Update

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It’s that time again, writers, readers, and everyone in between. How were my writing and submission exploits during the second quarter of 2022? Read on!

Words written = 5,026
Submissions = 24
Rejections = 21
Acceptances = 1
Shortlists/Holds = 0
Publications = 0
Rewrites = 0
Withdrawals = 0

If you think this looks a lot like my first quarter, you’re spot on. This time around I wrote 1500 words more, had three fewer submissions but three more rejections, and had one fewer acceptance. I’ll take the status quo at this point. It’s better than a regression.

It was an interesting quarter for two reasons. First, those 5000 words were not attributable to any new works. All 5000 were additions to existing works. About half went to finishing (finally!) my WIP middle grade novel that I started during last year’s NaNoWriMo. That’s how close I was before getting sidetracked. Another quarter went to finishing a story I’ve been collaborating on with a friend. We’ve been working on this story for years, but life kept getting in the way. The irony is, after all that work, we need to cut it down by about half to fit under the word limit for a submissions call specifically requesting collaborative works. The last quarter of my quarterly word count went to expanding three other stories.

The second interesting thing about the quarter pertains to where my submissions were as June 30 approached. About a week out, I sat at 12. Thanks to a bit of luck as to what markets were open and a bit of free time, I was able to double that to squeeze in a respectable 24 submissions.

The one acceptance was by the Virginia Writers Club Journal. I’m a member of both the Virginia Writers Club, where I currently serve as Recording Secretary, and its Northern Virginia chapter, where I currently serve as Vice President. In the past, the state club’s journal didn’t have much in the way of acceptance standards for works submitted by members. However, this year, that changed. A new editorial board was installed and now includes editors tasked with raising the bar for works accepted for publication. I’m pleased one of mine made the cut. I’ll, of course, share publication details once released.

From a writing standpoint, I’m both excited and a little scared by this quarter. On the one hand, I’ve been using my runs to plot my next middle grade novel, which I’ll write during this year’s NaNoWriMo. It’s going well. I have most of the plot mapped out, maybe needing only 2-3 more scenes. Also, the family and I are going on vacation. I’m hoping the lack of reliable internet and it being the summer will leave me time in the evenings to write rather than catch up on work.

In addition, yesterday, I submitted to the Virginia Writers Club’s Golden Nib writing contest. As the president of my local chapter the last three years, I was not eligible to submit to this contest. Now that I’ve taken a step back, I am pleased to be able to submit again. Hopefully, the story I chose stands up to the competition better than my submissions several years ago. The judges of this competition over the years have not favored genre work, which is pretty much all I write. Maybe I’ll throw in a poem for something different.

The scary part is I’m not sure what to work on. I have one idea for a short story and another for a flash story. These have been bouncing around in my head for awhile, but I’ve never felt the urge to write them. Maybe it’s time I get them on the screen. There’s no sense waiting for lightning to strike.

That’s it for those three months. How’d your quarter turn out? Any writing triumphs or failures?