Tag Archives: writers

Sci Fi Short Story Collection Book Launch

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At long last, my collection of short stories, We’re Here to Help… Ourselves, is available in paperback and preorders for the ebook version, which will release December 2! (I managed to fix most (but not all) of the formatting issues.)

Publishing this collection was my most significant writing goal this year, and I’m pleased to have checked it off.  It took almost the entire year.  First, I had to compile the entire manuscript.  The collection has 14 short stories, but originally it had 16.  After presenting my first several possible title choices to the Norther Virginia Writers Club, one astute member (Darius Jones) suggested cutting the only two horror stories in the collection. (Everything else is sci fi.) That finalized the collection, but I still had to draft the introduction, acknowledgments, author blurb, and back matter. If I was going to have a professional editor work on this project, I wanted everything edited.

On March 4, I contracted with an editor. I had worked with this editor last year when I coordinated the 15th Anniversary Anthology of the Northern Virginia Writers Club. I knew the quality of his editing and how to work with this editor, so he seemed to be a logical choice. He worked a lot faster than I did. He sent me edits in sections, but I didn’t have time to review anything until he was finished with the entire manuscript.

Once the words were right, I worked on the other components of the interior. I bought an off the shelf format. It made life much simpler. I simply cut and paste my Word doc into this format. It took care of fonts, space, breaks, etc. Next, I bought a pack of divider designs on Etsy. I found one in a collection of maybe one hundred that looked sci fi-ish. Like with the text format, I simply copied the design I picked and inserted it in many of my stories as a divider between sections rather than use the ole three ellipses. I also bought a pack of 10 ISBNs.

Then it was time to stop avoiding the cover, and time was running out. I first intended to hire a designer but got cold feet. I was short on time and wasn’t confident that I could accurately describe what I was looking for in a cover. Luckily, at the Virginia Writers Club symposium this year, I attended a presentation on how to use the graphic design software Canva. At first, I attempted to create my own design. Realizing my limitations, I licensed a preexisting design. I next asked another Northern Virginia Writers Club member (and president), Michelle McBeth and her husband if they would tweak it. Both had experience with designing the covers for Michelle’s sci fi series. It was a fun process going back and forth tweaking details, and they knew what they were doing. The result was amazing. I love the cover.

The final step was figuring out Kindle Direct Publishing. It’s a three-step process, most of which is straight forward, consisting of entering information and making selections. However, formatting is a nightmare. You upload your manuscript, and KPD re-formats it to how it wants to. Invariably, some things change, some weird things. I went through seven additional versions of my manuscript fixing formatting issues. Some I caught using the KDP digital previewer; others where only caught after I ordered two separate printed proofs. Ordering those was another suggestion of Michelle’s, and a good one.

There you have it. A culmination of a year’s worth of work is now out there. Would I do it again? Yep. I have plenty of short stories and am already thinking about what the next collection should contain.

Cover Reveal

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It’s finally here! My first collection of short stories will be available in paperback this Saturday, November 25 through Amazon. The ebook should follow a few days later if I can fix a couple of formatting issues. Here is the synopsis on the back:

Science fiction tropes—you know them and you love them. They are the building blocks of sci fi stories, both past and present, and this collection of 14 short stories has them all. Dive in as a xenoanthropologist is stranded on a world with two alien races. Join a generation ship, soon to be populated with clones, on its journey to a new world. Learn how humanity may react to an alien invasion—and the resulting paperwork—and follow one family as they contend with time travel, bio-nanites, and the implications of an unnaturally long life.

3Q23 Update and Book Launch Forthcoming

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The third quarter of 2023 has run its course, and there is good news and bad news. Read on for both, but first, let’s look at the writing statistics.

  • Words written = 350
  • Submissions = 20
  • Rejections = 25
  • Acceptances = 1
  • Shortlists = 0
  • Publications = 1
  • Rewrites = 0
  • Withdrawals = 0

The amount of writing I did last quarter was terrible. That’s the bad news. My only solace is that I did other writing activities. Those 350 words went to a story that I wrote the prior quarter. I joined a critique group, which kindly critiqued that same story immediately. Now, I need to incorporate those critiques. The same critique group also started reviewing the first book in my middle grade trilogy. I hope the critique group will work through all three of those manuscripts.

The submissions number is a little low, but I’m well on my way to 100 for the year. I’ve already sent another eight submissions in October and currently sit at 94 for the year. Rejections are at 93 at the moment.

I only received one acceptance in the quarter, and I’m not supposed to announce that one yet on social media. A prior acceptance was scheduled to be published soon, but I can’t find an update on that. I hope that market hasn’t folded. I’ve already been paid for the story, but I’d like to see the anthology published. It sounded like a fun one, and I’d like to read the stories of the other contributors.

Now the good news. I wasn’t sure if the stars would align (read: whether I’d get my act together enough to put all of the pieces in place), but it looks like it will happen. Assuming everything continues to go well, I should publish my first collection of short stories at the November meeting of the Northern Virginia Writers Club. The manuscript is compiled, edited, and formatted. The front cover is done. The spine and back cover are in process for the paperback version. ISBNs are purchased. Author bio is finalized. The piece just finished was selecting the all important author photo. That may have been the hardest part of the entire process.

More details about the launching of this collection will come in a separate post, really series of posts. I’ve got to promote this thing after all. Stay tuned!

That was my third quarter. How was yours?

2Q23 Update

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Wow, is the second quarter done already? That one flew by. There was a spring break trip. There was a last minute Memorial Day weekend trip at a place I found on Airbnb (that I really wanted to be haunted). There was the family’s summer vacation. And I caught COVID in the middle of the quarter just for fun. Let’s see how that all impacted my writing productivity.

  • Words written = 6365
  • Submissions = 31
  • Rejections = 25
  • Acceptances = 2
  • Shortlists = 1
  • Publications = 2
  • Rewrites = 0
  • Withdrawals = 0

That’s a fairly standard quarter for me. The words written equate to one long short story and small additions to two existing stories. It’s still not a ton of writing, but I’m happy with it.

The submissions (and rejections) are on track for my 100 goal. I shouldn’t have any problem meeting that.

The acceptances and publications are doing better than expected. I’ve already exceeded my acceptances goal for the year. I may need to set that one higher next year. Let’s see if the second half of the year is as fruitful.

I’ve also progressed nicely on my goal to publish a collection of short stories. I have the story content and title nailed down, and I’ve worked with an editor to get the manuscript into tip top shape.

Now I need to format the thing. Conveniently, the speaker for the August meeting of the Northern Virginia Writers Club will discuss book formatting. Once I have it formatted (and therefore have the final dimensions), I plan to put the cover art out for bid. In the interim, I’ll put together the front and back matter and buy some ISBN numbers. I plan to get at least 10 of those to be able to have one each for physical and ebooks for this collection, another short story collection I hope to put together in the future, and the middle grade trilogy that desperately needs editing. I also want to get to that this year, as well as edit the short story I wrote last quarter. Then the later can start making the submission rounds.

I’ve come up with a stretch goal for the year too. For the last three years, I’ve worked on a middle grade novel during each NaNoWriMo. That series is complete, at least the first drafts (see above). I have an idea for another middle grade or possibly YA trilogy.

If you’ve followed this blog, you know I’m a plotter. However, my plotting is not overly detailed. It usually consists of a sentence or two per scene. I map out the scenes this way before I start each November, but not much more.

For the first book in this new trilogy, I’d like to try my hand at a more detailed outline. I recently read The Mercenary Guide to Story Structure by Kevin Ikenberry. He goes through several different types of story structures. There’s the original three act play from Aristotle’s time. There’s the “hero’s journey” structure, described by Joseph Campbell in The Hero with a Thousand Faces, which we see often in fantasy and sci-fi stories. There’s the well-known seven-point story structure, and then there is an even more detailed structure laid out in Jeffrey Alan Schecter’s My Story Can Beat Up Your Story. I’d like to see if I can use the seven-point story structure and map out all of those plot points before starting this November. I’ve never plotted with this much detail. I’ve always simply developed scenes in my head and decided when one or more needed to be added. I’m wondering (hoping?) this approach will make my books longer and more entertaining. Even for middle grade, each of the books in my WIP trilogy are on the short side.

That’s the second quarter of 2023. How’d yours go?

The Next Thing

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I have a quick one for you today. My flash story “Polynesian Disbursement” will be published at http://www.gohavok.com on Tuesday, May 23. Set your reminder. It’ll be free to read that day. I’ll also be responding to comments. Please feel free to stop by, give it a gander, and let me know if you have any questions. Normally, I’d go into more details about the story here, but I’m saving that for the commenters that day. Here’s hoping for a quiet time at the day job.