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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.

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?