A Call to Writers

Exactly one month from now I'll be getting on the plane to go to Las Vegas for KillerCon. WHOO!!

If there's anyone out there reading this who'd like to attend the con and meet up there, please let me know in comments or by shooting me an email (or Tweet, or whatever social media poison you prefer). I'm traveling by myself and I would love to hang out with some blogiverse friends... Regardless, I hope I can make some new friends at the con. I don't want to spend the whole weekend by myself.

I'm also wondering if you guys can help me with something. KillerCon is having an on-site writing contest. The convention committee gives the assembled contestants five words, a horror-related topic, a leadoff sentence, and fifteen minutes. The contestants have a sheet of paper and a pen. After the fifteen minutes is up, they compare entries and choose a winner.

I want to enter this contest, but I'm a little nervous about writing it longhand for a couple of reasons. First is the physical side - because of a car accident two years ago, it's very difficult for me to hold a pen for any length of time. Five minutes is hard. Fifteen minutes is torture. But the more I practice longhand, the easier it gets to do.

The other side is how much slower my hand is at writing my thoughts as opposed to typing my thoughts. My typing speed is on average around 90 wpm, so it's a LOT faster to type than it is write longhand. Which means I don't write as well longhand, because it feels clunky and it's difficult to get up to the speed I want to write at.

So here's where YOU come in. I need to practice this longhand coming-up-with-stories-on-the-spot thing. If you will, leave five words, a topic, and a leadoff sentence in the comments of this entry. I'll time myself and try to do one each evening. Since it'll be hard to get more than a page or two out over fifteen minutes' time, I can post the best pieces on my blog. It won't be entirely spontaneous like the contest will be, but at least I'll be getting some practice at quick invention, along with strengthening the muscles in my hand for quick writing.

What do y'all think? Can you help a fellow writer out?

I hope each and every one of you has a fantastic last week of July. :D

Back from the Depths of June

Hello, internet and blogfriends! I've returned from the dark, hot recesses of June. It's July and summer's into her stretch, but we've had a blessed respite from the usual hellish temperatures here in Greenville. The 4th was sunny and mid-80's... perfection. I enjoyed the last week of my vacation. Except for the fact that my computer got a virus... not sure if it's fixed, I'll need to reload it soon. Sigh.

But I'm not letting that keep me from plunging back into work this month! I printed out the first twenty pages of my novel today to start editing. It's a lot harder than I thought it would be. I'm second-guessing how I laid things out in the first run through. I think it's ok, but I wonder if it would be punchier if I did something differently with the material I have... like putting chapters in different orders, and so on.

I'm also striking a LOT of extraneous prose. I don't know if I just need to talk a lot in the beginning to get into the stride of the story, but my lord, this first chapter is super wordy. Some of it's good stuff, but it's pretty description just for the sake of pretty description. So I'm hacking it up and distributing the parts I really like into the surrounding paragraphs. Make sense? Hope so. I'm sorta like Indiana Jones... just making this up as I go along, heh.

I expect y'all will be seeing more of me this month than last month. I'm looking forward to talking about the editing process with you as well as hearing how your projects are coming along. What's up in your corner of blogland? Any advice for my fledgling editing processes?

Ze Clock, She is Ticking!

The end of the month is rapidly approaching, and my mini-vacation is coming to an end. I'm looking forward to it... this has been a great month to do whatever I want, but it's gonna be really great to get back into the universe I created and start moving stuff around. I feel like revision is shaping the raw material I've created. Yes, a good deal of it is pretty clean. But I can make it better... sharper. I want it to sing.

Almost finished with my erotic horror flash. Next I'm going to polish up a short I started a couple of years ago but never finished. I figure it's about five pages from the end. If I can get it down right, I'll have another piece to add to my portfolio. It's pretty exciting to see that expanding, because it means I can group them together into an anthology before too much longer. This isn't unheard of in the horror genre; Joe Hill published an anthology of his short fiction before he published his first novel, and it did so well, he got a contract with Harper-Collins.

I've sent out queries to Weird Tales and Dark Discoveries about the pieces they still have (Weird Tales has had "Knights of the Road" for a little over three months; Dark Discoveries has had "Watched" since January), and I'm hoping to hear back soon on them. In the meantime, I'll have new stuff to send out in the next couple of weeks, and that makes me happy.

Another exciting thing: my website will be up and running soon. I want to get it rolling before I head to KillerCon in August. There probably won't be a whole lot at first, but I can't wait to share it with y'all. I'm taking business cards to the convention with me and I want to have the website ready for who might be visiting...

...but before all that kicks into high gear, I'm enjoying the last week of June. Next Sunday there'll be fireworks; until then, I'm chillin out. So - you didn't think I'd forgotten about Music Monday, did you? Here's one of my favorite "chill" songs for you to enjoy... hope it brings a little calm blue ocean into your Monday.



What's going on in your life? Anything you're particularly excited about? Need to kick back and relax for a couple of days? You're not stressing in the summer heat, are ya? Remember, friends... the comment section is always open.

Have a great Monday!

Changing Plans

So, I've been thinking.

Remember in February when I went to the South Carolina Book Festival? The SCWW is a big part of that crowd. The more I've been figuring up prices for the convention, and figuring out what choices would be best for me, the more I've been wondering if that convention is really where I ought to be going.

I want a convention or conference that's going to help me get my con-bearings before I go to Austin next April for the World Horror Con. The only thing close to this I've been to is Dragon Con - and this is a whole different world.

So, I put out some feelers on Twitter, and one of the horror writers I messaged responded. I asked what a good convention for horror writers would be, and she suggested KillerCon. After looking it up, I realized it sounded perfect - a horror and thriller writers' convention, with agents from the industry in attendance and two on-site writing contests... Whoooo!

So, I think I'm changing my plans. I want to connect with other writers from South Carolina, but I think I need to do that after I've found an agent or publisher which will be a good fit for my work.

What do y'all think? Stick with the home territory or go for the genre?