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February was busy. You've all read, I'm sure, of my 2677 edits for The Saints are Dead. Yes, most of them made the book better....but whoa. Just whoa. I wrote several new stories in February ("What Julie's Dad Doesn't Know" and "The North Lantern" being my favorites) and managed my Write 1 / Sub 1 goal of a story submitted a week.
Three stories "sold" in February: "Poe's Blender" to Death Rattle, "Upon Leaving the Candy Factory" to Bourbon Penn, and "The Ballad of Arkady and Nadia" to 100 Stories for Queensland. The latter was a "sale" sale, meaning no money flowed to the writer because it is a charity antho.
On to the Big Experiment...
Because I believe in full disclosure, I present:
Well...I won't be retiring any time soon, but a few things of note:
- One of those Bottom Feeders sales was a gift. So I sold eleven legit copies for Kindle, plus one through Smashwords.
- February's numbers represent the most copies of The Bottom Feeders I've sold since releasing the book last April. The trend is rising from seven last month. Short story collections don't traditionally do as well as novels (in any format), but I'm not complaining.
- The Bottom Feeders had a crazy little bounce this weekend, selling five copies between Friday and Monday. Not big numbers for some of the Kindle people, but I can't explain the bump. I'll be watching this closely. After all, it is an experiment.
I hope to have
We are the Monsters ready by the end of March. It's a novella (35K), and they are traditionally hard to place, after all. Jekyll and Hyde are welcome to live in one skin as long as they want, because
I've decided I want one thing out of writing: to tell stories.* To do this, you have to have an audience who wants to listen. Anything which puts a barricade between me and an audience is bad form (did you hear that, Hyde?). In addition, I want my "craft" to be top form so the audience keeps listening (keep subbing to those fine markets, Jekyll).
*wait...I've sort of known that all along.
Always a bridesmaid...
We had two forensics (speech and drama) meets this week, and my squad scored second at both.
2nd!
I'm happy, of course, but we could have won both. We lost by a mere 5 points on Saturday (163-158). Granted, there were 14 teams so 2nd is pretty good.
What does this have to do with writing? Not much, only to explain I didn't spend much time writing. I did manage to finish edits on "Lullaby" a 2,500 word fantasy piece which I sent, appropriately, to Fantasy for quick rejection. It has since joined the ranks of slush piles everywhere.
Maybe I can get something done tonight...maybe.
Happy writing, folks.
Well, I managed to get a piece of flash out into the ether this week, a short little thing titled "Why Susie McTavish Believes in Angels". I'm not sure it works, but it gave me shivers when I wrote it. We shall see...
I'm doing okay on the writing side of things but falling behind on editing and revising. I will not send a story out before it's ready. So, I have three longish tales (3K or more) written and waiting for editing/revision and another flash story in the queue. I suppose I should hammer them into shape before writing another word.
Speaking of hammers, one features as an important prop in The House Eaters, my YA horror book (which adults should dig, too) which was released this week. How's that for a segue?
If you're interested in a signed copy, drop me a line ([email protected]). I'm selling them at cover price + shipping, so no gouging here. Maybe I should offer a discount...(haha)
If you're counting, this is number three. I'm going to stop counting because, well, I just am.
I've managed my fourth story in four weeks, this one an anti-war sci-fi number called "What to Pack When You're Bound for [a really big number I can't even remember.3]" to Clarkesworld. I'm currently 17 in the queue, so when I get my rejection tomorrow, it will head back into sub land post haste.
The really big number, if you'd like to know, corresponds with a planet astronomers think might have liquid water (a necessity for life as we know it). "They" are the enemy, however, and my dear protagonist is a "trigger".
My current WIP is "vexing" me greatly, and I'm about to "raise the stakes". (i.e., punch it in the mouth)
That is all.
I know, it's the third weekend and this is update #2. So I'm a slacker.
Anyway, I managed to ship off my third Write 1 / Sub 1 entry this week, a flash story titled "The Fisherman's Son" to Cezanne's Carrot. I subbed another story, a rewritten flash piece, to 100 Stories for Queensland, but I'd written it last year, so no "working ahead" here.
I also received my first rejection for a Write 1 / Sub 1 story (one other piece is still "out there"). But, as the wheel turns, I did place a pseudo-Lovecraftian tale, "The Wings of Çatalhöyük" with the Gloaming Magazine. I guess that's one of those give/take sort of things.
Here's a little inspiration for "Wings" (you can click the link for the rest of the article):
The vulture frescos at Çatalhöyük may show excarnation practices. Bodies were exposed, as in Tibet or among the Jains, in open funeral houses, to the tearing beak of the griffin vulture which stripped the skeletons of soft tissue.
Now if that doesn't get you thinking about something weird...
I'm "enjoying" my third consecutive snow day. I know, silly to complain--who wouldn't like a little time off, right?
Right.
One day is great. Two days can be fun. On the third day, especially when the temps are well below freezing and it hasn't snowed since Monday, I begin to ask: "When does my life return to normal?" I teach in a rural district, and snow tends to drift. Sure, county maintenance plows roads where possible, but then the wind comes through overnight, and...you get the idea.
To my gift horse: I'm trying not to look you in the mouth, 'kay?
I'm just about ready to send my second submission for Write 1/Sub 1. Just about. I'm working on my fourth story (allowing a little time for editing lag). I call this one, "Through the Tunnel":
“Can you tell me what happened before the spell?”
Dr. Ellingham always called trips into the Tunnel spells. Spell sounded like something from a children’s movie. Something a cartoon witch might do, or Harry Potter, or Merlin in Camelot. Joel frowned at the word. “I was just walking. I was walking and then I was in the tunnel.”
“Mmm-humm.” Dr. Ellingham scribbled on his yellow legal pad
.
“I’d just dumped my tray. I was walking. Then…then I was on the ground.” Joel’s eyes shifted down, away from the yellow legal pad. Dr. Ellingham was always scribbling, scribbling. Pages filled with doodles, probably. Doodles of crazy me, Joel, with witches casting spells as they fly around mounted on cartoon broomsticks and conjuring black things from their cauldrons. Black things from the tunnel.
“Joel? What are you thinking about?”
“What?”
“You shuddered just now. Shivered, like you were cold.”
How's the writing going in your world?
I'm calling my Write 1/Sub 1 year the Bradbury Year. It helps as a motivator to feel the great one's presence.
In addition to writing and submitting 52 stories next year (crazy much?), I want to read a collection of short fiction each month. Santa's helpers have suggested I might receive Full Dark, No Stars by Stephen King for Christmas. That will be first in the queue. But then what?
I'm looking for single author collections but anthologies will do, too. I find I'm most motivated to write when I'm reading great work. Any horror, fantasy, or science fiction book is welcome.
What should I feed my brain?
I've struggled with my WIP. Some lines have jumped, fully formed, from my brain like Athena from the head of Zeus. Beautiful lines. Someone else's lines.
And then I sat back this weekend and wonder what the hell it was all about.
My plot needed a unifying theme, something to bring all the bits into line. I think I found it, but I'm not showing my hand. Yet. Let's just say there's something worse in town than the dead coming back to life. (Should I mention the dead are afraid of the "something worse"?)
I really want to finish this novella/novel/whatever-the-hell-it-is before the end of the year because...
I'm participating in Write 1/Sub 1 next year. (Thanks to Milo James Fowler and co.)
Here's the rationale:
1. I love short stories. I love writing them and I love reading them.
2. I love Ray Bradbury.
3. It's an opportunity to spend a year doing something I love and following in the "footsteps" of an author I respect.
How can I lose?
People preach that writers need to have a platform, a message, a central "thing". If I do, mine is the sheer love of storytelling. I believe in short fiction. I think it can save the world.
"I've decided I want one thing out of writing: to tell stories."
Probably the rarest sensibility to come by anymore. But what a revelation it is, to know it. Keep fighting the good fight, Aaron.
Congrats on the 'sales', Aaron. Look forward to maybe seeing that novella somewhere soon, too. I think if you can keep hold of that "writing for the story" idea, you're a stronger person than most.
Keep up the good work!
Great Sales, Aaron! Keep on truckin'
not too shabby for just starting out. Hey, you've beaten my numbers! Keep at it!
Martin, Craig - It's hard to stay focused. The world is so shiny.
Thanks, Kara.
Barry - Bottom Feeders has been out there for almost a year (minus four or five months). There's a learning curve. We'll all get to the promised land.
Congrats on the sales (of stories and books both). I'd call that a smashing month. :-)
Congrats on those sales (and 'sale')!
Thanks, Tony & Mike.
That sounds like a very cool, and even respectable "want", Aaron. I guess at the bottom of it, that's all any of us want. I mean, if we were in it for chicks and drugs, we'd be trying to get a record deal, right?
(Dammit, what WAS I thinking?!)
Congrats on all the sales, sir, as well as the W1S1 productivity; that's been our goal for the challenge all along, and it seems to be working for everybody.
The "craft"...yes.
A most successful month. Congrats on the sales.
Katey - HA! A record deal! Chicks and drugs! I'd be like some long-lost member of Devo or something.
Milo - I just hope I have the energy to keep this up for another ten (yikes) months.
Danielle - Thanks!
Great month for you. You remain as inspiring as ever. The Kindle sales do fluctuate weirdly don't they? There must be a pattern but it isn't always obvious.
I want to sell stories too : ) And make enough money to buy Japanese rock CDs. I think that's a fair bar.
Simon - Maybe I can make a kindle sales model out of mashed potatoes?
Natalie - That's a fair and noble bar.
Congrats on the sales, Aaron. I imagine The Bottom Feeders sales have begun to pick up because readers are beginning to recommend it to each other and I hope the numbers keep growing.