new posts in all blogs
Viewing: Blog Posts Tagged with: The Bradbury Year, Most Recent at Top [Help]
Results 1 - 6 of 6
How to use this Page
You are viewing the most recent posts tagged with the words: The Bradbury Year in the JacketFlap blog reader. What is a tag? Think of a tag as a keyword or category label. Tags can both help you find posts on JacketFlap.com as well as provide an easy way for you to "remember" and classify posts for later recall. Try adding a tag yourself by clicking "Add a tag" below a post's header. Scroll down through the list of Recent Posts in the left column and click on a post title that sounds interesting. You can view all posts from a specific blog by clicking the Blog name in the right column, or you can click a 'More Posts from this Blog' link in any individual post.
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.
.jpeg?picon=3626)
Great stuff all round Aaron. I know what you mean about falling behind on the editing. Sometimes I wonder if Bradbury did any redrafting at all. I mean, I guess he must have.
Maybe Bradbury was one of those lucky fellows who could nail it on the first try. Maybe...
Good Luck with your story and the House Eaters. I'm busy with my book at the moment or I will be once I stop playing around on the net.
Good luck with the sub. I know how you feel about the editing. I always feel weird moving on to a new story without completing the last.
Thanks, Jarmara...the internet is sooooo addictive.
Anthony - It feels weird, but right. I try to let a story sit before revisiting it, but now I find myself writing more and editing less. I'll hit my stride.
I'm behind on the editing as well. It sneaks up on you, doesn't it? : P
I often wonder about getting it right on the first draft. If only...
Yes, I have two novels to edit myself. About to get to work on the dark UF.
Congratulations, Aaron. I'll be contacting you about a signed copy.