An Upcoming Writing Retreat

It looks like my summer vacation^* is about to end. I have a little over a week until meetings start. In fact, next weekend is my last weekend before school revs up. But I will have a writing retreat in Kansas City that weekend!

Writing retreats are when I spend a weekend some place with cafes where I can spend a good part of the day writing and where I can eat excellent ethnic food. My husband gets coffee and ethnic food out of it^**.

I’m working on short stories right now. The stories I’m working on reside in the Hidden in Plain Sight universe, to be published in a future collection. I’d rather write stories for competition/publication in journals and the like, but I don’t feel inspired. To read the first collection and get an intro to the universe, look here.

I will come back Monday just in time for meetings two days later. And the first day of meetings lasts all day and is followed by a picnic^***. Summer needs a last hurrah.

^*Such that it is. I work all summer, but at least I get to set my own schedule.
^** My husband doesn’t write anymore. I wish I could get him to write again, because I think he needs a flow activity in his life.
^*** The first day of meetings is not a picnic, however.

Back to Writing

I have arrived back home after a week of road tripping to New York Hope and back, and after a 14-hour nap, I am back to writing. I have a short story to finish, and then maybe I will start another short story.

I’m writing short stories lately because I’m all noveled out, and because I need some shorter compositions for entering for publication and contests. The last story I had published was in Fall 2023 by Flying Ketchup Press, Inner Child. This story answers the perennial question, “What if my inner child is a brat?”

I need some inspiration for short stories. Perhaps a trip to Starbucks, but not today. I’m still recovering from the trip. That’s life after 60.

Submitting to CRAFT’s First Chapter contest

I haven’t used Submittable for quite a long time — three years, according to my list of submissions. Submittable, as I’ve explained it before, links creatives with contests and calls for publication. It’s another of those amazing computer assists that I don’t know how writers did without.

I can’t remember why I quit writing short pieces for publication. I think I tired of rejections, even though I got ten publications from it over a couple years. But, given that I’m all noveled out right now, I think it might be time to risk submitting again.

Toward this end, I got an email from CRAFT, whose first chapter contest I entered a couple of years ago. That’s how I got on their mailing list. I didn’t win, which is how my life didn’t change a couple of years ago. I decided I could get back into publishing short pieces with this contest.

I’m publishing the first 5000 words of Whose Hearts are Mountains, a future novel in the Hidden in Plain Sight series. That story has an interesting background, having been the result of a bout with pyelonephritis (kidney infection) in 1984. It took me almost 30 years to write down, after I had worked on at least a couple other novels. It might be my best novel, yet there are other novels to get through before I publish it. Unless a miracle happens.

I have to allow for the possibility of miracles happening.

A Little Bit of Writing: Short Stories

I wrote a little on my short story today, not as much as I would have liked. Combining my 30-year-old fragmented knowledge of Chicago with Google Maps and my near-future dystopic imagination is challenging. The result will hopefully be a background story developing a one sentence aside of the book I just wrote. Many of my short stories begin as character sketches, and this one is no exception.

I would like to write more short stories that don’t tie into characters in my novels. If I do that, I might submit more writing to Submittable contests and publishers. If you don’t know what Submittable is, it is a website that publicizes writing contests and journals and magazines that are looking to publish poetry and short stories. It’s a great way for a writer to get some exposure in those venues. There’s often a small payment for readers or subscription fees, but it’s rewarding to be published even in small venues. The last story I got published was “The Inner Child”, which was published by Flying Ketchup Press last fall.

I feel like I would have trouble publishing my tie-in stories because they are so character driven, but I guess I could always try to see. I have had little luck publishing them in the past, but had one story receive an honorable mention, so there’s that. Although I write as a flow activity, I still have a desire to be read.

Wish me luck!

Getting to Know My Characters

I occasionally throw my characters into other situations where they have to have a close interaction with another character. This is the way my characters teach me who they are. These also become short stories to be included in short story collections (such as Stories Within Stories, which will be out January 1st.)

For example:

What does a vision quest look like in a big city?
How do two enemies interact when one is having a very bad day?
How do two characters navigate a cultural divide?
How do a human and an immortal negotiate having a child?
How do you confront a mythical creature?

There are hundreds of ways to write these, and I’ll argue that what really determines where the story goes are the characters. Two enemies that have millennia of conflict may have a rapport. How to confront that mythical creature may depend on whether it has kidnapped your grandma — and, for that matter, whether your grandma can take care of herself.

The thing, though, is that not only do the characters make the story, but the story turns around and makes the character. I learn new things about my characters from writing these stories, especially things like their vulnerabilities and idiosyncracies. Things that make my characters real.

I need another story to write!

Aside — my writing lately

A poem of mine, “Deep Touch”, will be published soon in Tempered Runes Press’ inaugural issue of

Bluing the Blade. I’m really proud of this accomplishment, which reminds me: I haven’t been submitting short stories and poems lately.

I’m not sure why; probably because I haven’t written any lately, and I’m running out of good poems to submit. I have a lot of poems I’m not that enthused with. As for stories, I have a couple I’m in love with, but they haven’t caught traction.

Time to think about writing short stuff again, even though one selection of serialized short stories is arguing that it should be a novel. Then again, given the space opera premise of the stories, serialized may be the best use of the material.

Muse, where are you? I need some inspiration!

This Too

Every now and then I get to a point where I’m convinced I’ve reached the end of my writing career, that I’m ready to put the whole thing down.

This is one of those times.

I just don’t feel as much like a writer when I’m writing short stories. I’m not as focused (obsessed?), I have to come up with many, many more ideas rapidly (which I don’t know if I’m good at), and I don’t have the attachment to my characters.

Years ago, you wouldn’t have caught me writing a novel, and I never imagined I’d prefer novels to short stories.

Yet now is the time for short stories and sending them off to magazines and waiting. I’ve gotten a lot of rejections, but I keep trying.

I feel like quitting sometimes. I’ve felt like quitting many times before.

This too shall pass.

Are you trying to be funny?

I consider myself a pretty funny person, with stories, puns, dark humor — a pretty good complement of funny.

However, I tend to write pretty dark, picking topics that might be too close to home at times (climate change) or contemporary with fantastical elements (immortals, people with preternatural talents).

What are some ideas for a funny (maybe dark funny) short story?

A vampire at an NA (Narcotics Anonymous) meeting
A man who time travels to the future to find it’s being run by sentient cats
A man who tumbles an autocratic government by introducing them to cat memes
An “elixir of life” that ends up inducing extreme altruism

I’m actually having fun here! Let’s see if one of these becomes a short story.

***********

I’m almost to the point where I might take up Gaia’s Hands again for editing. I’m not convinced it has good bones, but I’m willing to wrestle with it. I might have Whose Hearts are Mountains on dev edit soon.

I have to come up with a novel idea (see what I did there?) for NaNoWriMo in November. Wish me luck.

Bits and Pieces

Having a relaxing weekend in Kansas City celebrating my birthday, just as I needed. Now in a coffeehouse on the south Plaza, typing this and drinking coffee and trying to come up with good ideas for writing.

The computer issue was a ID-10-T error (look at what that spells carefully); it was my dongle for the mouse rather than the USB port itself. But what the heck, it got me down here for a birthday celebration.

I’m feeling really frustrated with ideas of what to write, however. I just finished a short story called “God’s Broken Promise” which was based on an experience I had. Richard keeps suggesting characters — a guitar-shredding Buddhist monk, a woman with a pack of cats — but I can’t find the stories there. I guess I don’t start with characters like I thought I did. I start with plot, run with theme, and then the characters make themselves known.

So what do I want to write about? I want to write short stories with twist endings — shocking or satisfying or dramatic or silly. (I haven’t written enough silly stuff lately). I want to write novels again (although I’m about to embark in another dev edit).

I need ideas that grab me.

Writing Small

Stories have several aspects to them that make things interesting:

The plot — what’s actually happening; the action. In a novel, there may be more than one plot (designated as A plot, B plot, etc.)
The themes — these are the wider messages of the piece. They have big implications: man vs. nature, greed doesn’t pay, etc.
The characters — these are the people in the story. Generally you will have one or two main characters and maybe up to 8 point of view characters in a third-person ensemble piece.
The setting — people want to know where something happens and what it looks like.

When I write novels, I seem to start with character and plot first. Like “who is this person and what have they gotten themselves into?” Inspiration comes from that kernel of the story and spreads out from there as I’m writing.

Writing short stories, on the other hand, feels strange — all the parts of the story are there, but they’re a lot smaller, with one sentence often carrying the seed to all the parts: For example, “A woman hallucinates about the end of the world — or does she see visions?” With that idea/character/plot, I proceed with the story.

Short stories are harder for me because of motivation. I can’t dwell in a short story for months at a time like I can novels, so it doesn’t tempt me as much. I’m with the characters and the plot only for a short time, and I have to make the best of my time.