Writing Wednesday: More Goals, e-Publishing, Words

Hey look, it's my first Writing Wednesday post. If you come here to read about books or letterpress or craft or the birds in my backyard (which probably occupy most of the photos I've posted in the last year or so), go ahead and skip this entry. The next one, in a few days, will be all about crafty things (and maybe a bird or two).

First off, some announcements. Two of my short stories are now available as e-books for $0.99 each from White Raven Press. At the moment, they're only available via Smashwords, but eventually you'll be able to get them from Barnes & Noble and Amazon as well, and maybe iBookstore. There are a bunch of different file formats, so you can read them on just about anything, from Kindle to iPad to Nook to Kobo to your computer screen.

"Come-From-Away"  
Newfoundland is thick with fairies, if the old stories are to be believed. So what happens when a graduate student from away follows an old folklore text to a peculiar rock formation known as Puck's Chair? Will she return a poet or a madwoman? Originally published online in a little semi-pro zine called Fables in 2001 or 2002.

"Burnt Offerings"
 Frank Swann is a celebrated poet who only ever writes a single copy of each poem. He holds his audience enthralled as he reads it to them, and then he burns the original, destroying the poem forever. What compels him to destroy his work, and what would happen if he stopped? Originally published in Quantum Muse when it was a semi-pro market in 2001 or 2002, it's a sort of sequel to "Come-From-Away" in that it shares a character, but both are stand-alone stories.

Friends who want to read these but don't want to shell out the 99 cents let me know and I'll see if I can figure out the coupon system for Smashwords. If you want them in print, you'll have to wait until I have enough stories for a collection, at which point they'll be available in trade paper.

Also, I just got my printed copies of Fey: Drawing Borders chapter 1, and they look great. Two copies en route to the National Library as soon as I get them packed and get out of my hermitage to a post office. They're available from Indy Planet, and I hope chapter 2 will follow in a month or two (depending on how good my time management is). The whole story will eventually be available as a paperback, but first I have to finish writing and drawing it, something at which I am notoriously slow.

And now, a progress report. I've managed three straight days of an hour of writing, and on day three I did two hours. Then I missed yesterday. I don't know how many words that is, because I had a false start on the word processor and switched to longhand (the intention was to do it temporarily so I could more easily write in bed, but it sort of stuck). It looks like a lot of pages on "Brother Thomas's Angel," an old story idea I started over with. So far not a lot has happened--not even the discovery of Brother Thomas's body (his angel was discovered in the first sentence, fortunately), so it's looking like this is going to be a long one.

I also turned in my second "Creator Spotlight" for the anime/manga section of Mania. I'm not sure when that will go up. My second folklore/myth article will be finished by the end of today.

And finally, a few more goals and decisions. First off, I realized I've been sending the same stories out over and over again, and while I haven't actually exhausted every possible magazine and website that might pay for them, I think that might be contributing a little to me not writing much new. So, I addition to my writing at least 5 out of 7 days a week and producing at least one new story a month, I've decided I need to clear the deck. So as soon as the last couple stories come back with rejections (or, you never know, acceptances), I'll retire them all from print submissions, and have them come out via White Raven Press and e-books. Some of them, I think, I will release as chapbooks or artist's books because my dream has always been to make books--words, pictures and binding all.

Then I won't have any stories sitting around waiting for someone to magically publish them, and I'll have to write more. Some of them may be suitable for magazines, and some will go straight to e-books where they won't be required to fit a specific genre or mold.

And that ended up being a much longer post than I intended, so I'll stop. Next time: what's happening with Niko and letterpress printing and how are all those bookbinding projects coming along, anyway?