SUNDAY … MY DAY OFF
Household duties done. Well, most of them anyway.
Sit down at desk. Got my Mountain Dew. McGraw, Hill, Garth, and others playing on the FM. My cat, Sabrina, prowling and meowing because I’m not spending all my time scratching her neck and tummy. All set to write … something.
New sf anthology listed on Ralan’s site. Called Seed Fiction Supplement. Producing their second annual anthology. Pro pay. I have a story that looks like what they’re looking forward. Problem. The story is 1700 words beyond their max limit. Okay, create new doc file and see if I can edit a few syllables out. A few hours later, a very lean and tight short story. Is it better than the original version? Don’t know. That’s b.s. It’s better. There’s something liberating about cutting stuff out. Killing your darlings as one instructor phased it once. Off it goes, via email, to SFS. Response time is three months.
Wrote a horror screenplay. Solo this time. My usual collaborator didn’t like the basic concept. The story kept twisting and turning in my mind however. So I wrote it. Today I registered Chill with the Writers Guild and got a copy ready to mail tomorrow to the Scriptapalooza contest. Winners will be announced mid-August.
Decided to send off a screenplay query letter to a couple production companies about our latest screenplays. Couldn’t hurt. Letters went to Promark Entertainment, Revolution Studios, and Cyan Pictures. Most studio web-sites don’t have email addresses or state bluntly that they do not look at unsolicited material. I decided to roll the dice with these three. Response time, if any, is unknown.
A few days ago I saw that the quarterly web-zine Dred was looking for columnists. Dred used to be a print mag called Dread. The editor is Bill Hughes. He bought one of my early stories called “EscapeVision.” One of the columns he wanted for Dred was movie reviewer. Horror films and thrillers to be precise. That could be fun. I’d like doing that. So I wrote a column. Reviewed Flightplan, Red Eye, and Sin City. Sent it off to Mr. Hughes. Decision to be made by end of February.
Have you, dear reader, noticed a pattern yet? Write something. Send it out. Then forget about it. Most places are way behind in their submission readings so don’t start looking for a reply in the next day's mail. I keep track of where I sent stuff and when I sent it but I know it’s going to be a while. I had eight stories in the mail this morning. I wrote two off because it’d been over 300 days. They were foreign markets and reprints. Would’ve like to have sold to them but that’s the way it goes. One is coming up on two years. Normally I would’ve yanked the story a long time ago but the editor had asked for a rewrite of the ending and I’d really like to be part of this anthology. I’ll wait a while longer. Another story is over 200 days. It’s something different from what I normally write and I don’t have another market to send it to so I’ll wait a little longer. The rest are between 40 and 90 days. See, the only thing a a writer can do is write another tale during that time. And another.
Sit down at desk. Got my Mountain Dew. McGraw, Hill, Garth, and others playing on the FM. My cat, Sabrina, prowling and meowing because I’m not spending all my time scratching her neck and tummy. All set to write … something.
New sf anthology listed on Ralan’s site. Called Seed Fiction Supplement. Producing their second annual anthology. Pro pay. I have a story that looks like what they’re looking forward. Problem. The story is 1700 words beyond their max limit. Okay, create new doc file and see if I can edit a few syllables out. A few hours later, a very lean and tight short story. Is it better than the original version? Don’t know. That’s b.s. It’s better. There’s something liberating about cutting stuff out. Killing your darlings as one instructor phased it once. Off it goes, via email, to SFS. Response time is three months.
Wrote a horror screenplay. Solo this time. My usual collaborator didn’t like the basic concept. The story kept twisting and turning in my mind however. So I wrote it. Today I registered Chill with the Writers Guild and got a copy ready to mail tomorrow to the Scriptapalooza contest. Winners will be announced mid-August.
Decided to send off a screenplay query letter to a couple production companies about our latest screenplays. Couldn’t hurt. Letters went to Promark Entertainment, Revolution Studios, and Cyan Pictures. Most studio web-sites don’t have email addresses or state bluntly that they do not look at unsolicited material. I decided to roll the dice with these three. Response time, if any, is unknown.
A few days ago I saw that the quarterly web-zine Dred was looking for columnists. Dred used to be a print mag called Dread. The editor is Bill Hughes. He bought one of my early stories called “EscapeVision.” One of the columns he wanted for Dred was movie reviewer. Horror films and thrillers to be precise. That could be fun. I’d like doing that. So I wrote a column. Reviewed Flightplan, Red Eye, and Sin City. Sent it off to Mr. Hughes. Decision to be made by end of February.
Have you, dear reader, noticed a pattern yet? Write something. Send it out. Then forget about it. Most places are way behind in their submission readings so don’t start looking for a reply in the next day's mail. I keep track of where I sent stuff and when I sent it but I know it’s going to be a while. I had eight stories in the mail this morning. I wrote two off because it’d been over 300 days. They were foreign markets and reprints. Would’ve like to have sold to them but that’s the way it goes. One is coming up on two years. Normally I would’ve yanked the story a long time ago but the editor had asked for a rewrite of the ending and I’d really like to be part of this anthology. I’ll wait a while longer. Another story is over 200 days. It’s something different from what I normally write and I don’t have another market to send it to so I’ll wait a little longer. The rest are between 40 and 90 days. See, the only thing a a writer can do is write another tale during that time. And another.
Okay. Finished this entry then get back to the new screenplay. Most of day off is now gone. Time. The enemy.
(Picture up top. Van Gogh is cool. His work mesmerizes me.)
1 comment:
There is something ... can't think of the right word at the moment ... about Van Gogh's work. I have three copies of his work scattered about the house.
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