12 posts tagged “uni”
In the past ten days or thereabouts I have:
- Sent A SHADE OF YELLOW to Clarkesworld Magazine.
- Sent EMPIRES AND GLASS to the Writers of the Future Contest. I think it's a better story than STATUES,
so hopefully it'll net a better result. What's scary is that by
the time I hear back from them, I will have finished university.
o.O
- For a little while now I've had the vague idea of writing a story
about Samhain/Halloween, where the holiday is a character, but hadn't
quite figured out how to tell it. Naturally, it was when I went
to Starbucks with the intention of getting some uni work done that the
story finally slapped me in the face and demanded to be written.
That was about a week ago. I've since polished it up and sent it
away to Fantasy Magazine. It's only a little story, just over
1,000 words, and is called CHICA, LET ME TELL YOU A STORY.
Yeah, that title could probably be better, but when you read it and
then read the story it does make sense. I think. Also I
couldn't think of anything better.
What particularly interested me, when I was skimming through wikipedia for a history of the holiday, was the idea of Samhain/Halloween as a door for nasty dead/fey creatures to step through, and that became a core part of the story and the character. Trying to write about a person who is also a door was... interesting, but I think it worked. And I am definitely returning to this characters-as-doors thing in the future.
- I found out about 10 days ago that the deadline for Shimmer
magazine's pirate-themed issue had been extended from January 31st to
Februrary 28th. As I hadn't had time by the end of January to
write a story for it, I was rather happy at this news -- and last night
finished the short story for it, ROSEILDA'S TALE.
I'm hoping to submit it by the end of the week, or thereabouts.
It fits into the same world as two of my other short stories, A SHADE OF YELLOW and A FAY OF STEAM. I have a vague idea that I'll collect them all into a novella-length thing at some point.
- The novella-without-a-proper-name, "beth", is coming along in the
background. I haven't written much for it in a few days; the next
part needs a little more time to germinate in my head, I think.
At any rate, it's currently over 10,000 words, and there's potentially
a lot more to go. Once I've figured out the Bone Queen's tale,
that is; the rest of the story will hinge on that.
While basking in the glow of my own writing-productivity makes me feel good, it doesn't really do
much for those source-analyses that need to be done for Thursday's
class. Must stop procrastinating one of these days. (as if)
During a discussion in my Alexander the Great class last Thursday (which is composed of both History and Classics students, of which I am one of the former), one of the history students held up his copies of Arrian and Plutarch and whined, "These things read like novels!"
To which our lovely teacher replied, "Yeah, welcome to ancient history."
Careful it doesn't hit your arse on the way out, idiot no-fun modern-historian.
*hugs ancient history*
So I just got told that I need to find a WW1 propaganda poster to print off and bring to my class tomorrow. I ran to google images, and unearthed the following comedy gold:
Oh man. Americans were hilarious back then too!
Finally got my letter back from the Sails and Sorcery anthology, which I'd subbed EMPIRES AND GLASS to:
"An exciting, yet painful tale - it's just not quite a fit for this book."
They're not saying it's a bad story, in fact their reaction (the fact they had one, even, rather than just saying "it doesn't fit") suggests that it's a good story, only that it's not a story they want for the anthology. Which is bloody annoying, though it could be worse.
Not sure where to send it next. I'm thinking the Writers of the Future Contest again, to see if I can do even better this time with a story that, I think, is much tighter and stronger than STATUES, but I've not entirely made up my mind. I suppose my problem with the WotF Contest is that I wouldn't hear back about the story til June, and I'd hate to have it tied up for so long. But at the same time, the gain I could get from doing well in the contest would far outstrip the happy feeling I'd get from having the story appear in a much lesser place much sooner. And really, I do have to be a bit pragmatic about this.
In happier news, I get to read Gilgamesh for my dissertation. Dude. I've wanted to read it for a while, and now I have to read it. Okay, so I don't have to, but as part of my dissertation I'll be considering how Alexander's foray into India fits into a greater ancient tradition of conquest/adventure narratives, and my supervisor mentioned reading Gilgamesh as one of the things in the tradition to compare it to.
So today:
Writerly World = 1, Alex = 0
Rest of the World = 0, Alex = 1
Karma, people. She breathes...
Got back the essay I turned in at the end of last term, and I got a B+! Hooray! Much better than I'd expected. Hopefully the essay I turned in last week will yield the same positive surprise.
Subbed A TRIPTYCH off to the Iris Print "fairy tale and fantasy" anthology last night, and A SHADE OF YELLOW to the Touched by Wonder anthology on the 7th (which I think I forget to mention).
Finished an essay. It's assessed, and really not that great, but I have to head over to uni now to hand it in so I don't have time to make it better. Whatever.
Can't help but snigger at the first line in this comment to a post about getting books turned into a movies. "Oh wow, you write epic fantasy! How original!" While I'm not dissing the idea of epic fantasy being good, the ratio of 'people who think they're writing The Next Great Fantasy Epic' to 'people actually writing good fantasy' generally supports my urge to snark. But snarking in this community is NAUGHTY so I must keep it here. (for those who've not seen it: keep scrolling down, that thread keeps getting better and BETTER)
On that books-to-movie topic, if I finish any of my weirder stuff I'd kill to have it animated by Studio Ghibli. But that's stepping right into Totally-Awesome-But-NEVER-Going-To-Happen territory. *keeps dreaming*
Going up to Scotland for my gran's funeral. Will return on Saturday.
I passed my Floor Manager's test with an average of 95% (the pass-mark was 80%). Hooray! It's particularly hooray because was I convinced I'd failed. To pass I needed above 80% in two sections, and I thought I'd not managed 80% in one of them - the multiple choice paper. There were a whole load of questions I didn't know the answer to, and had to make educated guesses. Fortunately, seems enough of my educated guesses turned out correct. And now I can forget all that useless info. Hooray!
While I've finally recovered from my vicious cold, I think I'm still suffering residual fatigue. I said I've have my essay done by the extended deadline of today but I've only written 1,000 words out of 2,500, and they're not particularly great words either. I just can't seem to focus for more than ten seconds at a time. I'm going to have to work my arse off this week to get both this essay done, and done well because it's assessed, and also attempt my other essay, which matters less because it doesn't count towards my final grade. Yuck.
I've been submitting short stories in the past few days. TANSU was rejected by Fantasy Magazine, so I sent it on to Shimmer. I subbed A SHADE OF YELLOW to Ideomancer webzine and EMPIRES AND GLASS to the Sails and Sorcery anthology. I rewrote my one non-genre short story, FLIGHT, and subbed it to Edifice Wrecked webzine. Over the weekend, I finished rewriting an old fanfiction into a short story called LET ME FALL (with different characters and setting to the fanfic, of course), but I'm not entirely sure yet where I'll send it, considering it's a bit slashy and quite angsty and the specfic-ness is very much in the background. And finally, I've been working on A FAY OF STEAM and hope to have it sent off to Cabinet des Fées in the next few days.
Future short story projects are:
- Something for Shimmer's pirate issue. I've decided to take a character from A FAY OF STEAM,
Roseilda, and tell part of her story for this. The deadline is
31st January, but I aim to get this done in the next fortnight or
so.
- Iris Print, a publisher of boys' love, is open for submissions to a fairytale/fantasy anthology of boys' love short stories, and I've written just over a page of a story for this. Deadline is 15th January.
- I still intend to give the On the Premises thing a go. I've written part of that story, and will finish it sometime. Deadline is 31st January.
But at least my birthday is coming up - I'll stop being a teenager in,
oooh, 15 days, woooo!!!! Sadly there are no Wiis left, but my
brother is buying me the Legend of Zelda game anyway and I'm going to
save my Christmas and birthday money to buy a Wii when more are
made. I'm also getting money from my parents to go to Venice with
the uni history society. I don't know anyone on the trip, but who
the hell cares? Venice!!!
My final count:
(80.2%)
While I couldn't hit 50k because of my cold, at least I managed to make my lowered target of 40k. It's still a greater rate of productivity than I've shown all year. And what I've written during November has been of surprisingly high quality - not perfect, for sure, but not dire either.
What have I written? I had a plan for what I would write. Naturally, I didn't entirely stick to it:
- Painted Angels = 6,078 words
- Our Green Fairies = no words
- D'sil short story = 7,498 words
And then...
- Bunia's Journal = 17,811 words
- Other short stories and edits = 8,613 words
I think my biggest regret is that I didn't write more PA, but I am glad I wrote what I did for it. The book is very close to the end now - I think there are only a handful of chapters until it's done - and I need more time to plot out exactly how the final fight is going to go down.
Bunia has been an... interesting... muse. I really enjoyed writing her journal, and now it's sort-of done (I haven't posted the final entry yet because I don't like it all, so sorting that out is one of the first things I'll do when I next write) I can start planning out her novel. I never do deep plans, but I want a little bit of planning on this one because it's a quest-of-sorts (she goes questing for an interesting piece of furniture, but the collapsing Serrian Empire gets in her way) so I need to make sure it doesn't get all rambly and long and crap. I need to know when and how she goes from A to B, and I need to keep my narration succint and interesting. Plus, I need to figure out what exactly D'sil is doing - okay, so I know he'll be working for conflicting people, as always, but I need to be a bit more specific than that. So I intend to do a sort-of outline - which, probably, will get hacked to pieces in the process of writing the book, but heh. At least I have a tentative title for the book: The Ephrebet Bed, which is the piece of furniture she goes questing for.
I do intend to work on Our Green Fairies, I just realised it's not suitable Nano-fodder after all. The descriptive narrative style demands time and thought, rather than blindly punching out words, as walking the fine line between descriptiveness and purple-ness is tough. I also think I need to leave it a while longer to let the characters crystallise a little more in my head.
My vague plan is to get PA done, and in the process of doing it maybe work on TEB's outline and perhaps a handful more short stories. Then I'll need to edit PA, and once it's all shiny and shipped away to publishers I can work on the book that comes five years after it, Renegade Star, and also TEB and OGF. I'm sure I'll start working on those while I'm editing PA, just for a change of pace, but heh.
However, I suspect I won't get much writing done til the end of term, in two weeks' time. That's because I have my floor manager exam next Friday, and I need to start hard-core revising for that today. I also have two essays to do, and I need to apply for a job. *shakes fist at reality* Also, to be honest, I want to give writing a brief respite after the pressures of Nano.
All in all, Nano has been a productive and good venture, and I'm glad I did it. And now, back to reality...
Earlier today I found a potential market for THE BEAUTIFUL COLLECTION - Crimson Highway - and submitted the story just now. They want dark romance-supernatural stuff, and considering TBC is about obsession with a flavour of magic I think/hope this mag will bite. They're a webzine and very new, but they've got a nice layout. Too many webzines look really shoddy, whereas these guys look really smart. While their publication of the crazy comma story was a bit of a turn-off, I otherwise quite like the look of them. What? You mean the story wasn't about the commas? Wow. That totally slipped by me. Could be something to do with the massive brain bleed caused by his comma-splicing-from-hell. "Using an impressionistic style of his own making" does not excuse it.
My Nano count has been totally killed by my cold, which turned out to be more vicious than I expected. Night before last I got about 2 hours' sleep, in 20 minute segments, and the whole of yesterday I felt like I'd just crawled out of my grave on a *really* bad day. I slept better last night, though not perfectly, and today I've been getting better though I've got a sore throat now and am otherwise not quite better. I severely doubt I will hit 50k, but if I can get over 40k I'll be happy because I'll still have been more productive than in previous months.
My floor manager test is scheduled for 8th Dec, which is another reason 50k won't happen. Tomorrow I need to start revising all that shitty knowledge I learnt back in August/September. I also need to write some essays, apply for a job, do more dissertation reading.... *hates the real world*
Also, House needs to be aired more than once a week.
And
the torrents need to be sorted out faster. *twitches*
What's he going to do? He's totally fucking up Wilson's life and
please, please let him finally realise he's being a complete shit to
his only friend, who is sticking by him despite being given no
thanks at all. Seriously, this most recent episode I barely
noticed the patient and the diagnosis and all that jazz. C'mon,
House, you wanker, do something! *angsts* This is why I
usually watch TV shows in box sets, not as they air. *angsts some
more*
I think I have been bitten by the Short Story bug. A year and a half ago, I had never written anything shorter than the opening chapters of novels. Just over a year ago I wrote my first short story - MCFUTURE - a work-inspired piece that, I'll be the first to admit, is far from original but was brilliant fun to write, though now I consider the quality of the writing rather sub-standard. Not long after that I wrote my second short story - FLIGHT - based on a reaction I'd love to have been able to give to my boyfriend's snooze alarm.
I was very proud of myself. Two short stories! I uploaded them to fictionpress and left it at that.
Then, earlier this year, I wrote STATUES for the Writers of the Future Contest and, while that story was 16k and definitely has more to be told, I think it started something. Because I have since written A SHADE OF YELLOW, TANSU, THE BEAUTIFUL COLLECTION and EMPIRES AND GLASS, as well as three short-short pieces (less than 1000 words, one of them less than 100 words) and a few more shorts-in-progress.
The latest addition to the menagerie of short fiction is A FAY OF STEAM, a steampunk fairytale that I'm writing to send to Cabinet des Fées. It's set in the city of Retyelnen, in which A SHADE OF YELLOW takes place, and is set before that story.
In all honesty, I quite like this bug. Not only will it hopefully net me some publication credits, but I've found that writing short stories is brilliantly fun. I can play around with different ideas that aren't developed enough to become novels, or that I don't have time to develop into novels, and with different narrative styles (like present tense and first person) that I wouldn't use in a novel. So bite on, dear bug!
.....And what is it that can distract a good bug? Only a good book, and I have found one in the wonderful The Orphan's Tales: In the Night Garden by Catherynne M Valente. How good is this book? Let me tell a story:
Today I decided to finally get my arse in gear and head on over to the British Library to register, because a book I need to read is there and I'm sure I'll find it a useful resource for the rest of the year. It's about an hour's round trip from where I live, via the London Underground. When I reached the BL, I discovered that you required both proof of identity and proof of address, and I did not have the latter. I had wasted an hour. Normally I would be viciously pissed off at this, but not today. Another hour spent on the Underground meant another hour reading Catherynne M Valente's book. No other book has made me enjoy wasted time to quite that degree.
The book is about a strange girl who lives in the Palace Gardens, shunned by the court. A daring boy approaches her and she begins to tell him stories - fairytales, with stories within stories within stories, woven together and told in Valente's wonderful lyrical prose. It is an absolutely fantastic book, a feast for the imagination.
Read the opening - HERE!
Read her short story The Maiden-Tree - HERE!
Read her short story Bones Like Black Sugar - HERE!
Catherynne M Valente is a fantastic author, and I heartily recommend everyone to buy In the Night Garden.
