Hello 2016!

Hello, hello, hello.

2016 is here; 2015 is dead and decomposing out back. I’m here to bury that beast and lay out some solid plans for moving forward.

Last week I read a post by Troy L. Wiggins over at his blog afrofantasy.net entitled: “Set it Off: My Writing Goals for 2016”.  Inspired by that I decided I needed to codify my own goals and purposes for 2016. Because I have to say, my handling of 2015 was not good.

Strangely enough 2015 was both the best and worst year of my short writing career so far. Two pieces of mine were published by a couple of serious, pro, real-deal fiction markets.

  • H” was published by Daily Science Fiction
  • All of Our Days” was published by Fireside Fiction.

They are both free to read, so I hope you will.

That was the public face of my writing career, and hey – it was awesome. Unfortunately, behind the scenes I was doing little to progress my skills or career. I had the same few stories that I continue to believe in and send out on submissions and I wrote exactly 2 new pieces. One was finished in the summer and received an amazing personal rejection from it’s first market and is out there now, trying to find a home. The other was written on New Year’s Eve. Well, I had 300 words written and a couple weeks of thinking about it before NYE, but come noon on NYE day that’s all I had and a midnight PST deadline I wanted to meet before the story’s target market closed for submissions. Continue reading

What I Patreon

I’m a big fan of crowdfunding. Much to the detriment of my wallet sometimes, but ah well. In the past I’ve supported quite a few Kickstarters and I’ve also joined in some Indiegogos, and GoFundMes. Beyond getting cool things and supporting cool projects I’ve also come to see crowdfunding in the same light I see various Social Media platforms on their best day: they give me hope for the future. I think they are an important counter-weight to the growing influence of mainstream, soulless corporate control over our media, art, and politics. Continue reading

Something I’ve Learned About Me, A New Goal, and Inspiration For Any Writer

One great thing about being in the early stages of learning anything is how fast you can improve. I’m pretty damn certain that every day over the past several months I have become a better writer and more likely to succeed in the business of writing. I’m equally sure that there will come days in the future where I will feel like I’m not getting better, or making progress. Those times, or plateaus, are commonly discussed in education theory and I believe they apply to most things in our lives. They can frustrate, but the secret at those times is to just keep pushing forward, maybe try to change-up some routines, and don’t stop putting in the time because you will break through the plateau eventually.

Continue reading