Resolve or Resign?

So our Writer’s Ramble this month is supposed to be about our writing goals and resolutions for 2014. Before I can get to that, I have to address a challenge that I’m currently faced with.

See, I’ve been writing pretty consistently since 2006. Almost eight years. I've written dozens of stories. And in all that time, I have exactly one publication to show for it. A publication that only came late this last year, in September 2013. And even then, it was a “paid by exposure” publication, for which I earned no money, and have seen no “exposure” benefits from. No one has contacted me to tell me they liked the story, my blog traffic remained as pitiful as it has ever been. Nothing has come from this, my first publication.

Except: Proof that I can do this. Someone out there enjoyed my writing enough to include it in their magazine. So I have hope, and believe me, I’m eternally grateful to Promptly for giving me my first boost.

Unfortunately, that boost hasn’t been enough. The end of 2013 saw my biggest writing slump to date. In the last three months, the most I’ve written are a few Drabbles (100 word stories) and Twabbles (100 character stories excluding spaces) on the Drabblecast forums. Don’t get me wrong, writing these ridiculously short stories is highly entertaining and extremely challenging, but they’re not really publication material. They’re just for fun. I haven’t written a serious story in months.

I started a new job recently, which I would love to blame for my current slump, “It’s not my fault, this new job is so demanding, I just don’t have the time or energy to write…” But it would be a lie. In reality, this new job gives me ridiculous amounts of free time with nothing to do but sit in front of the computer. ALL THE TIME IN THE WORLD TO WRITE. And what do I do? Watch Netflix and play browser RPGs. (Card Hunter is a great one for anyone interested.;))

I try to write, really I do. But every time I start, I very quickly find some excuse to do something else. Why am I having such a hard time? Who knows? Maybe eight years of rejection is getting to me. Maybe the freedom at work is more than my willpower is able to withstand. Maybe there’s something in the air here that just sucks all my creative juices right out through my ears. I don’t know.

But I do know one thing: I’m not going to quit. I’m never going to quit. I love writing. Maybe not as much as I should. Not enough at this point to convince me to choose writing over playing the Xbox when such free time at home allows. But I still love it.

So here are my goals for 2014: Quit being lazy. Quit coming up with excuses. Quit not being paid for my stories. Quit sucking.

More specifically, I have some exact goals I want to accomplish as well. Penumbra Ezine is running a Superhero issue in May. I want my Superhero story, Lullaby (the name will be changed before submission) to be in that magazine. If/when EscapePod runs their next flash fiction contest, I want to win. I want to have both a Drabble and a Twabble accepted and read on episodes of the Drabblecast. And, as always, I want to win the Writers of the Future contest.

Now, I may not accomplish all of these in 2014, but I’m sure gonna try.

On the Escape Artists forums, someone recently started a topic entitled “6-Word Memoirs” challenging everyone to write a summation of 2013 in six words. Mine was this:

“Too much Xbox, not enough writing.”

I followed that up with a 6-word Resolution:

“Write more, game less, be successful.”

And that’s exactly what I intend to do. Even if it takes me all year; all decade; all of my life.  

WIP it Good!

"When a problem comes along... you must WIP it." -Devo

Ok, so that's not quite what we mean by WIP in the writing world. This month's Writer's Ramble is about the current Work In Progress of each of our members. Many of you know that my current goal is to win the Writers of the Future contest. If you don't know about that, I have a separate page all about my journey here. But, to be more specific, I can't really talk about my actual current WIPs without risking disqualification from the contest. So instead I'll break down one of my recent stories that didn't win.

Herald of Salvation (Disappointing Title)
This is the story I submitted last quarter for the contest. It's about the crew of a messenger ship in the distant future where mankind has ventured out among the stars and settled many planets. However, though they can travel faster than light, communication is not so fast, hence the use of messenger ships that travel the expanse of human space delivering needed information. Mankind then encountered an alien race of superior strength and technological advancement. This alien race, know as the Hostis, seem to be interested in only one thing: the annihilation of the Human Race. Every attempt to communicate with these warrior beings has fallen on deaf ears, and any attempt to decipher their language has failed.

The story focuses on the crew of the Herald, a small messenger ship assigned to wait silently on the edge of a solar system where a cloaked human spy ship, the Scarcity, has inserted ground operatives on a Hostis settled planet. When the spies come up with useful intel, the information is sent from the Scarcity to the Herald, which then jumps out of the system to deliver the information to human military leaders. The Herald has just received a packet of information from the Scarcity that could very well turn the tide of the war, but before they can leave the system, there is a malfunction with the engine core and the Herald is left sitting dead in space. At the same time, the planetside spies are discovered and a Hostis warship has tracked the information transmission and is bearing down on the Herald at top speed.

Can the crew get the engines repaired in time? Can they decode the data packet and use this new information against the Hostis? Time is running out.

Hehe, that turned into a movie trailer, which was not the plan. I had a lot of fun writing this story. The original idea was based upon the thought of a ship waiting on the edge of space for a spy transmission. Of course, the ship has to break down just after they're discovered, it needs some tension. But the real intrigue of this story to me is what information is contained in the data packet that could turn the war around for the humans. I won't give any spoilers here, but let's just say those who've read it are polarized between loving the idea and hating it. I've taken kind of a risk including this aspect of the story because it's a heated argument in the science fiction community.

Unfortunately, I don't think I got this controversial reveal quite right because the story didn't even make honorable mention in the contest. Which is ok. I rushed my edits of the story to get in into the contest on before the deadline and I think that's what hurt it most of all. There's a great story here told poorly and I think I just need to break it down, see what's working and what isn't, and figure out how to make my reveal work within the context of the story.

I could use some fresh opinions on this story. If any of you would be interested in read the Herald of Salvation and giving me some feedback and suggestions (especially for a better title), I'd be willing to send it to you. Just comment on this post with your email address and I'll send it right over.

In regards to the contest, I just yesterday sent off another story for 3rd Quarter, a light-hearted ghost story that I wrote based on a writing prompt from the website Prompt and Circumstance. It was fun to write and includes some humor, which I don't do a lot of. I'm also currently working on a story set within a community on the moon which discovers that nuclear war has just destroyed the entire planet Earth and they may very well be the last human beings alive. Dun-dun-dun!

For those who are interested, feel free to follow my progress toward winning Writers of the Future on my Journey page.

Thus it begins...

Here begins my first foray into the blogosphere...

As an aspiring author, I have decided the best way to get into the blogging scene is to write about what I am striving to learn the most of right now, which is writing. I have been writing semi-seriously to seriously for about six years now, since I graduated college. At first it was a slow process as I didn't devote myself enough to the art and really didn't try to learn about the craft anymore than I had learned in school . I was writing stories sure, and unlike many early aspiring writers, I was submitting my work, mostly to the Writers of the Future Contest. Sadly the results were no good, and understandably so as I was making many mistakes in my stories that young writers tend toward.

In 2009--after failing to win WotF for the eighth or tenth time--I realized that in order to improve my writing I needed to get more active in the writing community. I began attending the two major writing conferences in Utah; Life, The Universe, and Everything, hosted yearly by Brigham Young University, and CONduit, held locally in downtown Salt Lake City.

From both of these sources, after three years of attendance, I have gathered a wealth of knowledge on everything writing related. From story structure, to character development, to plots and subplots, to ePublishing and traditional publishing, to agents and editors, I have learned a great deal about the craft. And it is that knowledge that I intend to share through this blog. I have notebooks full of notes and handouts taken from these events that have helped me in my own writing and I hope to be able to pass on what I have learned and, hopefully, we can all learn more in the process.

At this point I intend to share thoughts and notes on a different topic for writing each week. I'm toying with the idea of ending each post with a writing prompt and following up the next post with my own results of the writing prompt, so readers can see the ideas in action. We'll see how things progress.

I want to thank everyone for taking the time to read this blog and hope that we can all learn something from the pages and pages of frantically scribbled notes I have stored away.