DARKNESS

I submitted the story Darkness to an anthology a few weeks ago. Last week I got an email from the editor saying he thought there was a lot of potential in the story but, as is, it wasn't something they could use. He suggested it might work better in first person narrative form. That type of answer in itself was pretty rare. The other rejects I've received were short and to the point so I looked into a possible rewrite. I wasn't sure about it at first. I've never been really comfortable in that form and don't have a lot of experience in it.
I reread the story with that in mind and was relieved to find out that the story could be changed to first person without losing anything. As it turned out there was only one scene that a character named Fletcher wasn't in but it wouldn't be impossible to believe that he was just outside the door and caught the conversation. It was an important character set up for Trevor and Jason and I didn't want to lose it.
It made the whole story run a lot smoother and it ended up being a few hundred words shorter. I resubmitted it and hope it gets accepted,

WELCOME TO NOWHERE WEEK 4

A much better week than last week. I'm feeling more comfortable with the characters and starting to introduce more of the conflict and tension between them. Also dropping in hints that there is something going wrong and but nobody realizes just how bad things will get.
Strangely enough there is one character I haven't introduced yet. I've had several references to the station's doctor but he hasn't appeared. I keep finding excuses for him not to be involved in the daily events at the station. I know what his secrets are but they wouldn't stop him from getting involved in things here. For some reason he does not want to bee seen yet and I can't get him to show up. Whatever he's doing it better be a good excuse. I wonder what it is?

STARPOINT UPDATE

Sent a nudge to the publisher about my books but haven't heard back yet. Finally got approved for the Nook so I'm now selling digital on both of the biggest markets. Also meeting with Susanna tomorrow to see if we can find something to use as a costume.

WELCOME TO NOWHERE WEEK 3

Was a weird week but that happens sometimes. It seemed like the brain was in neutral and I couldn't create much. I fumbled through some scenes for a few days and finally managed to get 6 pages out before Friday was over. At least it's better now that I'm giving it a sense of atmosphere and environment. Hopefully will have more to say next week.

SHORT STORY MARKETING

I went to a really good website that has listings for markets today submitted three short stories for publication. I was looking for some of the darker stories. There are some that specialize in that kind of thing. Some places weren't taking submissions and one place was taking them but you had to sign up for an account to do so. One of the places had a large list of things on their submission requirements but most were just asking you used the standard format.
I sent Darkness to UnEarthed Press and Death Always Wins to Dark Recesses.
I had a light-hearted 3 wishes story that I wrote a looooong time ago. Just out of curiosity I looked at the Young Adult market and found an ezine that just made it's premiere this month. It's called Scape and it was looking for YA fantasy stories in urban and modern day settings. Sounded as good as any place to start so I zipped the story Rool Book to them.

STARPOINT UPDATE

I met with Susanna today for a bit and we are looking at putting the costume together. I showed her some of the things I was looking at on ebay and she suggested that we go to Stuff or someplace and see if they have anything inexpensive that we know will fit that I can cannibalize for the character.
I also send a nudge to the company that I talked to about buying the book range. Keeping my fingers crossed.

WELCOME TO NOWHERE WEEK 2

Had a weird week writing. I've done lots of things and introduced a good chunk of the characters and then went back and realized it was really bad. I had concentrated solely on the characters and there was really no sense of time and place on them. I had done nothing to give the read any kind of idea of the environment and they were all just thrown together. I knew I was in trouble. I ended up spending the last three days of the week completely rewriting everything I'd done in the two weeks, but it was worth it. I wrote descriptions of all of the places that the character scenes I had written for a start. Then I rearranged them. I still started with the death of a character. Luckily, that took place near the aft of the station so I rearranged the other scenes leading from back to front. I also changed the time so that everything takes place in the twenty minutes while they are waiting for a ship to dock. It really ended up much better than what I started with.
I also decided that this station needed to have a certain terminology. I know there are certain phrases we use at work that no one else would catch, as I'm sure every place does. I thought of military terminology and decided to use submarine terms. That will also help remind the reader of being in an enclosed space.
Hopefully, the writing this week will be easier.