Writerly Progress Report

Time for another progress report: what I did this summer, the writing edition. 

I wrote a story in Finnish for the Gothic Fiction anthology and another in English, a bonkers science fiction adventure story that's so out there that I'm not sure I'll ever submit it anywhere. I'll send it to Critters, though. I've got another story outlined and a few more that are in the idea stage. There's another Finnish anthology coming up that's all about crossed genres, so I'll probably try to get something done for that one. Deadline's the end of October. It might mean shoving the English stories on a back burner for a while, which is too bad. 

I also edited the Finnish story I tried to write for the hard science fiction anthology and sent it to the Portti competition. Because, let's face it, it's not hard science fiction. To thine own self be true, I guess. Speaking of competitions, one of my stories made the second round of the Nova writing competition, yay! The winners will be announced in October, but just getting this far shows progress, so I'm pretty happy however it turns out.

I'm also sending out a few English stories, and waiting to hear about those.

I sold some drabbles to SpeckLit, and all of those came out in July. 

On the self-improvement front, I completed K. M. Weiland's course on character arcs and I'm actively participating in the MOOC from University of Iowa on writing about death and disaster. I also read a few writing books and learned about deep point of view. And I managed to read a few more books on my Science Fiction Classics reading list. The Classics list is stalling, because Proust. The first few hundred pages of Sodom and Gomorrah feel like being at a dull dinner party where you don't know anyone and just sit there, listening to mean people gossip about strangers.

I'm also beta-reading a fellow Critter's novel, which is very interesting. I'm learning a lot from doing it, and getting to read a cool story, too. I'm trying to do one critique per week in addition to that, just to keep my ratio up, in case I want to submit something before I finish the book. (Because you get the credit at the end for RFDRs, "Request For Dedicated Readers.") Oh, and I'm also still in the Finnish critique group, of course.

That's all for now. More later. This writing thing's a marathon, not a race, as Chuck Wendig is fond of pointing out.