Freddie's Braindroppings

The last almost two weeks have been intense where my writing is concerned. I think I churned out about 28,000 words in that time, which is a ton for me, considering I work full time and sometimes struggle to squeak out 400 words a day. So I decided to make my goal 440 words per day. Then I noticed I was consistently putting out 1,000 words, so I decided to up the goal to 1,000 to meet what I was already producing. As soon as I did that, I started putting out between 1,500 and 2,000. This past Friday I wrote 6,000 words. I haven't had this kind of productivity since I did NaNoWriMo six years ago and churned out 7,000 words on day one. And that was because I wasn't working at that time. So I'm really proud of the success I've had with this novella. And even better, I finished it today. I need to reread and edit like crazy, as well as give it to a couple other people to read, but I finished it exactly when I wanted to. Not only that, but I already have a ton of...

If I'd written this post last week I'd have been excited about the warm weather, digging out my spring dresses, and the prospect of going out to write in coffee shops or accessing my own wifi from my yard. Instead, here I am, in a sweater, having come inside and doffed my winter coat and scarf. My hair is sad I chose this week to let it breathe after a month of a protective style, and I'm generally grumpy that mother nature has decided to play a late April Fool's joke on us by dipping to below freezing temperatures. That aside though, I've been writing during my breaks at work (got over 1,000 words on Monday!) and fully outlined my next novella this past Sunday, so I'm hoping I can finish it in time for my deadline. I struggled with a title and was actually considering submitting it without one and working with editors to select one, when I pulled a phrase from an important poem that comes up and found that it worked perfectly. I dislike writing without ...

This year has started off a little rough for pop culture lovers. Losing David Bowie and Alan Rickman in the same week, at the same age, to the same disease has made me want to write off 2016 before its first month is even over. (Pausing a  moment here to say fuck cancer .) But both of these men meant something to a lot of people. David Bowie made many people feel like they were not the only freaks in the world. He made being weird seem utterly cool and perfectly acceptable. That's so very important. Alan Rickman portrayed a number of character, spanning so many different genres it's hard to think that people haven't seen him in something. From Hans Gruber in Die Hard to Severus Snape in Harry Potter. My personal favorites were his roles in Dogma and Galaxy Quest. He was a brilliant actor, and form all the accounts of his co-stars, a great man. So yeah. It's been a rough week. But there have been some positives as well. I got my first round of edits back ...

I have awesome news! I submitted one of the stories I'd been working on to Less Than Three's Packing Heat anthology and it was accepted! I got the news on Saturday but because the holidays are coming up fast and furious, I didn't have a chance to update it until now. I have my signed and counter-signed contract, it's in the editing queue and now is the waiting game, part the second. The anthology probably won't be out until at least mid next-year, but I'm certainly not resting on my laurels. I have two more anthologies and at least one collection call I'd like to write for, that I have ideas for. Some a bit more solid than others. Not to mention some general submissions as well. Hoping to get a lot of writing done during my holiday vacation. We'll see. Wish me luck. And while I don't know who else is gonna be in this antho with me, if you're out there reading this and you got accepted to Packing Heat, congrats! I can't wait to be in ...

Heya folks! Look: I didn't let another whole month go by before posting again! Success!  I hit some awesome milestones already this month so I wanted to check in. First off, the story I was diving back into in my last post? Finished! Sent it to some beta readers for initial edits. I'm hoping to have it fully edited and ready for submission by year's end. Though I know acquiring editors get a lot of submissions in December due to NaNo, so maybe I'll wait until January? I'll think it over. But rather than rest on my laurels I moved onto the next project while I wait for edits to come back. I had a lot of setbacks with this one. It started rough and dry, and I scrapped it and started again, but that was also sort of leading me in circles. Finally I sat down and rewrote my 'outline' (it's really just a massive plot dump, but it's step by step what I want to happen) and everything started falling into place. I have better motivations for the char...

So much writing, guys. So much. I'm not actually doing NaNoWriMo proper this year (when do I ever have time these days?) But I still have managed to do a ton of writing since it began. I wrote one article, one essay, and yesterday, wrote 2K words and finished a novella! It's in the beta-read/editing stages now. I do plan to submit it to Less Than Three Press, since it's a sort-of sequel to the story that was in the WON'T BACK DOWN anthology. You don't have to have read that story to read this novella, but it's nice to see recurring characters. I also just submitted something else so I've holding out hope for that too. Even the essay I wrote I'm seeking a publication in an anthology, but I don't want to say any more on that until I know more about it. Also, I've re-jiggered my schedule to include the new collection calls and anthologies Less than Three has put out. I'm not sure I'll write for all of them, but I've scheduled them ...

Welcome to fall, if you're in the Northern Hemisphere like me. I woke up and it was suddenly October and I realized I needed to get my rear in gear where my next submission to Less Than Three was concerned. I have a story previously published in an e-zine that I'd like to rework for this next submission. It's only 1500 words shy of the minimum word count and I sat down this morning to figure out how I was going to work this out. After a quick outline I figured out what I needed to add and change. Next step is getting the story removed from where it's currently up for free. But all that to say there was writing done today and more to come! I'm pretty excited abut this and hoping I can cram enough writing/editing time into the month to get this submission in. It's for the Packing Heat call. So, that's where I am right now. My October's pretty packed itself so I just have to make sure to make as much time to write as possible. What are your...