Strategy Session

First, I have an important announcement: I made another sale, this time of a story over 1000 words (a first!) to Ideomancer! Ideomancer is truly a great market, and I’m thrilled. It follows closely on the heels of my flashquake sale (up now!), breaking a loooooong drought between this and my first sale, to Shimmer, nigh one year and some change ago.

Anyways, you’re probably all wondering why I’ve asked you here today. Yes, it is a momentous occasion. For I am officially adopting a New Strategery towards writing. I’m sure you all remember my former strategery:

- Stories write themselves
- Editors clamor for them by miracle
- Fame and Fortune

Shockingly, this has not been working out for me. Inspired by my wonderful GF’s devotion to her craft and astonishing success (she won’t tell you due to modesty/superstition, but her book, which is on it’s first round seeking agents, is doing really well-- so far about 50% of the total number queried have asked for more, the majority are fulls, and there are still a good number she hasn’t even heard from yet, all of which is good,), I have decided to take a new tact. So here’s the sweet-n-lowdown-- but first, even more boring prefatory material:

I would like to write a book. Really I would. But I love short stories the most, and I would like to try and sell a bundle of them, at least enough to qualify for membership with the uber 133t SFWA, which you may or may not know zealously maintains the purity of its ranks (and has been known to shoot fan-fic writers on sight). Right now, I have six stories in circulation, not counting the one which just sold, and a good-enough number of those (three, being liberal) have garnered second looks by pro-zines. Based on that, I figure to have a decent chance at breaking into the pro-market, I need at least 20 more stories out there. So I am going to write them.

Here’s the plan: throughout the next year, while Brotherman JED is off in the wilds of Antartevrestaharadelfuego hand-picking only the ripest new stories for your consumption, I will be spinning some of my own stories here. One story each month, every month, until the end of next year. Each story will be furiously edited until it is ready to be sent out, and my natural all-consuming lust for attention will not force me to send it out early. Thus, I will not send out a story until at least the second month after its completion. That’s November for the first one.

You will help me. To you, I will be accountable (this will work better if you actually exist, so please inform me sometime). Each month I will post here the title of the story I’ve finished and the story that I’m editing. Can’t really do more, because I may decide on, say Sept. 29th that the story I’m working on isn’t doing it for me and start something new, which is okay so long as I actually finish something by Oct. 1st. If I fail, and if someone actually exists to enforce it, I will undergo some ridiculous punishment, Green Bros. style, generated by user-suggestion. Deal? Deal. Let the Writening BEGIN!

We now return you to your regularly scheduled random babbling that you are actually interested in.