I just realized today is March 31.

This means that I have been out of the corporate world for 5 years. I got laid off in 2001 from a job I loved a lot. I have been a freelance RPG writer for 5 years. In an interesting bit of coincidence, I also started my freelance magazine writing career a year ago on March 31.

Losing a full time salary to stay home, raise a kid and follow my dream hasn’t been easy. There’s a lot of “I never thought I’d do this” I never thought I would stay at home with kids, and as much as I wanted it, I never thought I’d be a real writer. (Now if only the real writer could make a real living at it…)

I’ve never been a big fan of spring, but I do acknowledge that my life changed 5 years ago, and again last year. So I grudgingly admit a certain bit of ceremonial rebirth going on here.

So happy anniversary to me.

(this is a family friendly show/blog so I can’t say what I really want to)

The novel will not make the deadline of being edited today. I am only just past the halfway mark, having found some major tangles to undo in the middle of the novel.

I could bust my butt today, you are saying, but the bad news there is, as I said on today’s podcast, I’m sick. I’m barely staying upright. I want to lie on the couch and feel sorry for myself.

This bums me out. I had several self-imposed deadlines this month and I hit them all but this one. Crud.

This one goes a bit longer because we discuss a voice mail I got.

 

 I Should Be Writing Daily Experiment #5 [10:40m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (42)

Has anyone realized that the often-quoted and incredibly annoying (to new writers) comment “show don’t tell” (SDT) is, in fact, telling us what to do instead of showing?

I don’t like to admit it when I’m slow, but dangit, it took me forever to figure out what people meant when they said SDT. It’s not very intuitive.

In the editing of my novel, I’m finding one word that pinpoints SDT: “felt.” Lately, “felt” is the dirtiest word in my WiP.

“She felt cold” needs to be “she shivered.”

“She felt something sharp prick her palm” is more concise if you say “something sharp pricked her palm”

Yeah, “felt” isn’t the only way to tell instead of show, but it seems to be my particular vice. When I’m done editing, I need to do a search to find out how many “felt”s I left in . Bah.

Day 4: Point 5.

 

 I Should Be Writing Daily Experiment #4 [5:02m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (43)

I’m so glad people are liking these! Keep the feedback coming!

 

 I Should Be Writing Daily Experiment #3 [5:08m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (41)

Another day, another experiment.

[EDIT] Very timely came the Pub Rants blog giving advice NOT to put backstory into dialogue. So while you should avoid prologues in general, be sure not to fall into this trap.

 

 I Should Be Writing Daily Experiment #2 [4:54m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (60)

I decided to toy with the idea of putting a quick podcast up daily to give you guys inspiration. It’s short, it’s sweet, and the keyboard tray makes a lot of noise. It’s also a Garageband experiment, and i can’t figure out how to do the stuff I was able to do in Audacity, so we’ll see how it turns out.

 

 I Should Be Writing Daily Experiment #1 [6:02m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (42)

Thanks for all your great feedback regarding the show last week! Keep your podcatcher tuned, there will be an ISBW surprise this week!

• Ralan.com
• Various markets are dead
• Thanks to our sponsor, Lulu.com
• Multiple Projects
• Getting Things Done
• Eat that Frog
• Mike the Filmmaker’s podcast
• Daniel Emery’s Brief Glimpses of Somewhere Else
• Wingin’ It
• Jason Erik Lundberg’s Blog
• Jenn Reese’s Blog
• Editing Reality
• Music by Dr. Kuch from Magnatune.com

Write.

This podcast sponsored by Lulu.com!

 

 ISBW #29 - Multiple Projects [33:05m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (43)

Yesterday I decided to look at my trunked stories and dust them off and throw them back out into the wild. In doing some preliminary market research, I discovered the following:

• Magazines I already knew had shut down: Fortean Bureau and SciFiction - very sad.
• Magazines I was not aware had shut down: Shadows of Saturn and Amazing Stories (The funny thing is Piazo *just announced* its official closing of Amazing Stories - I thought it was old news, but Locus revealed it as news this morning.) Further sadness. Not sure why they closed Amazing Stories; it didn’t seem to be out long enough to give it wings to fly. Like cancelling a show after, say, 13 episodes.
• New trend: Tons of anthologies using PoD technology and paying authors shares of revenue. (I submitted to one)

What surprises me is that I didn’t think I’d been out of the short fiction market that long, but it seems that lots have changed in the less-than-a-year. I haven’t scoured the magazine market yet, yesterday was just looking for anthologies. I’ll give a report later after I look there.