Often we Forget Life is a Megillah
I’ve been writing for awhile now, I believe it was two years ago that I really buckled down and began working with the intent of becoming published. It was a rough road full of poor grammar and absurdity. But, all of those trials, tribulations, and practice have honed my craft. If you had asked where I would be in two years, I would have said “Published”! As I quickly learned, life is a megillah and the odds of being published are rare. So, what is the purpose of this post? To remind humanity.
But first, As some know, I am getting my MBA… a master’s in business and not fine arts. Why? Well it is simply my exit strategy. I told myself I would spend the two and a half years back in school to push my writing career into reality. So, while I study business during the day, I write and read throughout the night. I have been burning the candle on both ends, and I am exhausted. But time is fundamental in our growth as human beings. I knew this, and I quickly realized my first book would have to be rewritten, heavily edited, or scrapped. It will be heavily edited, but I don’t have the time for that project at this juncture. Now I didn’t invite you here to hear my pity party, I wanted to point out something that humans fail to see: Life is a Megillah. (more…)
What’s Up Doc?
It has been a long time since I gave any updates on my work. There are a few reasons/excuses for that. First, I am back in my MBA program and busy working on getting my degree. Second, I have been spending an absorbent amount of time outlining and preparing the fourth manuscript: BlackBox Enterprises (this is a working title as all of my manuscripts are). I am starting BlackBox Enterprises on Friday.
Short stories continue to flow and get submitted to magazines. I am hoping, in about two months, I will be able to share these with all of you. So far, I have only heard back from two source (one was a competition and the other a magazine). I am hoping more responses from magazines will come through (rejection or acceptance, either works) so I can begin my website redesign. I also reached out to an author to see if he would mind mentoring me. Hopefully a professional will be able to show me the faults others have missed, and in doing so, help me tighten up my work.
Also, there are currently attacks against my web host. These attacks are called DDOS, distributed denial of service, and have made my website go down multiple times throughout the week. For reference, these attacks are not hacking attempts. The goal of the person perpetrating them is to deny service to my host’s web services. This means, they are just taking a ton of computers and asking the servers frivolous questions in order to lock them up. Do not worry, these attacks can last five minutes or months. My host has already dealt with the bulk of the attack but there are some residual effects.
Before I bounce back to outlining, I want to mention that the new site redesign it going well. I am modifying the menu so it is easier for mobile users. There will be a new landing site for the short stories, a page for my old work, and a flash fiction page. This will make it easier to navigate. What this will do is simple, it will make the site more accessible by categorizing the bulk of my work. Furthermore, the menu will shrink from offering all the short stories to only offering the three pages. All of these modifications are happening because I produced too much work for the current layout. I will be using an under construction sign when I decide to make these modifications.
A Little Diatribe from Uncle Theodore
Open source software projects bring an amazing feeling of community to anyone who works on the project. You see these projects everywhere, tons of people spending tons of their time for no profit. How wonderful! They all just work for a common good, to make a tool they all use better. Do these programmers want money? Of course, but not on this project. This project is special to them, and that makes them produce without any care. They do it in their off hours, and many do it because of their passion for the project. But, what if your open source product doesn’t have a zealous following?
Interesting,
when did I become a science fiction writer?
Produce, Produce, no not Vegetables
Produce, and produce some more. That has been my motto for the last two months. In this time, I have been heavily focused on cranking out short stories regularly. Some stories are easy to write and some of the ideas take multiple days to produce because of complexity. All I know is that I am seeing massive growth in terms of different skills and a heavy coffee/tea consumption. At this time, I am working on a short story called Like Laika and hoping to push some of the work from July to the website.
As soon as I hear from the places I have submitted, I will post up the new Flash Fiction and Short Story section. Bare with me, I haven’t disappeared or stopped working… I just can’t publish anything until I know someone else won’t.
Trends
I haven’t posted in awhile because of life. At the time, I am running through research (about to finish tomorrow and begin outlining the fourth book). Sadly, I am behind schedule for the new book. In the mean time, I have done a lot of reading (short stories and novels) while submitting some of my shorter work. In my reading, I have noticed an odd trend. Perhaps it is what I am reading, but I feel that most of the work I read is drab. I understand the tones and the importance of what the author is discussing, but I just find their method exhausting. But, I tend to be more interested in work like Vonnegut. His short stories are hugely compelling, but he does set them in an odd “world” because it isn’t present time (I like odd). I don’t know, but I think I pegged why I am perturbed by many contemporary pieces in magazines. My best analysis pins this odd phenomenon to the fact that a lot of the fiction seems like nonfiction. Each of the these stories could be from a nonfiction standpoint, yes the themes are important, but Vonnegut talks about the same themes but in a truly “fiction” way (once again my opinion, I don’t have a degree in literature). I guess, I don’t enjoy reading piece after piece that seems like a memoir or an autobiography. Either way, I should begin hearing from my July submissions – soon. Once I do, I will release a whole new chunk to the website and modify the pages. Look forward to it!
Progress Report for August 19th, 2014
Recently, a dear friend’s mother passed away. I am a strong believer that family and friends are the most important aspect of life. As I watch over his home, I have slowed my writing and switched to reading . Today, I have finished Galapagos by Vonnegut and suggest it to anyone who enjoys Vonnegut. While reading it, I spent a lot of time analyzing how he outlined the piece. I also analyzed what was in the original structure and what was impromptu. Either way, it is an impressive piece of literature that I thoroughly enjoyed. In other news, I have written a new piece Milgram and began work on a new piece: 3 in One (I can’t remember if I mentioned this piece, its original name was Three in 1).
3 in One began percolating during a discussion with my old philosophy professor while at lunch. It will be an experimental piece that I will enter in a competition. It has so many moving parts, which makes it one of the only short stories I have written with an in depth outline. Normally, I write down events and other important details of a short story on scrap paper. In this case, I outlined the piece on my 18×24 paper (reserved only for novels) because it is so complex.
Progress Report for August 11th, 2014
I took a minor vacation this last two weeks from writing progress reports because there hasn’t been much activity (due to my birthday) these last two weeks. I submitted a lot of pieces to different competitions (these will be available as soon as I hear from the magazines) and entered a few this month. One piece – that is completed – is Relationships and another piece – that is being outlined – is called Three in 1. One of my old professors came back into town and gave me more tools to hone my craft. The idea that sprung up from an exercise is Three in 1 and it will be my most daunting foray into experimental writing. For reference, the exercise he suggest had nothing to do with writing a piece in this format, but – by practicing the exercise – I decided to tell the story in this format. I am excited; I am finally going to attempt a style of writing that has been on my list for a year (it is a surprise). In other news, I am sending out the third treatment for Journey to God and it will be accompanied by a treatment of Tesla’s Travels. So, I keep pushing forward and reading fiction (finished The Siren’s of Titan on Saturday) and nonfiction (research). The fourth book is still in the research phase, and I am hoping to begin the first chapter at the end of August. Thank you for listening and have a wonderful morning!
Progress Report for July 27, 2014
Another successful week has come and gone. I have begun the research into my fourth book (working title: BlackBox Enterprises). The research has begun to illuminate the path the book will need to take in structure and content. I am excited to begin work on it soon. I also finished reading two books: The Heart of A Dog by Mikhail Bulgakov and The Sign of the Four by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. I have read Bulgakov before (The Master and Margarita), but now I have chosen to read the majority of his work (next to be added to my ever expanding reading list is The Fatal Eggs). My first Sherlock Homes (Sir Arthur Conan Doyle) was fantastic, and I decided to read all four of the full length novels in sequence. Both books (Bulgakov and Doyle) were widely different in style and fantastic to read. Also, I wrote two more pieces: Redirect and Smiles. Progress is happening on multiple fronts, but I am personally getting tired of submissions and writing cover letters for my short stories. Alright, time to get back to work.
Progress Report for July 21, 2014
It has been a very busy week. If you read my last post, I completed Tesla’s Travels on Tuesday and was emotionally and intellectually drained. That state of mind lasted about a day. Now, I’m in full blown submissions mode for magazines and competitions. Since the last progress report, I wrote six short stories: Carbonation, Arm and I, Drops in an Ocean, Medallion, Cookies, and Bourbon. Cookies was actually a competition piece that I had 24 hours to write, and I completed it in 2 hours. More changes are coming to the Short Story section of the website, this section will be separated into a main navigation page which will lead to groups of short stories (Flash Fiction, Normal Short Stories, and The Old Stuff (aka the stuff that makes you question my ability to write)). This design change is to help with organization. At the same time, I am in the process of changing all the pictures on the website to be more web friendly (a lot of them are taking too long to load). Now, it is time for some Candide and bed.