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Current State: Looking for Work
Mostly I don’t talk about my personal life online, because I want my website and social media to be about my work. Writing, editing, things that inspire me – that I’m comfortable talking about. My personal life has had a lot of ups and downs lately, and I tend to think that no one wants to be bothered with that. Everyone’s life is hard, right?
In some ways I’m blessed to have the life I do. I have love, friends, and an adorable happy child. I have time to work on my writing, my projects for Dagan Books, and after some delays those are rolling out. 2013 is set to be a much better year than 2012, and I’m glad.
In other ways, my life is a bit hard. Being a single mom to a child with a disability – having no family and few friends nearby – means that I can’t work a full-time job. Since the only time I get that isn’t parenting time is when he’s in school, that gives me about 20 hours a week to be outside of the house without him. Except that there are short days and school holidays and meetings I have to attend with his special education team … I’ve been looking for a part-time position but haven’t yet found one which is flexible enough to allow for his schedule. Meanwhile I cut down expenses, moved to a smaller apt, used up my savings and now … I’m out of time. Now I have bills to pay, but no income.
There are three things I can do about this:
1. If you haven’t yet purchased one of the anthologies I’ve edited for Dagan Books, please consider picking up an ebook. Buying directly from us means that more of that money goes to DB, which in turn goes straight to our contributors. Buying our books keeps us going, and means that eventually we’ll grow enough to where I can draw a paycheck (which I haven’t yet).
DRM-free ebooks direct from us:
FISH: EPUB for NOOK and other readers, $4.99: buy here, MOBI for Kindle and other readers, $4.99: buy here
IN SITU: EPUB for NOOK and other readers, $3.99: click here, MOBI for Kindle and other readers, $3.99: click here
CTHULHUROTICA: EPUB for NOOK and other readers, $3.99: click here, or MOBI for Kindle and other readers, $3.99: click here
2. I’m putting together a collection of my short fiction, which I will have up for sale soon. I’m so lucky to have talented friends working with me on cover art and editing; I know it’ll be a great little book. When it’s ready I’ll post it online.
3. Do you have writing or editing work that you need doing? I’m looking for anything with a paycheck attached. I have edited well-respected collections of fantasy, science fiction, even erotica. I write fiction all along the genre spectrum, and non-fiction on a range of topics. Stories, articles, site content – let me know what you need. You can contact me here.
Thank you.
Read these things, the Nemo storm edition.
If you’re stuck inside with not much to do, take a look at the stories, essays, and interviews that have interested me this week:
Shimmer interviews my friend A.C. Wise, whose story “Tasting of the Sea” appears in issue #16.
Rose Lemberg collected speculative fiction poetry recommendations from various editors – read the list here.
Geoff Ryman’s famously sad novel, Was, is now available as an ebook from Weightless Books (their page has excerpts from the book).
Avi Steinberg talks writing and the Gilbert v Roth argument:
That’s the kind of a person it takes to be a writer: someone who’s zealous and ready to argue, someone who has Philip Roth tell him, “It’s torture, don’t do it,” and replies, “You had me at ‘torture.’ ” You don’t enter into it because it’s a great lifestyle decision—it isn’t—you do it because, for whatever reason, you believe in it, and you believe in it because, for whatever reason, you need to believe in it.
Discover News says readers grasp digital media (aka ebooks) just as well as print.
Eddie Huang (author, chef, and tv personality) talks to NPR about Asian-American food, family, and masculinity. (podcast/interview)
NY Review of Books talks about Wes Anderson as a writer.
Stupefying Stories put together a free ebook of shorts by authors eligible for this year’s Campbell Award.
Wonderful Chet Baker documentary “Let’s Get Lost” now on YouTube.
My latest appearance on the SF Signal podcast is now up: “2013 SF/F/H Conventions We’re Anticipating“. I mainly talk about how great Readercon is.
Oh, and I shared the introduction from FISH over at Dagan Books.
Jan 2013 Stats
In an effort to keep better track of the work I do as a writer, reviewer, editor, and publisher, I’m going to try to post regular stats updates. I did this one by creating a post at the beginning of the month, saving it as a draft, and then adding to it whenever I accomplished something. (Much easier than trying to put it together all at once on the day I want it to post.)
In January I …
Read
- “After the Apocalypse”, the last story in the collection of the same name by Maureen F. McHugh. Read my review here.
- The Night Circus, by Erin Morgenstern. Brief review on Goodreads.
- The Bleeding Man, and Other Science Fiction Stories, by Craig Strete. Review here.
- Beneath Ceaseless Skies magazine, issues 104, 105 & 106. Review of 104 & 105 here.
- Started reading Nobokov’s Pale Fire.
- and some Tony Stark/Captain America slash fic, but I blame Conni for that.
Wrote
- The book reviews listed above, and this post.
- Two Tech Nerd posts for Functional Nerds, which will go up in February and March.
- SF Signal Outside the Frame comics reviews about My Favorite Comics of 2012, Tale of Sand, Raplh Azham No. 1, and Elmer (will post in Feb).
- Guest posts for:
- BookLifeNow – Creating the Future With Language (including this response to some comments)
- InkPunks – Brand New Year
- The Alternative Typewriter – will post in February.
- First draft (1300 words) of “Darling, Daughter, Dear” which I plan to finish and submit to Interfictions: A Journal of Interstitial Arts . They open to subs today – but only for the month of February, so I have a deadline.
Edited
- A 990 word lit fiction piece from 2011 called “Skipping Ahead To The End” (see below)
Published
- FISH. (And there was much rejoicing.) This included proofing print and ebooks several times, submitting files to markets, blog posts, a Goodreads giveaway, and so on.
I also
- appeared on two more Functional Nerds podcasts – Episode #133 and Episode #134 (click on the links to listen)
- appeared on an SF Signal podcast (will post in February).
- got my Goodreads account organized, updated my bookshelf, and started using it to keep track of the books I’m reading.
- Created a Dagan Books group for people who want to discuss our projects or authors (join it here).
- added a page for FISH.
- Updated the Our Staff page on the Dagan Books site; fixed date/link/spelling errors in other places on the site.
- Updated my Non-Fiction page, and my links.
- Chased down and corrected contract issues for two stories I sold back in Spring 2012 (as yet unpublished).
- Critiqued two 4k word stories for a friend.
- Spent some time in the forums at Zoetrope. It’s focused more on literary fiction than genre fiction, and I like getting that perspective on my work.
- Read and critiqued 5 flash-length stories.
- Submitted one of my own (“Skipping Ahead To The End”).
- Put more story ideas into Evernote.
- Interviewed E.C. Meyers (read it here) and Fran Wilde (here).
- And started tracking my fiction submissions in one of these:
Old School For The Win.
Overall:
That’s about 9,300 new words of non-fiction writing for the month and 1300 of fiction. Read 22 short stories (7 unpublished) and one novel (started a second). Revised and submitted one flash piece to be critiqued & critiqued 7 stories for other writers. Was on 3 podcasts. Got an anthology prepped and published – a year later than I’d originally intended but proof that I am starting to get back on track. Plus a bunch of office work (I am my own middle manager).
I’m planning to write more fiction in February, as well as get at least one more (hopefully two) Dagan Books projects published, and move forward on the other four in-progress titles.
My advice for February:
Do one thing every day. If you can, write. A blog post, or 500 words on your current story. If not, read. A short story, chapter, a couple of articles you need for research, it’s all useful, and often easier than writing when you’ve had a long day. Make a list of the things you’ve been meaning to do and check one off. By focusing on one thing a day, you’ll end up having done 28 things by the end of the month, instead of pushing yourself to do too much and being too burnt out to work for days at a time. That’s reading several magazines, or writing your weekly blog post for the next six months, or 14,000 words on your novel…
The Story You Want Me To Tell
There’s a meme going around that I like:
Tell me about a story I haven’t written, and I’ll give you one sentence from that story.
I saw it first from AC Wise, who has good ideas, and so I’m stealing this one too. Leave a comment with a brief description of the story you wish I’d tell, and I’ll reply with a sentence – or five – from that story.
