Puschart Prize nominees

We've just sent in our nominees for the Puschart Prize. It was a brutally difficult decision narrowing down the 69 stories we've published over the past year to just six nominees, but here they are:

"The Arrival" by Nathan Leslie
"Five Fat Men in a Hot Tub" by Jeff Landon
"Outer Space" by Tom Saunders
"In the Dust" by Joseph Young
"Running Water" by Tiff Holland
"He Wrote Sixteen Pencils Empty" by Daphne Buter

I wish all the nominees the best of luck, and I'm so thankful for every writer who submits his or her work to us.

Technorati tags: writing, Puschart Prize, SmokeLong Quarterly, flash fiction

great site for lit mag info

Heard from these folks recently asking if the info they had for us was accurate. I'd never heard of them before, but they do a terrific job. Check 'em out: Duotrope's Digest.

a meme while I slack

The past several days have been absolutely non-productive in terms of writing. So, I'll take a cue from the administration and try to distract y'all from the real issues. Look! A meme!

You are a Social Liberal (70% permissive) and an... Economic Liberal (33% permissive) You are best described as a: Democrat Link: The Politics Test on Ok Cupid Also: The OkCupid Dating Persona Test

Day two ends, day three begins.

NaNo-wise, not a good day yesterday. Only 496 new words, which brings my grand total to 1886 words. To get up to where I should be by the end of the day today, I'd need to write 3114 words. I don't think that's likely to happen. Outside of NaNo, yesterday was a good day (which goes toward explaining why my word count was low). I got some things done that I've needed to do for an awfully long time. I don't have any big to-do's on my life list today, but I'm going to see my sister tonight, who is in town for a convention. I think it's been two years now since the last time I saw her. So I'm not going to open any veins if my word count is low--seeing her is much, much more important to me. That's not to say I won't write at all--I'll put as many words on the page as I can force out of myself before heading to the ferry terminal.

Okay, stepping away from the statistical part of NaNo... this is already turning into a very different experience than previous NaNo's. I came into this one knowing a very, very small amount about my characters, which is giving them lots of room to play. I commented yesterday that I was concerned about the plot resembling "Donnie Darko" too much. Well, last night, I had a completely different epiphany about the people in this story. And they're much, much darker than I had originally thought. Which might actually make this thing easier to write. At least, I hope so. (And the realization I had actually makes the working title of "Black, White, Red All Over" seem oddly prescient now.)

Okay. Time to write.

Technorati tags: writing, NaNoWriMo

Day one ends, day two begins

Yesterday's final word count: 1390 words. That's not great, considering I need to average 1667 words a day. First day should've been above that since it's likely there will be days down the road that are well below the average. Haven't written a word yet today. Gonna try to dive into that shortly.

Worst moment of the day yesterday: just before bedtime, while thinking about the novel, I realized that there are pretty major similarities to "Donnie Darko." I hadn't thought about that film in quite some time and then wham! something about the thought processes I had triggered the connection. I seriously considered abandoning what I'm doing, but, after thinking about it more today, realized that what I'm writing isn't the same story at all. Are their similarities here and there? Sure. But... any story that anyone writes today is going to have similarities to probably dozens of other pieces of work that are out there. Once I stopped to think about it, I thought of several other films and books that have common elements with what I'm doing, and yet I wouldn't consider any of them to be a rip-off of one another, so... I'll forge ahead.

Goal for today: get back up to the 1667 word average, which would require a hair under 2000 words. Doable, I think.

Technorati tags: writing, NaNoWriMo

another time-waster

Because, let's face it, writing sometimes sucks and we need to divert ourselves. Maybe, just maybe, over the course of the coming month, I can get the worth of the blog above $10,000. If only I could then get someone to pay me that much for it...

My blog is worth $9,597.18. How much is your blog worth?

working title, word count, and snippet

As a means of wasting time and avoiding writing, I just surfed on over to NaNoWriMo to update my profile. I uploaded a snippet of text, a working title, and the words I've written thus far into the counter. Words so far? 690. Working title? "Black, White, Red All Over." (I don't like it, but I feel like I have to have a working title, and that's better, at least, than "Pandemic.") The snippet?

In the history of our county, there have been two people mauled by giant pandas. The other was Charlotte’s father.

Here is something else that I’ve learned:

In all of the media coverage of Ling Ling and Hsing Hsing and their efforts to breed, one important item was never mentioned: giant pandas in captivity generally have no idea how to have sex. Zoos in China have been known to show their animals panda porn. The pandas get to see other pandas having sex and it turns them on. This doesn’t happen in the United States.

It’s not terribly surprising that animals best known as having been gifts to Richard M. Nixon would have been subjected to a puritanical lack of sex education. But, considering how sexually frustrated the poor pandas must be, it’s a wonder more people haven’t been mauled.

Technorati tags: writing, NaNoWriMo

Day one begins.

Yikes! It's here already! Okay. 1667 words today. I can do this. Um... anyone else just a leeeeeeetle bit freaked out?

Technorati tags: writing, NaNoWriMo