Milestones & Updates

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Hello, world!  It seems like writers spend a lot of time soul-searching in Angst-ville (myself included) so I wanted to share some good news!

 

1) ARTICLES!

I got some articles published!  Fellow writer Mark Squirek is a columnist for the online newsletter Scoop.  He asked me to do a pair of articles for his column, “Cover Story,” which discusses the cover art of various comic books.  I got to pick any two covers I wanted and write about them!  I chose Space Family Robinson #23: “Menace from Uranus!” from 1967 and The Chronicles of Arcea #1: “The Athame” by Vyrhelle.  Many thanks to Mark for asking me to write for Scoop and to Mr. J.C. Vaughn, editor at Gemstone Publishing, for taking a chance on a new writer.  Also, my deepest gratitude to my friend Karen; editing all of those art papers paid off!  Working with Scoop has been a lot of fun, and I hope I’ll be able to continue writing for them.

 

2) FAN FICTION!

After 1 year and 7 months, I completed my fanfic, “Okami Amaterasu.”  My novelization of the PlayStation 2 videogame Okami (from Amaterasu’s point of view) comprises 51 chapters and 130,465 words (not including the 600-word Acknowledgements), making my longest piece of fan fiction to date.  It’s also received the most attention (reviews, favorites, and follows) out of anything I’ve written.  I’m very proud of it and I’m really happy that so many people enjoyed reading it.  Updating regularly, I think, really is the key to holding an audience.  Updating every week or every other week keeps your story in the top of the search list; it shows your readers that you intend to complete the story and not leave them hanging (which so much fan fiction does); and instills discipline in the writer.  And it is WONDERFUL to finally have a COMPLETED piece of writing!  (Technically my entry for The Dark Crystal Author Quest was the first piece of fan fiction that I completed, but “Okami Amaterasu” is the first one that’s been “published.”)

 

3) LENOWRICHA + CAMP NANOWRIMO!

The beginning of July (holy cow that’s tomorrow!) we kick off the summer edition of Camp NaNoWriMo!  I’m probably going to aim for 15,000 words, although I’m hoping to get more than that.  The nice thing about Camp NaNo is you get to set your own word count goal, and I don’t want to burn out before November when the official NaNoWriMo begins!  Also, my Legendary Novel Writing Challenge (LeNoWriCha) will be starting up again after my editing and break months of May and June, so check out the Logs if you haven’t already.  My plan is to write up several short stories that I can then edit and submit to various online magazines.  (Short stories are not my forte, so I need the practice.)  I’m also planning on reading and subscribing to several of the more prominent magazines that I want to try submitting stories to so I know which of my tales might fit their profile.  (The one I’m eyeing up right now is Apex Magazine because….wow.)

 

4) AUDIO RECORDINGS!

I’ve been tossing around an idea about doing audio recordings of my blog posts that people can either listen to on the computer or download to listen to later.  After reading posts by Rose B. Fischer and Kerry Kijewski about readers with disabilities, including visual impairments, I thought it might be a good idea to offer this alternative (although I’m still not certain how to indicate in-text hyperlinks.)  I also want to improve how I read out loud, a skill I’ve neglected because I read so much faster silently.  I don’t “hear” words as I read or write, and that means I sometimes miss words or typos, and that’s something I’d like to correct.  Obviously I’ll need to do a lot of experimenting since I only have a slight acquaintance with Audacity and no decent microphone or headphones.  If anyone has recommendations for reasonably priced microphones with decent recording quality, let me know.  Also, does anyone have recommendations of a platform where I could provide these hypothetical recordings?  Right now, Soundcloud seems the most promising.

 

Thanks for reading and I hope you’ll find good news on a writer’s front encouraging.  After all, if good things can happen to me, they can happen to you to.

And wow.  I just remembered.  I’ve been writing The Cat’s Cradle for 3 years. 0_0