mreid973

Hello stranger-friends/friend-strangers/others,

So I am at one of those points in life where: 1) the world is your oyster, and 2) you need to find a job. This means I will continue to be (mostly) MIA from dA. As usual, I do read messages. Please link anything you would like me to read. 

I have not been writing--in the creative sense, but in the work/academic sense it is constant--though I do have a few decent story ideas I hope to put into words over the next few months. I would also like to edit a couple pieces to send out for publication, but I am not sure where to go with them at the moment. This also means no NaNoWriMo for me; let me know if you are plugging along at your novel! My nascent novel idea still sits in my head, but it is rather stale when it comes to fitting into a market that is supersaturated with similar works within the genre. 

I will leave you with a quote from one of my favourite writers (and books), just to brighten things up:

"Om began to feel the acute depression that steals over every realist in the presence of an optimist." --Terry Pratchett, Small Gods.

Hope you are well, and things are good or interesting or both. 

M.

TBD.

M.

Due to my lack of dA upkeep, I have turned my usual bimonthly journal into an entire season. Have to stay honest.

Hello all.

Here's my life: Working. Not writing. Minimal reading. Some contemplation about the nature of things. No new submissions or acceptances. A couple of rejections.

Message me with any interesting (or boring) news.

Hope you are well.
M.

Hello, all. 

I know I have been MIA for quite some time, but my day (and night, and sometimes day into night into day) job takes up most of me. I have done little writing. Not too much reading either. 

But I popped on dA to find another DD. Thank you. And I love comments and critiques. I don't plan on doing anything with the narrator of "Pantheon," but I have a demigods/superheroes story that I am editing for IRL rejection. 

It is tough getting short speculative fiction published these days. There is a beautiful market for it. But it is not a supermarket, more like a corner store. Still, it is a corner store with a punny name, with a door like the TARDIS, with some dusty and spellbinding curios on the shelf, and with my favorite ice cream always in stock. To add to the difficulty of getting published, I mostly write character-driven stuff. And character studies can turn boring pretty quickly when you are a new writer. The grand adventure stories are more forgiving of a lack of experience: a fumbled phrase, a sentence that does not fit. And don't get me started on what a pain it is when you realize your hero/heroine has become the talking head of the auteur. I hate it when that happens. I think it is happening right now. 

In case you were wondering, I am nearing forty rejections. Acceptances are still in the single digits. And I have one pro sale. 

Keep creating.
M.

I will be working a grand total of 27 days during the month of November. Only 19 in December, but that includes my week of vacation. I really would like to start to write again, but I'm averaging 6 hours of sleep a night, and it is starting to show. Even more so than writing, I miss reading. I can't seem to make it through a chapter, let alone a novel. I fit in some DSF stories several times a week, but only because they are plopped in my inbox and tend to be 1500 words or shorter. I do have a copy of THE MERRO TREE, which I need to finish. Very good book. I would highly recommend it.