Publication Day: Dad and Ick

My latest story is out in Nature Futures as of today! Nature stories are free to read for a limited time after they’re published, so if you want to read it do it sooner than later.

Sometimes technology is frustrating and sometimes it is less frustrating if I think of it as an easily distracted toddler.

Nature Futures: Dad and Ick

UPDATE! Nature allows the author of their stories to share them for free via PDF. So If you can no longer read the story at the link above it is available here. Dad and Ick PDF

Looking over the blog, it looks like I forgot to post another story that came out last year. So here is a bonus, very short story for you. https://flashinaflash.tumblr.com/post/698104361357819904/do-not-ignore-this-plea-the-mother-spider-is

Publication Day: Date and Time

My third story of the year is out now.

https://dailysciencefiction.com/hither-and-yon/alternate-history/susan-taitel/date-and-time

Gif chosen because publication days always make me want to twirl and because there is a tiny bit of ice skating in the story. Though my characters are not nearly as good at it as Yuri.

The idea for this one started out with me noticing that one of my favorite speculative genres is when a mythical or historical figure gets transplanted into mundane settings and scenarios often without much explanation for how they got there. Neil Gaiman’s Chivalry is a good example of one such story. So I’ve had in the back of my mind that I wanted to try my hand at it. But first I had to come up with both a figure to use and a situation to put them in. I don’t remember how I decided on Lady Jane Grey goes on a blind date, but once I did I knew it should be a good date. Her real story is such a sad one, it was cathartic to show a fictional Jane a good time.

The park they go to is a real park in Minneapolis that does host a holiday fair most weekends leading up to Christmas, though not these last two years because panini.

I’m a Professional!

I get to announce that I have a story forthcoming from Galaxy’s Edge Magazine! As of yet I do not know what issue it will be in or when it will be published. I will definitely be linking to it when it comes out.

The story in question, Cat Lady, was written during my time at Viable Paradise, though it’s been revised a few times since. It’s my first professional sale and I shed a few tears when I opened the acceptance email. If you’re curious about what qualifies a market as pro, semipro, or token the SFWA has a guide here. The gist of it is it depends on how much the market pays, how long they’ve been publishing, and how big of a readership they have.

I have been submitting my stories to pro markets since 2015 and have racked up over a 100 rejections split between 7 stories. Cat Lady was rejected 17 times before Galaxy’s Edge accepted it. That is about average from my understanding. There were several times I felt I was so close to making a pro sale and other times when it seemed like the impossible dream. This doesn’t mean that I won’t get any more rejections, in fact I’ve gotten 3 in time the since. But it’s one more hurtle cleared. I get to call myself a professional. Even if never sell another story I will always have one professional credit to my name. I’m tempted to order a little pin or plaque to remind myself of that, but I think having the issue in my hands will be enough.

In other news, in a few short weeks I’ll be attending 4th Street Fantasy Convention for the second time. A few of my favorite people in the world will also be there and I can’t wait to see them all again. And celebrate the hurdles they’ve cleared since we last saw each other.

Finally, here we have another Fraggle. For such simple designs they really are hard to capture in 2D.

Progress Report: On Creation

I’ve been MIA from the blog for a while because I’ve been writing. I participated in Camp NaNoWriMo with my critique. My goal was to write 25,000 words in 30 days. It was touch and go for a while there, but I just made it. I’m now nearly done with the first draft of my sixth novel. It’s the first that I think I’ll probably add as many words as I cut once I start editing. The world needs fleshing out, but I’m really pleased with this one. It’s a middle grade fantasy and I’ve had a lot of fun writing it. It’d been over a year since I’d started something entirely new. I’d forgotten how exciting it can be to not know what would happen until I wrote it.
In the writing community there are two common methods of writing: pantsing and plotting. Writers who plot, work out the entire plot either in notes or outlines, or just in their own heads, before they write one word of the first draft. Pantsers, aka writing by the seat of your pants, don’t have a plan. They just see what plot appears as they write it. Of course there are infinite variations of either method. I tend to work best in a hybrid of the two.
Two or three months later I begin writing the draft. At this point I’m pantsing, letting the ideas come as they may, getting to know the character and their world. I may have an idea where things are going, but I’m never more than a single chapter ahead of myself. The story happens as I write it. And what I write informs what will happen next. For example, early on in this draft I had a character give Ben a gift. I didn’t know what the gift would be. I went through a couple of options, a sweater, a board game, a hat. Nothing felt quite right. I finally settled on an empty birdcage. Then I had to come up with a reason why this character would give her an empty birdcage. I decided it was because if she put a slice of bread and jam in the cage and hung it outside her window overnight, she’d find something inside in the morning. That led me to figuring out just what she would find. The thing she found in the cage has become vitally important to book overall. Things have happened that I had no inkling of when I began writing, and wouldn’t have had she gotten a sweater instead of the birdcage.
So I write, adding in new characters and plot elements as they come to me. But usually, somewhere between chapter five and ten, the plot tells itself to me, from wherever I am in the draft all the way to the end. I then plot it out chapter by chapter and continue to write based on those plans. That’s not to say what I eventually write matches what I wrote in those chapter plans. Even after I think I know where things are going, new scenes/characters/plot elements do crop up. I guess that makes me pantsing plotter, or maybe a plotting pantser.
The only downside to this method of writing is I tend to derail when I get to a part where I know what comes after the scene I’m about to write, but not what happens in that scene. I either stop writing until I’ve come up with a way to get from point A to point C or just write anything and hope it works. For example in the most recent chapter I knew Ben would find something she’d been looking for, but there would be an obstacle preventing her from getting it, only I didn’t know what the obstacle was or how she’d eventually get around it. I knew that this part was coming well before I got to it, and I’d been thinking of what it could be for a while. Everything I’d come up with just didn’t fit or would cause insurmountable consequences (just because you’re making something up doesn’t mean you can do anything you want). When I finally reached the point were I needed the obstacle, I stopped, let mu mind rest for a few days, thought about other things, and then out of the blue I had it. The perfect B to take me from A to C. But those days when I didn’t know if I’d find a solution were scary.
I think I’ve only got two more chapters to write in this book and I’m fairly confident in what will happen. I’ve already had an idea for the next book—not a sequel to this one. It’s a bigger, wilder idea than anything I’ve done to date, and I don’t know if I’ll be able to pull it off, but I’m pretty sure I’ll have fun trying. I’m also sure I’ll be riding waves of inspiration right into big nasty walls of uncertainty. That’s how I write.
In the meantime, I’m still querying Random Acts of Nudity. Nothing new to report on that front, though that could change soon. And my critique partners are reviewing My Undead Ex this month. I’ve already gotten really good feedback on it and should get more during our meet-up. Maybe once I’m finished with the current WIP I’ll go into revision mode on Undead Ex and finally fix some of the draggy parts. The new idea needs some time to percolate before I begin writing.
I’d be curious if any of my writer friends and acquaintances are also pantser/plotter hybrids. Or if my method would make them crazy. Or if they are hybrids, but their method is entirely different. Share in the comments if you are so inclined.