I’ve been gone for quite some time now. I haven’t written anything new in a few months, and have barely edited my book. Some personal things happened in my life as well as me going overseas for awhile being in the military. Hopefully I’ll be back to writing soon though.
Robert
The Fantasy Brewmasters staff came out and chose both myself and ArmoryDave as winners of the contest. We are to work together on the project and will both receive $500 for our work.
Here’s the link…I’m very excited!
http://www.fantasybrewmasters.com/blog/20-contests/53-dwarven-storyline-announcements
Right before I went on Christmas leave/break I submitted a story to the Fantasy Brewmaster’s staff for consideration in a contest they were running.
Today the story was announced as one of two finalists. Please check it out over at:
http://www.fantasybrewmasters.com/literature/frostpaw.html
And let me know what you think!
Thanks
Back from Christmas break, didn’t do a whole lot of writing, but got some good news that I’ll share a bit later.
Just moving into my new room, getting ready for classes tomorrow, and doing everything I can to not fall asleep hah.
I finished revising the short story for the contest. I turned it into a myth and have it set up with an intro and outro with a younling dwarf being told a story by his father to cheer him up after seeminly being useless in combat training.
I really like the story and the world of Eyvindr I’m creating with it. I’ll get back to “The Shadowborn General” soon but I decided taking the time off from it will give me a fresh perspective to edit it when I pick it back up again.
The story I have for the contest will need editing (LIKE EVERY STORY MUST!) but like I mentioned earlier the relationship with the person running the contest permits rough drafts being sent in.
I’ll keep you posted..
The contest for Fantasy Brewmasters continues. I had sent in my 3k+ piece and Chris, the brewmaster himself, seemed really impressed with the story. He had some changes he wanted made and raised some valid critique points. Which is a good lesson for everyone. I have talked with Chris before and he was open to receiving a rough draft of the story, but for normal contests and submissions never leave it to the person running the magazine/contest/etc to read your rough draft. Always receive every bit of critiques and make all the changes you want too before submitting your piece.
For this more casual submission though I was able to see what direction he wanted me to take in the story. I’m turning the story into a myth a father dwarf is telling his son after his son feels inadequate about his skills as a warrior, even though he is but a child. The good part of it all is that I have so many ideas about the world which this story takes place in to include new races of my own creation, grand halls and cities for the Dwarves, and a ton of features of the world. I hope the story gets chosen because I would love to continue writing on this subject.
It’s been awhile since I posted last. Here at the Academy there was Thanksgiving break followed by this week and next week…of nothing but papers and finals. I have 90 pages of writing, 30 which are done now, and 2 major projects due before Monday. I should have everything under control but here’s hoping. I actually am blowing some of it off this weekend because I learned to snowboard over Thanksgiving break and am anxious to hit the slopes again this weekend. I imagine Sunday night I’ll pop some 5 hour energy shots and just not sleep.
On a positive note, Chris over at Fantasybrewmasters is holding a contest for writing a fantasy story. I like the idea not only because it pays but because I love the idea of writing a story that will be used for the brand of beer. Things that make a difference, carry on, provide back story for something, etc is my favorite kind of writing. I wrote up a 3k+ word piece and sent it to him to see what he thinks. I actually have a lot of ideas for the whole world the story exists in but we’ll see if he likes the short story first.
Anyway, I’ve got to get back to doing work, just wanted to check in now that I have something to say about non-academic writing.
Push forward everyone!
Robert
I received two rejection emails from two different sites about poetry I submitted. I think the overall problem was that it wasn’t the right genre for their magazine. The magazines were general fiction with some fantasy and my poems were more normal poetry. Between the two magazines they only had five spots for poetry submissions so I’m not too heartbroken. After waiting for a few weeks though you hope that the email you receive is positive. I’ve still got the poems submitted to one other magazine that I really wanted them to belong too, a purely poetry magazine. So we’ll see what happens.
As for my fantasy works, I got to work a little more on “An Act of War” which is a short story set in ancient Etherea (Etherea is the setting for my novel The Shadowborn General) that goes into depth about the start of the Minotaur and Panterran wars. I’ve got a little over 2.4k words right now on the story and have it fleshed out pretty well, it has a good direction and will just require sit down time to finish it.
I’m almost ready to jump back on the “novel” horse and go back to editing “The Shadowborn General.” I left off editing it at chapter 10. I wanted to take some time away from it to soak in all that I learned from the critiques, re-approach the novel, and go over all the chapters again. Once I finish going through everything I’ll submit the last chapters for editing, rinse, and repeat. Hopefully by taking some time from the novel and applying what I learned from the first half to the last half, I’ll be able to push out a much better novel. Of course the goal is to publish it, but as I’ve said before I love writing for me. The story is something I want to be able to read and enjoy and continue to imagine about. Finishing it correctly will allow me to do that.
Good luck with your own writings!
I was able to sit down for two hours tonight without being interrupted or having to work on papers/projects. It was nice. I tackled two long critiques waiting on two of my book chapters. I changed a lot for the better, changed a thousand words or so in those chapters and a lot of the structure. Which is great. I’ve found that stepping away from your book for awhile can really help, you get a new perspective and a fresh view on it when you come back to it. The danger is stepping away for so long that you fall out of the routine of writing/editing. It took a lot of effort to get to those two critiques tonight, but I was sure glad to do so.
Robert's Inferno 