Happy New Year!

I’m lucky enough to be starting my new year with a bit of flash and a poem at Shine — yay! Coffee, my rictameter about, you guessed it, coffee and Not So Smart are both online now in the January 2008 issue of The Shine Journal.

This time of year people all around me are making New Year’s Resolutions…which is something I don’t do. However, I do often set goals for myself and then work toward them, so I thought I’d share my current list of writing-related goals. In a few months I’ll look back and see how I’m doing LOL

My goals for the next little while include:
1. Finishing the rough draft of my untitled Circus Story
2. Revising Blood and Stone and sending it out into the world
3. Attend World Fantasy
4. Begin writing the sequel to Blood and Stone tentatively titled Secrets and Shadows
5. Increase traffic to and readership of Niteblade

Wish me luck

I’ve been lucky enough to have two pieces accepted for the January issue of Shine My flash piece, “Not So Smart” will be published as will a short and, sadly, true poem called “Coffee”. I will, of course, post a link when they go live, but in the meantime I just wanted to brag a little

In an unrelated note (I swear it’s unrelated) Shine is having a flash fiction contest. I can’t enter because since I am such a regular submitter Pamela has asked me to be a judge. I’m incredibly flattered and I can’t wait to read all the entries — but if you write flash fiction you should enter. There’s no entry fee and there are some pretty good prizes, so head on over and check it out.

In NaNoWriMo news my word count is just over 43,000 words and my daughter, who is ten and set herself a word goal of 10,000 is at just over 4,000 Yay!

I tried to enable commenting on this post but in less than two hours I’d already been swamped with spam. Sorry

My flash piece, Wrong Turn, is now live at Sorcerous Signals. I still like the story, shame about the second sentence though LOL Why is it I never notice these things until after they are published? Eh, my bad. Now you’re going to go read it just to see what’s wrong with the second sentence aren’t you? I’d like to tsk tsk you but I’d do to the same, so I can’t While you’re there read all the stories up for offer and be sure and vote for your favorite

In other news I’m doing NaNoWriMo again this year — though instead of aiming for 50,000 words I’m aiming for a completed novel-in-stories. My Haven novel-in-stories, as a matter of fact. Currently I’m at just over 2,000 words, which isn’t a bad start. I’m hoping to get about 5k today though, so keep your fingers crossed for me

If anyone is interested my NaNo Profile is here and I’m always happy to have more buddies

My flash fiction story, Swapped, has been accepted for issue #7 of Mississippi Crow.  Swapped is one of my favorite pieces of flash and I can’t wait to be able to link to it and show it off

My drabble, Sex on the Beach has been published at Shine today. This is my third time and fourth piece featured in Shine and I encourage everyone to go take a look. Also, a good friend of mine, BD Wilson has a kick-ass story in Shine this month as well — read that too, you’ll thank me later. Really.

Wow, they don’t waste any time over there at The Flask Review; not in reviewing submissions nor in publishing them.  Issue 12 is up and online — including my flash fiction piece, Not So Smart. I hope you enjoy it

My flash piece, Not So Smart, has been accepted for Issue #12 at The Flask Review.  Yay.

“Not So Smart” is a story that was inspired by a Word of the Week prompt at NaNoLJers.  Again, I find myself surprised by the high proportion of WotW stories I’ve written that have found homes in markets, surprised, but happily.  I think I’ll take this as a cue to write some more WotW stories, now all I need to do is fine some “spare” time before November arrives and brings NaNoWriMo with it.

I’ll post a link to the story once it’s published

This week is starting off with a bang — I’ve got reams of good news. First of all, my poem, Cock-a-roach has been accepted and in fact, published at Poets Against War. That’s hardly a ream all by itself though is it? Nope

My drabble, “Sex on the Beach” has been accepted at SHINE! and should be published in October -and- my short story, “This Year’s Toy” has been accepted for the next issue of DiddleDog (and is online now).

Lastly, my short story, “Absinthe Eyes” has been accepted for publication at UR-Paranormal in the very near future.

That, surely, counts as reams of good news, don’t you think?

I just got home from a wonderful vacation to find a contributor’s copy of the latest IdeaGems publication waiting in my mailbox.  My drabble, Fatherhood, was reprinted in it this month.  This marks the third time that particular story has been published, so I think I’m going to stop submitting it for a while.  I really like it, but I think it’s time some of my other stories got a chance to shine.

“Wrong Turn” a short story inspired by the NaNoLJers Word of the Week “Labyrinth” has been accepted for publication at Sorcerous Signals.  That is a wonderful way to start the month of July if you ask me   I can’t wait until it gets published this fall because it’s one of my favorite stories — in fact, it’s one I’ve mentioned here before when I was talking about the balancing act between trusting your reader and smacking them in the face with ideas.  I look forward to seeing what the readers of Sorcerous Signals think of it