Category: Misc. Updates

Hi everyone!

It’s getting to be the holidays soon, so I hope everyone has someone they can spend their time with. As for me, my 4th book The Orange Bowl Lanes has had a great kickoff week so far and I look forward to continuing to carry the momentum forward!

I haven’t posted a flash fiction or short story in some time and the truth of the matter is that right now I’m dealing with some carpal tunnel issues in my right arm. I anticipate being healthy enough to write next weekend, but for now, I don’t have the stamina to get a lot of excess work done. Most of my energy has been focused on my long-term projects and so I’ve neglected the work here on my website. I’m sorry to let you down like that.

If you haven’t, head on over to Amazon and grab my newest book for 50% off. Please leave a review as well! It’s the best way to help a new writer gain credibility and really boosts my work to other people.

Hello everyone!

Two whole weeks without a short story or a flash fiction; yeesh. I sound like I’m dead. I’ve been putting a lot of effort into a new (fourth) project of mine and reading a few new books I’ve rather enjoyed. I recommend Sam Butler’s translation of The Odyssey, by the way. It’s a very good read so far.

The past few weekends, I’ve also been spending some time with my siblings and so I decided to prioritize time with them over some writing goals. The weeks themselves are so busy that I just work on my primary projects. I suppose any excuse will do, but the plain fact is I missed two weeks. My bad. I’ll make it up this coming weekend with a great flash fiction I’ve got a-brewing upstairs.

I’ve been looking through publishers and agents on Manuscript Wishlist as well. I’m trying to see if I can find one for my bowling book. My small social media presence has some engagement issues that I’m trying to fix (via flash fictions, mostly). The grind is a lot, sometimes. I’m pulled in many directions between school, personal life, work, and a social life. For the next two years I’ll be stretched thinner than baklava layers. The hope is that two years goes by fast enough for it to not matter in the long run.

I’ve been musing about publishing in general. I haven’t put out a book in about two and a half years and I have grown a lot as an author since then. I have a book completely finished and ready to be published, but I keep waffling back and forth between finding a traditional publisher and self-publishing. I think I could almost make a convincing case for traditional publishing. However, I can make an even better case for self-publishing. The downside to trad is that I don’t think it’ll find a market. The downside to self is that I don’t have an audience built to see it. Kind of a rock-hard place thing, here. I need a jackhammer or something.

I remember the old adage: don’t rush. If I get to a point where I’m querying trad pubbers and I need to fix parts of that book, I’ll have to wait, because you can’t sell an incomplete product. You might as well sell the best thing you’ve got on the menu. And you have to go to bat for yourself, because nobody else is going to swing for the fences as hard as you will for yourself.

Just a few things on a Sunday to reel in the new week. Graduate school begins and I have a lot of things to balance on my serving tray. Good thing I’m not wearing roller skates.

-Sam

Last week, I lampooned the idea of being a self-published author and flying off into the sunset with bags of money like the Monopoly guy. I had such a great time with that. It served as an ego check for me and as a word of warning for anyone just getting into the game.

This weekend, since I couldn’t finish a flash fiction or a short story like I had planned, especially since I ended up dumping several thousand words into my other works-in-progress, I wanted to talk about some plans I have. I think it’s been all well and good for me to throw my writing into the void, but I want to start activating some engagement options now. Going forward, I’m going to start visiting other people’s websites and Facebook groups.

Continue reading “7/31/2022 Update”

I just got told that one of my short stories is in the running for publication in an online magazine!

I am actually a little surprised but I’m very happy to hear this good news today, too. The feedback received told me the piece is well-written and has good voice. Apparently I missed some typos and improper pronoun references (an enormous embarrassment for any author), but it’s still in the running. If it wins, I imagine they’ll want an updated/cleaned up version of the text.

I’m pleased, even if it took some money to submit and get feedback, that I made it to a consideration round on my first hard entry to a magazine. If it gets published, I’ll probably throw a party.

I should have a flash fiction up tomorrow. I can’t believe I forgot last weekend’s completely. I had so much going on in the other sectors of my life that I blanked until about Tuesday earlier this week. Well, what can you do? I still write every day and that’s what counts.

Hi everyone. I’ve decided not to put out a flash fiction I’ve been fighting with for a few days now. I keep coming back to the thought that the piece has no soul. It’s a bland, lifeless, bloodless caricature of something I’m not even inspired by, and I think even a cursory look at some of the text will make that obvious.

It’s really very rare I decide not to put something out because I’m dissatisfied with the final product, but this is one of those cases. I’d rather produce a piece in a week that I’m more satisfied with than put out schlock to maintain an arbitrary schedule of uploads.

The Orange Bowl Lanes: Dick Simmons vs the Galaxy is pending some self-improvement reading I’m doing right now before I start searching for advance reviewers. I think it’s more important to delay the book and try to get an understanding of what I’m publishing than rush willy-nilly into publication and foo up something I’ve spent a lot of hours on (by MS Word “total editing time” estimation, that’s about 1780 hours, though most of that may be me leaving the document open on my computer for several days at a time).

In any case, I will put out this little paragraph that I was particularly satisfied with writing. This will be included somewhere later on, perhaps in a new flash fiction, or placed into an anthology.

The desert was beautiful. Orange-rust bluffs piled high like sandwiches. Stretches of sunburned brush and golden grass. Few roundwood fences, rounding a pasture for cows for a faraway farmhouse. Telegraph poles like cactus along the roadside. The stranger came riding up the following morning. The housekeeper was there at the property line fence to chastise him.

Thanks for checking in today. See you again soon!