eldestmuse

This year I've decided to do Flash Fiction Month here at deviantART. Check out Flash-Fic-Month if you're interested. At the end of July, I'll be submitting my pieces to various critique sites for feedback, and then I'm going to seek publication using Duotrope to help me find markets. My plan is to go down the line of highest paying to lowest paying and then to the "exposure markets" but I'm determined to start pursuing publication even though I haven't actually you know finished my novel yet.

I'm starting with Recycled, which I've just started submitting to Critique Circle and have been pretty serious about editing. I originally wrote it for 365 Tomorrows but I'm going to try some of the paying markets first. There's no point in being shy!

Anyway, I'm going to use the following prompts (which will probably become titles) and try to have 31 stories with wordcounts ranging from 100 to 1,000 words written by the beginning of August.

<sub>1. Ace in the Hole
2. Blowing Smoke / Beggars & Choosers
3. Cry, Wolf / Crocodile Tears
4. Down and Out / Dark Horse / Dead to Rights / Dressed to Kill / Drowning Sorrows
5. Even Keel / End Over End
6. Fifty Fifty / Fair Weather Friend / Fool's Gold / Fly by Night / Funny Business
7. Give and Take / Grin and Bear It
8. Hump Day
9. In for a Penny
10. Jump the Gun
11. Kiss and Tell
12. Litmus Test
13. Marking Time
14. Necessary Evil
15. Out of the Woods
16. Paper Tiger / Pearls Before Swine
17. Quiet as a Church Mouse
18. Reinventing the Wheel / Raining Pitchforks
19. Second Wind / Shape up to ship out / Shotgun Wedding / Shots in the Dark
20. Teapot Tempest
21. Under the Gun
22. Variety: the spice of life
23. Witch Hunt / Wing It
--
25. Young and Dumb
26. Zigged to Zag

[*] All prompts taking from ClicheSite.com.
[**] Why yes, there are more than 31 prompts here. I did it on purpose!</sub>

Ok, I'm back! The IT guy came today and put a new motherboard into my computer, so I should be okay. It's weird trying to get used to my computer again, but I'll manage. Exile is currently 27,800 words long. I've got ten chapters sectioned out so far. I kind of really wish that I had some kind of preview image that I could use that would work as a 'cover' of some sort, but I'm not graphically inclined at all unfortunately.

My devwatch is down to 1 item, which I'll hopefully read soon.

Oh, awesome. My computer's clock was wrong because it kept timing out to time.windows.com so it's a half hour later than I thought it was and I should really start getting ready for class, oops!

I'm not sure what's wrong with my computer, but the monitor pretty much is borked. Which means it's awfully hard to access my files right now. Which, for obvious reasons, means that updates will be a bit stilted until I can get that fixed.

Sorry. Technical difficulties are beyond my control!

Regular Projects

Lithmeria

Lithmeria is a computer game I've been working on for the last year or so. It's a text-based Multi-User Dungeon (MUD) that utilizes my skills as a writer and content creator--I've mentioned it here before here in this journal. It's coming along nicely, and I look forward with anticipation to when I can say "Come check us out!"

If you find it interesting, we're looking for builders and writers to help work on the game. It's a lot of fun and is gaining a really lovely community at the forums.

30 Pieces of Silver

30 Pieces of Silver is an urban fantasy webserial set in Baltimore, a.k.a. Charm City. Each installment is self-contained, though all take place in the same city and characters and plots sometimes interrelate. A new installment is posted every Sunday morning, and they usually are between 300 and 1500 words long. It's also listed at the Web Fiction Guide, which I recommend having a look at.

One reviewer said:

_{“The vignettes are well-written, which really means I want to see what the writer could do with an actual story.  And I mean truly well-written, you can sense things about characters, setting, atmosphere and tension in a very short amount of time.”}

Exile

“_{Exiled from the world when humanity rejects the chaos of its newfound magic, Deanna and the brother who once died to protect her must somehow survive in their new home: a dark city formed of mish-mashed memories and ruled by gangs, none of which are more ruthless than the vampire family ruled by Russell Ford.}”

Exile is currently 26,000 words and I've been trying to upload a new scene every few days. Really wish I had a real cover to put on the edited chapters, but I am not very artistically inclined. I'm working on Chapter 10 right now, and have had progress recently, eee! I have a fair idea of the general direction of the plot for the rest of the book, and some twists that I hope will come as a surprise to readers. Encouragement always helps keep me writing, though!

Hinges of Hell

In the interests of full disclosure, I have to admit that I haven't been secretly writing this while I was absent from dA. It's actually a re-worked, edited, updated version of The Witch and the Werewolf. It's a three-part story separated by primary setting and conflict focus, and the first two parts are done. I've grown a lot as a writer since 2007, when I last worked on it, and I think it has a lot of potential in terms of plot though there are some significant tweaks I'll be making before posting it to this account and running it through some critique sites.

“_{Tracy and Camilla are old friends living a typical lower middle-class American lifestyle when a strange, injured man stumbles into their lives and changes them forever, launching them into the middle of an eons-old conflict between good and evil. Unfortunately, it isn't always clear which side is which.}”

Contests

<sub>Sweet Dreams? is a contest being hosted by Helewidis. The idea is to depict a dream-almost-nightmare that I've had. Helewidis wants the contestants to pick a dream that they had that borderlines with a nightmare and represent it whether in a visual or literary piece. I'm going to try!

The Greatest Gift is a literature contest being hosted by Literary-Perceptions. I'm tempted to write something set in the Lithmeria universe and inspired by the game's history. There are some good quotes I can use for inspiration:

Health is the greatest gift, contentment the greatest wealth, faithfulness the best relationship. -- Buddha

I could totally do something awesome with the Panther Disaster here.

Toleration is the greatest gift of the mind; it requires the same effort of the brain that it takes to balance oneself on a bicycle. -- Helen Keller

Oddly, this also works well for the Panther Disaster era.

Here's what I tell anybody and this is what I believe. The greatest gift we have is the gift of life. We understand that. That comes from our Creator. We're given a body. Now you may not like it, but you can maximize that body the best it can be maximized. -- Mike Ditka

Soo... clearly I'm writing about the Panther Disaster for this contest!

Bildungsroman Short Stories isn't really a contest, but Writers-Workshop is hosting a workshop on the subject and I've been having a hard time deciding what to post for my character Adrian Smith over at the After Alocer RPG I'm a part of, and I kind of like the idea of showing his character arc before the game starts, so I'll do that.</sub>

Featured

<sub>Objects in Space by LunaticStar begins with a prologue. It's adventures in space: Imagine this being in the future of Sister XIV, but somehow solar gates have all been disassembled or destroyed. Though in our own solar system, there's plenty of unknown to go around. Like singing death clouds.

As of now it seems to be about 6 chapters long, so it's not too overwhelming to stay up to date.

Passage on the Nyx begins with chapter one and is one of the stories I've been following for a long time here on dA. Sighter is about 19 chapters in so far. It's also sci-fi. Passage on the Nyx is a novel of the Last Renaissance, the last great era of Humanity: Benjamin Savka is a 2nd-class citizen and on exile from Earth. Hard-Wire is a clone of a clone and filled up with over a hundred of cybernetics. When they meet, humanity and every colony in the solar system will change.

Devil in the Details by ArchArad is a NaNo work that I've been looking at now that November is long over. There are 19 chapters. I believe she intends to edit the piece and I've been trying to help, because it's a work with a lot of potential. Chapter one is here. It's fantasy.</sub>