Milestones

These past few weeks saw two major milestones in my budding writing career. The first is the completion of my novelette “Underwater Restorations” in Orson Scott Card’s Intergalactic Medicine Showwith some very cool artwork by M. Wayne Miller (in color this time!). It’s a strong issue and I am humbled to share the issue with such great writers. The table of contents is:

1. “The Sound of Death” by Gareth D.Jones
2. “Underwater Restorations, Part 2” by Jeffrey A. Ballard
3. “Extinct Fauna of the High Malafan” by Alter S. Reiss
4. “Right and Wrongs” by Brain K. Lowe
5. “A Little Trouble Dying” by Edmund R.Schubert
6. “From Other Places” (Audio) written by Shannon Peavy and read by Emily Rankin
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00JG4UIG2/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=B00JG4UIG2&linkCode=as2&tag=jaballard-20The other milestone? I finally put up my first title, Voices in the Deep, for sale! Whew, what a learning curve that was/is. Still loads to learn. Publishing your own title can be done very simply; publishing it right so that it looks professional took some time for me to learn. The print edition is still being ironed out and I’m currently working on getting the title up at Barnes and Noble, Kobo and other places. So look for it at your favorite retailer soon!
My plan was to release a title every other month through 2014 starting in March, but the learning curve pushed the first release into April. However, now that most of the machinery is in place, I plan to get back on schedule and release the next title next month in May. So stay tuned for that! You can catch a sneak peak of it on the front page of my website.
Hopefully, now that the publishing pieces are in place, I can refocus on doing what I really love: writing!

Progress Made

I’m inching ever closer to putting up my first title. Over the past few weeks I have designed the covers, interiors, and wrote the blurbs for the all the titles I’m planning on putting up in 2014 and some of 2015. I’m now waiting on some advanced copies to arrive in the mail so I can look them over and make any necessary corrections before starting to publish.

The act of designing covers, interiors and writing blurbs has drained a lot of my creative energy, such that I haven’t been putting many new words down during that time.  But most of that’s behind me and I recently started writing again on a short story I started in early February–much to my relief. I can’t recall the last time it took me this long to write a short story (longer pieces are different) and I was starting to get anxious. A large part of my publishing strategy is to have a steady release of material, so I need to regularly produce new stories.
But progress has been made on multiple fronts. I have my 2014 lineup mostly ready to go. I’m close to having all the pieces in place to start publishing. And I started writing again. Anxiousness averted; progress made.

Cover Reveal March 2014

Well, I had said earlier that I would start putting up titles in March, in my mind that meant March 1, but it doesn’t look like that’s going to happen. It’s a bit of a learning  curve so far and it’s taking longer than I anticipated. But I’ve made significant progress and should hopefully post my first work by the end of the month or early April. I’m not going to rush, or publish until I’m happy with the product and ready.

In the meantime, I have been diligently designing covers and writing adcopy for my catalog that I’ll roll out over the coming year. My first title is called Voices in the Deep. Here’s the blurb:
Guilt follows all men—even into the depths of an alien ocean.  Kale does what he can to keep men alive, but after three years his own guilt wears.  Understaffed, underfunded and little thought of, they complete the terraforming tasks too dangerous for everyone else.  Now the scientists have seeded the biggest storm yet, and its arrival will force Kale to finally face his guilt once and for all.
The title should up soon as I get everything in place. Stay tuned!

2014 Campbellian Anthology

My first pro-level fiction sale this past August automatically qualified me for the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer in Science Fiction and Fantasy. A writer is eligible for the award for two years from the their first sale that paid at least 3 cents a word. As you might expect, that catches a lot of new writers, and the field is crowded.

The award works by first narrowing the field from all eligible writers through a nomination period. If you’ve attended a Worldcon (the previous one to the current year) or have bought memberships to the current year’s or the following year’s you are eligible to nominate. I believe 5-6 are nominated and then they move on to another round of voting to choose the winner.
By my quick count, there are over a 100 eligible writers. So who to choose? How to make an informed decision? Thankfully, M. David Blake graciously put together a free anthology of all the writers that sent him in work. That’s over 860,000 words of free fiction from up-and-coming writers!
My story The Highlight of a Life, which first appeared in Fiction River, appears in the anthology. It’s only up until when the voting for the award closes (expected to be April 2014). So check it out free while you can!
Also, to help introduce the eligible writers, Bonnie Jo Stufflebeam, queried the field of eligible writers and posted their responses to her short story review blog. My response is here.
Hope you enjoy all that free fiction!

My Story is Up!

Earlier last week, the first part of my science fiction novelette Underwater Restorations debuted in Orson Scott Card’sIntergalactic Medicine Show Issue 37. It marks my second professional level sale, and the first time art has accompanied one of my stories. I couldn’t be happier with the illustrations; I think it might be what I most excited about.

As writers, the story almost always plays out as movie in our heads, which we try and transcribe to the written word. But we can never be exactly sure if what played in our head, plays in the readers’ heads. So it is really neat to see a picture of what someone else envisioned from one of my stories. It was a very surreal and satisfying experience. One I hope to have again soon.
I also get to humbly share the TOC with writer’s I’ve read before and admire:
1. Elsa’s Sphere by Marina J. Lostetter
2. Underwater Restorations by Jeffrey A. Ballard (me)
3. High-Tech Fairies and the Pandora Perplexity by Alex Shvartsman
4. Big Al Shepard Plays Baseball on the Moon by Jamie Todd Rubin
5. Seven Tips to Enjoy Your Time in the Unreal Forest by Van Aaron Hughes
6. Into the Desolation by Catherine Wells (audio available)

 

The $15 annual subscription is well worth it in my opinion (you get access to all back issues as well). Check it if you can.  Part 2, the exciting conclusion, will be in issue 38!

Time Management

I recently decided to shift my blogging schedule to the first and third Saturday of every month.  Previous to this, it had been every Saturday.  I still, of course, reserve the right to post more than this, but the twice a month will be the minimum number I do.

The reason is simple: time management.  Kris Rusch wrote recently on her blog about the acronym WIBBOW which she attributed to Scott William Carter.  It stands for Would I Be Better Off Writing.  And the answer, for me, is yes.
At this phase in my writing career, I have, on average, about 8-10 writing sessions a week.  Writing this blog takes up at least one session, so about 10% of my available writing time (sometimes more).  And this blog currently doesn’t have the readership or interaction to justify this use of time.
I’m not disappointed by this or even surprised.  It is what I expected when I started–I just wanted to acquaint myself and get used to the idea of blogging.  I’m simply not well known at the moment, so there’s no reason to expect any of that right now.
How do you get known?  By writing great stories of course, and getting them in front of readers, not blogging (this isn’t an absolute rule, but it clearly applies to me).  So I am going to shift to blogging twice a month to give me more time to write what I really love: speculative fiction.
I’m off to go write ….

Standby …

I have decided to shift to blogging the first week and third week of every month.  I’ll discuss why in next week’s blog post.  So standby until then.

2014 Writing Year Goals

After much deliberation, I have finally decided on my 2014 writing goals.  There was much back-and-forth with myself.  In September and October I nearly burned myself out from writing doing too much, so I was mindful of this when setting my goals.  I wanted goals that while achievable and would force me to grow, but would avoid that burnout region.

This year will be the year of Indie publishing for me.  My plan is to put up my first title in March and release a new story every other month after that.  I’ve already taken classes in cover design and book interiors and found that I rather enjoyed cover design and have an eye for it (so I’ve been told by sources I trust).  I’m excited to share some covers in the year to come (and the stories too!).
I’ve targeted to write sixteen new stories this year, which should be a comfortable pace.  I plan on entering Writers of the Future every quarter and the Jim Baen Memorial Writing Contest as well continuing the submission cup-and-ball game.  I’ve also decided to make a more concerted effort to practice humor and hard sci-fi.
I would like to take one craft level workshop this coming year, but that may prove to be difficult.  If the right workshop doesn’t materialize, the backup plan is to take a week-long writers retreat to focus solely on craft and pump out some stories.
Worldcon is in London this year, although I would love to go, it’s too far for this beginning writer (unless I start selling consistently to raise the funds), but I’m planning on attending the local Sci-fi/fantasy con.
2014 is shaping up to be a great year.  I can’t wait to get started.

Interim Progress

Earlier I wrote I was in the process of shifting my writing year to the calendar year and October through December were bonus months before starting a new writing year.  Now that December is over it’s time to quickly assess this three month period and look forward to the new calendar year.

In the last three months I finished editing a novella and wrote twenty-one thousand new words split over three new stories.  And these last three stories explore new sub-genres for me: hard sci-fi and humor.
I’ve found hard sci-fi takes considerably more time to write due to all the research.  In particular I wrote a story for the Jim Baen’s Memorial Writing contest which wants hard sci-fi space stories set no more than fifty, sixty years in the future.  It seemed I couldn’t get more than one or two paragraphs before having to stop to read academic papers on various things, which while the scientist in me enjoyed, the writer in me that likes to make progress resented the delay.
Humor is quite the challenge to write, but I am convinced it can be learned.  Although it sounds strange, I did spend time studying humor, deconstructing it, watching videos to try and understand it.  I can’t claim to have been successful yet, but it was interesting learning experience.  Both hard sci-fi and humor represent two new areas of growth for me and I’m happy to have grown my repertoire and will continue to practice both into 2014.
I also received my first acceptance to a SWFA approved market for one of my most favorite stories, so needless to say I am very excited.  The tentative date to publication is in early 2014 and I’ll write more about it then. 
And after much introspection and going back-and-forth I finally settled on my writing 2014 targets which I’ll roll out next week. 
I am pleased with the progress these past three months, but I can’t wait to get started on 2014.  I’ll roll out 2014’s targets next week.

Overcoming Writer’s Block

It happens to all writers: it’s time to write and either A) you don’t feel like it, or B) you don’t know what to write.  Each is a distinct problem with different solutions, but often the new writer treats them as the same thing with statements like: “not feeling it” or “muse didn’t show up today”.

More experienced writers know that if we always waited for the muse to show up we never would get anything done—fickle creature that muse is.  Often nowhere to be found when it’s actually time to write, and constantly whispering in your ear when it’s impossible to write, such as in the middle of a business meeting.  So the easy solution to A) is BIC, Butt In Chair.  Regardless of how you feel, you make the commitment to face the blank page on a regular scheduled basis.  The result of this is some sessions are spectacular, others abysmal, but always forward progress is made, even if it’s a baby step.  The result at the end of the day is the reader can’t tell the difference between those sessions (with some editing and smoothing of course—I’m not really a huge proponent of large-scale edits, but that’s another post).
The solution to B) is equally as simple, just write the next sentence.  Take it one sentence at a time.  What really helps with this approach is to recognize and accept that not everything you write is gold or even has to be used.  You’re absolutely allowed to write crap to get warmed up—just cut it out or come back to it.  Another good trick that I like, is to write the previous scene from another POV.  Granted this a lot of work that will never appear in the story, but it will give you deeper insight into the scene which may unlock for you where to go next.  However, the most sensible thing to do is to end your last writing session in the middle of a scene where you know where to go from there.
Writer’s block happens to all of us, but having strategies in place beforehand renders this malady impotent.