Category: Uncategorized (Page 4 of 5)

Spoiler alert. This post is not about story titles!

In the corporate world, I’ve never been someone who really focuses on a position title. Very often they seem meaningless – look at the banks for example, every third person seems to have a title which includes “Vice President.”

I was reminded of this as I scrolled through LinkedIn earlier this week (Yes, I admit it, but we’re into week three of shelter-in-place” and it’s far too early to begin happy hour). Anyway, as I scrolled down, I saw a post from an executive at a Fortune 500 company and his title was listed as Chief Experience Officer.

How do you get a job like that? In the accompanying picture, the executive looked to be at least ten years younger than I am. Does that make me better qualified because I have more life experience? What are the qualifications for a Chief Experience Officer? How do you get on that career track?

Similarly, I saw a separate post congratulating someone for being at a company for several years. The position was described as Chief Solutions Officer. I can almost get that one, but in reality aren’t all executives “Solutions Officers?” Whether it’s existing operational solutions, new business solutions, or strategic solutions.

Maybe as I said earlier, that because I’ve never really focused on job titles, I’ve missed a shift in the position-naming culture and the world has passed me by. Or maybe these corporations are ahead of us all and are re-positioning for the post-Covid world.

Or maybe I should stay away from LinkedIn!

There’s not much to report this week. I did complete my weekly short story which ended up with a little more of a supernatural theme than I intended, or expected.

Apart from that, I started the next phase of laying decking down the attic space. The goal is to move everything from my storage unit into the attic. I suspect part of that exercise will involve substantial donations to Goodwill!

I’ll post a more detailed February update next week, but at this point, February, like January was a bit of a mixed month. I’m beginning to think that’s the way of the world: some good, and some not so good.

Last week’s short story, is a case in point. It was my forty-third consecutive story in the one-a-week challenge, and came together pretty well, except for the ending, which seemed a bit flat to me.

After I’d finished, I went through a little angst about it. Should I have outlined, and come up with a better ending? The end of that road is insanity, and there are some in my family who will comment that I’m only a short drive away! The thing is, if I rewrite the ending whole chunks of the main part of the story need to change or leave, and then it’s not the same story.

In the end, I decided to leave it alone and maybe one day I’ll write the other version. It won’t be this week. This week I’m back with Tiswin my Mage Weaver.

All I know at the moment is it snowed last night in Cloudcroft. I had the usual moment of doubt about where the story’s going and then this morning I was reading the Success Principles by Jack Canfield. At the start of one section there’s a quote from Martin Luther King Jr.:

Take the first step in faith. You don’t have to see the whole staircase. Just take the first step.

I think that’s a great statement for everyone who writes into the dark.

I wonder if we ever really finish a story.

What I mean by that is something I’ve noticed during the short story challenge. I’ll finish the story, put it aside for a while. Sometimes only an hour or so if I’m close to the deadline. After that break I’ll read through, correct spelling and punctuation (I have a habit of throwing commas in everywhere during my first draft – usually when I pause the typing to frame the next sentence or paragraph. Probably ninety-percent of these get weeded out as I cycle through the story, but there are always a few that hide until the last minute), and tidy up any gaps or discrepancies I spot.

Very often, and this week’s story is a good example, I’ll send the story out, and then it’s like my mind looks at it from a different angle and says: Well, if you’d done it that way, the action would have started several pages sooner, and . . .

By this time I’m not sure if it’s the creative voice offering a solution to make the story better, or critical voice offering judgement to stop the story being submitted somewhere.

Too late critical 🙂

I may rework that story, but not this week. This week there’s a new story. It’s not much more than a fragment of an idea at the moment, but I will warn anyone reading this, that if I offer you a cupcake with icing, be very careful!

There were two separate and unconnected events that triggered this post. The first was a post by Dean Wesley Smith about deadlines helping overcome the fear of finishing a work, or submitting it, or publishing. The second was a comment on my sister’s blog where she talked about having several pieces of tapestry in her studio, all not quite finished and how having deadlines for exhibitions and contests provides the driver to make us finish.

I think it’s a multiple step process. About two years ago, when I decided I really needed to take my writing seriously I had six or seven short stories in various stages of completion. It was about the time I discovered, or maybe re-discovered, Heinlein’s Rules and it’s the second rule that applies here: You must finish what you start. I may come back to Heinlein’s Rules, but a lot of writers better than I am, and with more experience have written pages about those rules, so don’t hold your breath. Anyway, I spent a month going back and finishing those stories. They’re in a folder on a hard drive somewhere, and that’s where most of them should stay.

As I mentioned back in November, I began the short story challenge back in April. The weekly deadline of Sunday Midnight Pacific Time to get the story delivered is a powerful motivator, especially when linked to a long running streak. There’s been more than one occasion where I’m literally dozing over the keyboard after midnight Central Time (still got two hours because the deadline is Pacific 🙂 ), to get the story finished, read through and sent off.

I finished story forty-one this past weekend. Now I just have to apply those same principles to the novel I have in progress because there’s no external deadline. And that can be the real challenge.

I’ve been studying some techniques for writing faster and retaining quality. It’s been an interesting exercise and last week’s short story came together really fast. That may also have had something to do with the fact I could “see” the whole story in my head when I started writing, which doesn’t happen often.

This week isn’t going so well, partly, I think because I’m experimenting. I’ve never written anything that could be considered steampunk, and decided that maybe it was time to try. I’ll let you know how that goes.

More next week, once I’ve worked out where this story’s headed.

It’s a bit of a mixed bag as we come to the end of January. Some good, and some not so good.

Starting with the not so good, I’ll probably hit 20,000 words for the month, which is about half of target. I know that doesn’t sound much for those who regularly write five to ten thousand words a day, but I have written something new nearly every day this month. I also haven’t got very far with the Babylon mystery. I did revisit it on Sunday evening but I think it’s going to need printing out to really get my head back into the story. Ideally that means hooking up the laser printer which has sat in the closet for about a year, so any guesses on what nest of vipers that will expose? <bg>

On the positive side, I’m still on track with a story a week for the year, and up to thirty-nine consecutive stories in the overall challenge. Story number forty is under way as I type this. I’ve also logged five first submissions in January, which is my record for a single month, and the total submission in flight with various magazines is at or near an all time high. And I’ve written a blog post here every week of January – not on a consistent once every seven days basis, but I’ll aim to do better in February.

Well, Apple’s iBooks was more of a challenge than I expected, but I finally got through the agreements, and reviews, so Angels Without Faces will be available there later today.

The last week wasn’t as productive as I planned from a writing perspective. I did complete the weekly short story and started to read through the Babylon mystery to remind myself of what I’ve written, although nothing new got added. That’s for this week, along with the next short story!

2019 was definitely a year of change, although like many times of change, you don’t always see that when you’re in the middle of it. The biggest change as our move to Alabama from Florida, which raised some eyebrows and comments along the lines of “wrong way!” However, as parents age and need closer care and attention, it was clearly the right way!

I’d like to say the move didn’t impact my writing, but just looking back at my daily log tells the truth – barely 11,000 words in total for February and March, and then the Mystery Workshop in Las Vegas where I wrote 13,000 words in five days. So where did the year end up?

• Two stories accepted for publication – both Babylon mysteries
• Forty short stories completed
• A total of 213,000 words written, almost double the number of 2018

What I didn’t get done was finishing the Babylon novel, or putting any of those stories up for sale. That probably gives you a glimpse of my plans for 2020, but more on that next week.