Marie Croke

Just found out that my short story, “The Fleetness of Love”, will be included in the Beauty and the Beast issue of Enchanted Conversation.  More on that when I find out.

I heard on the radio (and thus it must be true) that 75% of everyone who makes a new year’s resolution breaks it within the first week.  It’s a good thing I heard it too, for I’d been contemplating on Monday whether I’d been an idiot to think I’d be able to get any writing done by the time my son finally fell asleep. 

But I have.  Every day this week, regardless of how droopy my eyelids were or how nice my pillow looked, I stayed up until my 500 words were complete.  It was difficult, but doable, but now I’m seeing a different problem with my resolution. 

500 words is hard during the week, but it’s a breeze on the weekends when I actually have more than two seconds to rub together for myself.  And yet, I still only wrote a little over 500 words last weekend after the holiday.  Basically, I’d told myself 500 and thus I didn’t try for any more.  So I have to make an addendum to my resolution to actually make it difficult, yet achievable, for every day. 

Thus, I still must finish 500 words Monday-Friday, but Sat & Sun the word count better make it to at least 1500.  That way I’m still pushing myself.

So, to recap – yes, I’ve thus far not broken any resolutions :)  We’ll see what the rest of the 365 days will have to test my resolve.

Originally published on 1.3.10

My story “Bauble for Your Thoughts” has been published in the Jan-Mar issue of The Lorelei Signal. Go read and vote if you like :)

In other news I just received my first HM in the Writers of the Future contest. It was for a short story that after mailing I had anticipated a flat out rejection, so it was a rather nice surprise.

In more other news, I did reach my goal of getting 15 submissions out at once…for about an hour. But the good side of that is that I’m almost to the point where nothing coming back will get trunked because it was written before I really knew what I was doing.

Originally published on 12.30.09

Yes, this is a few days early, but I figure that’s better than a week late.

First off, I’ve learned alot in the past year, whether it was finally determining what was meant by standard manuscript format, or how in the world to write a hook. And for that matter, how, while I know I’m improving with every word I write, I also have no idea some times what will succeed where and what won’t.

That last has been proven a few times when things I’ve sent out ‘just to get something to the market but I have no illusions as to the rejection that will be shortly returning’ have come back as ‘held’ or accepted. On the flip side, things I’ve been certain will give me at least a nice comment or two would return with a form or having been ripped to shreds.

Now, part of that could be that the pieces I have more confidence in end up in harder to crack market slush piles than the ones I have concerns about. The other part could be that I’ve still got a ton of learning to do.

I will say, my finally figuring out that a hook was more than a bunch of cool words thrown on the first page was a real eye opener. The fact that Emerald Tales was kind enough to publish my first short story gave me something to contrast a successful beginning to all my other subs so that the lesson hit home like it should. Put the body on page one indeed…my first sale had a body in the first sentence. A very good lesson that is now posted upon my wall. In large letters.

It’s been a rocky first eight months, but, as most other writers seem to agree, rejection dulls over time. For me, rejection began to truly dull after I’d learned why my pieces were rejected. Not knowing why is a killer. Armed with a bit of knowledge (and a sterner constitution), rejections pile up around me without half the emotion I’d had with my first handful.

And being that within that first eight months I’ve still had four acceptances along with around forty rejections, I’d say I’m doing pretty well.

That said, I’ve tried to make this year’s resolutions as realistic as possible, so that no matter how tired I am after work and chasing the boy I will still accomplish them:

-Every piece returned goes back out within 48 hours.

-Write at least 500 words every day. (I have a habit of writing 2-6k in one day then slacking off for a week…or two…or three.)

-Invest the time to revamp and update my web site. (If you knew how computer literate I’m not, you’d understand why this is even on the list.) 

-Have at least two new finished pieces every month. (I’m giving myself permission to let them be flash – sanity during some months might be at stake otherwise.)
-By the end of 2010 have my total number of submissions hovering above 25.

So there you have it. Now lets see if I can possibly finish that goal of finally hitting a total number of submissions equaling 15 before the end of the year. I have one day…

There’s my token PC comment….

Hope everyone has had a Merry Christmas (a few days late…what?  I had a child to spoil)!

And that the New Year brings only joy!

I’ve just received word that my story “Bleeding Sky” has been accepted for Pill Hill Press’s Four Horsemen Anthology. Wewt!

Going to hover on this high for a good while. :) In fact, it’ll probably help me get a little more serious with this WotF submission I’ve been struggling to finish.

Another Wewt!! just for good measure!

Results for the Anthology Builder contest are in, sooner than I expected to be honest.

Congrats to all the winners and runner-ups!

Considering there were a few people in the Finalist listing that are much more experienced, I wasn’t surprised that I didn’t place.  It’s simply a joy to have actually made it to Finalist, which wins a critique from Nancy Fulda.  This will be the first time I’ll have the experience of having a pro give me some tips on improving, and, as I’m ever learning, everything helps.

And while the general comments from the judges made me mope for a day (or two), I’ve got my head screwed back on straight.  After only some half-assed writing that read like my three year old could have done better with his minimal grasp of the ABC’s, I started and finished what I thought would be a flash piece last night before bed.  Now that I’m in the process of typing it up, I think the weird shaped notebook drastically impaired my ability to estimate the word count.  Or perhaps I was just tired.

Back on topic, I hope she repeats the contest in the years to come, because it was alot of fun getting inspiration from a cover picture.  I’ve still got notes galore scattered everywhere for all the other covers I’d been considering using…