Grab the Brass Ring!

All---

I have a rally deep and meaningful post that I was going to do today, but it was a long day at work, and I had EMT class after that, so I'm going to save deep and meaningful for tomorrow.

Instead, I'll quickly remind you that you can click here to Nevetsize your Halloween!  A ghost story, written by me for your specifications.  An audio recording of me reading it.  (I've done radio and voice acting!)  And either the greatest coffee mug ever or the greatest teddy bear ever.  (See them at CafePress.)

And I figured this will be the night I'll introduce the November contest.  This November 6th, it will be the 10th anniversary of when Rose and I got engaged.  To celebrate that, I'm going to write a blogsclusive short story (500 - 1000 words or so) outside my usual realm of experience: a romance.  Some flash  pieces I've written have prompted Lori, Deb, and a few others to suggest I should try such a thing.  Well, I finally am, and I will post that story here sometimes between the 6th and the 13th.  There's enough going on that I want a flexible deadline for this.

BUT, NEVETS! you say.

But what? I say.

BUT YOU SAID IT WAS A CONTEST! you say.


And it is! I say.

Here's the contest part.  It's not a blogfest, and it's not an experiment, but anyone who lets me know they're going to do it, then writes a story completely different from what they normally write, and posts it to their blog with a link back here, will get their post cross-linked and will have a chance to be one of five randomly selected winners, each of whom will receive a signed copy of my own story and a Nevetsized item yet to be determined.

BUT, NEVETS! you say.

But what? I say.

BUT THAT'S SO GENEROUS! you say.

Generous is how I rollz! I say.

Hey, 11/6/2000 was an early Christmas for Rose and me.  I'll make it an early Christmas for you, if you take the chance on stretching your writing muscles.

.Nevets.

What I'm Working On

All---

So, when I'm done letting life and other things distract me, here's what I'm working on. Rose and I will be spending some time over the next few days, looking closely at a WIP we're calling The Gift. We think it's the best balance between not only our writing styles and interests, but also our conceived markets. We need to tighten it up in terms of marketing. We have it basically plotted, but we need to outline chapters. We also need to work out the best way to let our individual voices shine without being distracting. Up to now we have mostly focused on blending our voices and making them indistinguishable. While I think that is a worthy goal, because I hate being jarred by switching authors in a collaborative work, I also think we each have a unique contribution to make and we need to not dampen that. More on this over the coming days.

Individually, I am focusing on submitting short stories to create my platform. Right now what I'm working through is a pile of old stories that I am revamping for my new style and (frankly) age. When I was about sixteen, I cranked out a whole ton of short stories that were crime stories with some element of irony or twist to them. I think they still stand up pretty well, but they're not where I'm at right now. After a couple of them were rejected by magazines, I gave up on the whole lot, so they've never seen the light of day. So I'm transforming them. More on that over the next few days, as well!

Also, I'm giving more serious thought to doing something with this flash piece, and now also with the one I wrote for today, which is already at 1500+ words. I'm not sure yet if that's a good idea or a bad one, but I see some potential in each for my genre.

OK -- now to write!

.Nevets.

p.s. And stay tuned for news on another, new-media project I'm going to start soon!

New Shoes Doing Well

All---

I think the new shoes will be a good fit. I feel pretty comfortable with my decision to classify myself as an author of psychological suspense. From a practical standpoint, a lot of the stories that I'm sitting on from my teen years and twenties will be great starting points for some good short fiction in that genre.

Rose and I went out for coffee tonight and talked about this more, and when we were through it sounded pretty clear that based on my writing and reading styles and preferences, this was the way for me to go. We also talked about her individual writing, and she's definitely feeling comfortable with the idea of YA Fantasy. I think that's a great place for her for a lot of reasons, not the least of which is that I think she has some things to say that will be very much to their benefit.

We also talked about our together projects. Turns out Casey was right. (Who's surprised, eh?!) In the course of conversation, we realized that one of our WIP's is actually already almost a YA fantasy psychological suspense novel.

More about actual writing this weekend, I promise, but I really need to grind through the practical side the past few days.

.Nevets.

My New Shoes (so to speak)

All---

Well, I've gone and done it. I haven't fully thrown myself into it, but I've decided to target myself at the psychological suspense genre. Technically for novels that's psychological thrillers, but I write short stories and novellas, too, and I've always thought it was awkward calling shorter forms, "thrillers."

I've chosen this for a variety of reasons. My comfort with the form. My comfort with the author culture and fanbase. Some of my writing strengths. And the fact that psychological themes and an air of suspense tend to permeate most of what I write, regardless of genre.

One of the things that still needs to be worked out is... Rose is writing YA fantasy at the moment, and I think that's a really good home for her voice and vision. We have a number of other projects we've scoped out and/or started for us to work on together. What we need to figure out is, if I'm classing myself as psychological suspense and she's classing herself as YA fantasy, how do we want to focus our work together? I'll let you know how that goes!

As I try on these genre shoes for a few days, I'll let you know how that goes, too! If I settle into it well, I will probably re-package my blog a little to emphasize that style.

.Nevets.