Weekly Update: 9-5-14 Accomplishments

Happy Birthday Sister!

Boy, did a lot of stuff happen this week.

First, and foremost, I finised my (hopefully) last major edit of The Changelings, an effort spanning four months which cut the manuscript from 230,000 words to 191,000.  If 40,000 words doesn't sound significant, I remind you that 50,000 will get you a Nanowrimo badge. Or, for those who think in pages, it went from 920 to 764. I still have to run it by Debra Young, who is doing the thankless and tedious job of checking grammar and spelling, but this a major hurdle down.

Second, and most surprisingly, my uber short story, "What No One Tells You About Becoming Immortal" got published in Daily Science Fiction, a paying online web magazine.

Picture found on Pinterest

Way back in spring, I sent them the story, got it accepted, signed a contract, sent in revisions... and I've been waiting ever since. Now I subscribe to Daily Science Fiction (its free) and get a nice short story in my in-box every weekday. On Thursday morning, I was glancing through my piled-up emails, when, lo and behold, what do I see? My story, with my name, right there. I had come this close to deleting it!

In a few weeks, my story should (I hope) appear on their website archives. When it does, I'll show you the link.

Third, I finally bit the bullet and submitted by campaign for The Changelings on Pubslush which can be viewed here. I'll go into what Pubslush is on Sunday, but it's basically Kickstarter for books, a way of using crowdfunding to raise money for self-publishing. My campaign doesn't start until October 1st, which means you can't pledge money until then. Still, it's up for people to look at and sample if so desired.

Now one of the ways you can "bribe" people into donating is offering incentives. I've decided to turn my card-making hobby into a potential fundraising tool. Which brings me to the fourth accomplishment, finishing 50 homemade cards. I've been working on different pieces of them since July, but it's only in these last few weeks, I've put them all together, pounding out 5, 10, 15 cards at a time. If I can use them to raise money, great. If not, I'm sure I'll find someone who wants them.

One of my more subdued cards

Weirdly enough, this whole dang week, I've been whining to anyone within earshot how I can't seem to get anything done: not cleaning, not walking the dogs, not finishing critiques, not doing marketing research, not setting up a facebook page--nothing! And yet, everything seems to be getting accomplished anyway, just for the heck of it.

What a weird week!