Writing Wednesday – Getting Started (and Making ’em Laugh)

Before anything else – head on over to Read a Romance Month. There are some awesome posts there (including one by yours truly about the joy of a funny romance). There are giveaways, and it’s worth stopping by every day. So. Yeah. Go do that. I’ll wait here.

Back? Awesome.

It’s the first Writing Wednesday of the new year. So far today, I’ve been to the dentist (my bionic jaw still functions, which is awesome news for my pocketbook and sanity both), we’ve picked up the new speakers for my husband’s electronic wall of electronic electrics, and we’ve torn down the Christmas tree for another year.

This year’s plan is close to the same as last year’s for writing:

• Mondays, Tuesdays, Thursdays and Fridays will be for novel-making. Right now, that’s working on Triad Soul (the second Triad book). Once the edits come back for Triad Blood, that’ll take precedence until I’m done. I’m aiming for 10k months this year, which is nothing, and I’d like to beat that out of the water, but it’s a rise from last year.
• Wednesdays and any weekend writing (not mandatory) are for other projects, be they open calls for submission or something for my own amusement.
• I’m going to continue what Jeffrey Ricker suggested last year and submit something (at least) once a month.
• At some point this year (Wednesdays, weekends), I will revisit the novellas I wrote during NaNoWriMo and try to get the Village series launched. I want three of them complete before I start, and I’ve got pretty much two of them. One more, and then it’s time to get serious about being a series guy.

So what about Writing Wednesdays themselves? More of the same—I’ll use them to hold myself publicly accountable for my progress on writing fronts, as well as to call out any open calls for submission I come across. I hope they’re helpful to those of you looking to submit tales.

The Novel(s)

Triad Blood is in the editing pipeline. I’ll be getting the red-stained version of the manuscript back from the editor this month sometime, and then I dive in and marvel once again at how an editor makes a book so much better. Seriously, you guys, it’s incredible what happens when an editor takes your stuff and shows you all your foibles.

Triad Soul was pitched. I’ve got the outline roughed out, and I’m using Scrivener this time. So far, so good. I’ve hit 1,900 words so far (on target). It’s actually quite fun to be back in the heads of the three guys for the first time since I sent the manuscript for Triad Blood off a couple of months ago. This is, I hope, a good sign.

The Short Stuff

As I mentioned, I want to keep sending things in every month. So far this month, nothing. But I’ve had my fella home (he took vacation for the week after Christmas) and so I’m not too worried about it. And it’s been nice to just sit and let ideas percolate, which they have in abundance. Hello plot bunnies.

---

Open Calls I Know About (and find tempting)…

• Kagema’s Sons – Stories of hustlers, rent boys, role-players or other love (or sex) for hire, Ink Stained Succubus, Deadline: January 15th, 2016.
• Friends of Hyakinthos – Fantastical gay male-themed stories set during the time of Ancient Greece or involving Hellenism in later cultures, deadline January 30th, 2016.
• Theory of Love – Pocket protectors and sexy nerds? Sci-Fi (and/or geeky) Romance, Torquere Press, Deadline: February 15th, 2016.
• Less Than Dead – Tales of zombies, be they the enemy, the ally, or something else entirely, Less than Three Press, Deadline: February 28th, 2016.
• Gents: Steamy Tales from the Age of Steam – Gay male erotica set during the Victorian/Edwardian era, Deadline: May 1st, 2016.
• Novella Call – The Book Smugglers, Deadline: May 30th, 2016.

Don’t forget to check the Lambda Literary site for more calls, as well as the Queer Sci-Fi calls for submission page. I think those four above were all originally brought to my attention through either of those two sites, so…