In Other Words

The Perfect Program

noreply@blogger.com (Filamena) — Tue, 30 Sep 2008 03:53:00 +0000

So, I’ve geared up to destroy the last project I have on my plate (at this point) for White Wolf. I have my plan of attack and my detailed outline ready. (Detailed is a lie. Anal is the word I’m looking for.)

So in my planning and outlining stages I do all kinds of other silly things that aren’t necessary. I have spread sheets for shaming myself into beating yesterday’s word count. I have web pages I might reference tabbed together on my browser, I even shuffle my PDFs around in a folder so I can find them if I think they’re relevant. They rarely are. And that’s just on the computer. I have two white boards, three colors of dry erase markers and sometimes, colored pens for writing on my hands. –Well, that last part is more with my creative writing than this freelancing stuff.

And yet, and YET I still feel like I don’t have enough prepared or organized. I want programs. I want computer programs that will do everything for me. I want them to organize my time, congratulate my successes and berate me for my failures. I want programs that do my dishes, but of course, that isn’t going to happen. I think this endless search for the perfect free writing program is a distraction I’ve created for myself so I have something to procrastinate about while feeling like I’m working. If it does exist, it’ll cost money, and I don’t make any money yet, so that’s out.

I’m sure if I found something that could track multiple projects (There must be colors! And visuals! And motivational speeches, well, not that, maybe.) keep track of due dates and contracts plus payments… Well hell, I’d probably come up with something new I wanted even if I did find it. Ah well, the search goes on.

The important thing is the word count, and that goes. I’m just praying for the program that will organize everything so perfectly that I’ll suddenly double my production while getting all Donna Reed on my house. Ha, right? Ha.

Yes, I'm the Lady With the Words on my Chest

noreply@blogger.com (Filamena) — Mon, 18 Aug 2008 18:38:00 +0000

So GenCon, right?

It was big, incase you hadn’t picked that up yet, it was super duper big and I really really wasn’t prepared for just how big. (This would contribute to later acts of what might appear to have been screaming-fan-girl-it is I’ll address later.) I was there for the table top gaming, of course, and networking, but I figure I should address the general experience first, and maybe talk about the other stuff later.

First, let me get this out of the way. Yes. I have a tattoo on my chest. Yes, it has a naughty word in it. Yes, you can read it. Honestly, I have to wonder what people thought I put it there for if not for people to read. Incase you haven’t seen it or read it,

And yes, you can ask me about it. If I’m not on fire or clearly busy, why wouldn’t I want to tell you why the word WHORE is in the middle of my chest. (Other than how cool PTA meetings are going to be.)

That said. I cannot believe how many nerds there are. Like, I knew there were a lot of us intellectually, (how many World of Warcraft players are there?) But I guess I suspected on some level that most of the internet was three guys complaining about everything.

How wrong I was.

I really loved seeing the scope and variety that creativity manifests itself. No matter how ridiculous the costumes, no matter how potbellied the Princess Leila’s (thanks Chuck) no matter how absurd the debates of ‘who would win in a fight’ (Hint: The answer is always Bruce Campbell.) What it truly expresses is a love and passion for the creative force. A real and legitimate effort to socialize in ways that work for people who are very different from the norm. Separate from it and not so overwhelmed by it, I love it and I’m glad I can see that now.

Things I truly loved:
The White Wolf people were SUPER friendly and kind despite my obvious shell shock. I have a lot of thank you Emails to write. (Matt, Jess, Kelly, Joe, Ethan, Marty, a Viking, Chuck, Bethany, John, Eddy, other people who’s names I got and forgot because its all a blurr, THANK YOU.)

The guys who did ‘The Gamers’ movie at a booth looking like famous movie stars. (No kidding, some of those dudes are HOT.)

Tshirts that said insane things like ‘Nerd Famous.’

Half naked people with no shame. Providence bless the unashamed.

My husband.

A dude at the Palladium Booth wearing a Coalition dress uniform. I was trying to be all professional and slip my card and my CV to Kevin Sembiada and the other guys there, but instead my heart was pounding and I got all squishy and gushy. I hope I left an impression of passion and not idiocy. I’ll find out, I’m sure. (My brother will never stop making fun of me for that, I’m sure.)

The games! But more on that next time!

Behold The Mini-Psudo-Disscussion Panel

noreply@blogger.com (Filamena) — Fri, 02 May 2008 15:10:00 +0000

I just got a nice chunk of submissions to various and sundry contests and anthologies. With a second to breath, I thought I'd share with you a heck of a conversation I had.

I love the internet and its potential for spontaneous discussion and random pseudo-interviews. Here's the set up. Earlier in the day I had this conversation I had read THIS agents blog. A quote in it stuck with me.

"The type of writing a query requires is so far removed from the kind of writing a fiction writer does that, to me, it’s the equivalent of a dancer going to audition for the role of The Sugar Plum Fairy, and being made to stand perfectly still and DESCRIBE her movements, rather than simply being allowed to dance. Unless that dancer, then, is also a singer and has a way with words, that dancer may the most incredible Sugar Plum Fairy that troop will ever see, but the dance company will never know this." - Sandra Kring

So, I put it up in my G-Chat message. (That's THIS thing if you don't know.)

A few minutes after I posted the thought for all the internet to read I got a message from my friend The Man From Free Planet X.

Jared said to me: "Do you believe that? The ballerina metaphor, I mean?"

A answered: "I know queries make me want to cry." and then "The idea of using 200 words to prove to a stranger that my 89,000 words are good enough is jarring."

"Look at it this way," Jared said. "In a bookstore, you have only, what? A 7 word sentence to do the same thing? 200 words is a luxury."

I didn't find that much comfort, and told Jared that. He laid it back out for me like this: "It's like brick-laying. As a bricklayer, you're going to have to learn how to smooth out the mortar after to you place the bricks. Does this, matter, really? Does this make the wall any less stable? Or more? Not really. But it's a skill you need to have in order to get more people to hire you bricklay."

A little bit later in internet time, he came back with: "Which is why I feel like the ballerina metaphor misses the point It might be better if, before the ballerina auditioned, the director said "Wait. Let's see if you fit in the costume first."

That resonated a great deal and I'm really rather grateful for his opinion on the matter. Thanks Jared.

(Oh, and about five minutes later, Jared said, "That said query letters are horrible.")

At the Risk of Sounding Like a Screaming Girl.....

noreply@blogger.com (Filamena) — Wed, 02 Apr 2008 03:56:00 +0000

ZOMG!

I have been published in my first print mag!

You can pick up your copy over at Mouth Full of Bullets.

Thank you, Mr. Borg for including my Jack Doe short story "The Baked Bank Job."

It's Not Real Celebrity, but it Will Keep You Warm at Night

noreply@blogger.com (Filamena) — Tue, 25 Mar 2008 03:04:00 +0000

My friend Jared, the Man from Planet X was kind enough to ask me to sit down with him and talk about writing, the interwebs, and all the marketing I should do but don't do yet.

You can listen to that here.

In doing so he reminded me what a small world the internet is after a fashion and how we're all working and should all work to pay it forward. With that in mind, I'm off to fix up the links page on my website to make sure all the people who touch me get touched back. (In a very clean and wholesome PG kind of way, of course.)

TTYL!

How Pulpwood Can Teach You to Write

noreply@blogger.com (Filamena) — Tue, 04 Mar 2008 03:24:00 +0000

If you know me in person, you've heard me say before that I enjoy the maxim by Raymond Chandler.

“When in doubt, have a man come through the door with a gun in his hand.”

You laugh, I laugh, but the truth is, it makes a hell of a lot of sense. At it's most basic and direct translation, Chandler just means that in the rough and tumble world of hard-boiled detecting, there's always one more gun-totting goon more than willing to speed your plot along with a .44 and a foreboding entrance.

Did Chandler intend any deeper wisdom? Any wider concept in that simple statement?

Hell if I know, and yet, I still see the wider reason there. Let's look at a few examples of that concept that popped into my head at three in the morning last night when I should have been sleeping.

So let's say you're writing a science fiction, maybe some kind of great big beautiful space opera full of characters -way- cooler than Lucas.*

Let's say you've just described (in thirty pages no less) what the intake of the engine looks like and how it is the ship is powered for interplanetary travel. Also, there's a three page essay on toilets in space.

Even your characters seem a little bored waiting around for something to happen.

Try having an enemy space pirate ship show up and threaten to “blow them out of the sky!”

Why? --because pirates are cool-- I mean, because action is what makes pages turn. Dry data and technical speculation is really one of the cool parts about hard science fiction on a grand scale, however, if you really want to get the reader to the part of the story where you discuss the ships air recycling system, you might consider throwing in --pirates-- action in order to get them jazzed about reading on.

Don't do Scifi? No problem.

Let's say that you write Fantasy. More than that, you're writing the next great Epic Fantasy Novel. Tolkeen can eat your shorts by the time you churn out all 300 thousand words of this baby.

The first half of the book is written, and you've described the millennia of historically important points. You've written three complete languages-- including two dialects of your gnomish language because your beer gnomes speak with a drunken slur. You've established the political climate and described in long flowery detail how each of the worlds nations could at any point fall into war with each other.

So what's next? Well, why don't you take that farm boy who doesn't know he's 'the one' who will fulfill some ancient prophecy and have him shot full of crossbow bolts on his way home from the market. I'm not saying you -have- to kill him, but I'm saying nearly killing him might sure as heck change the scope of your story and give your readers something to sit up and take notice of. A 'the one' full of bolt holes who can't fulfill his destiny and has to pass it along to the fat pig farmer next door would certainly put a lot of epic fantasy on its ear.

Another example.

Let's say you're writing paranormal romance. (Why not, there's a market for it.) So let's say you've just had three pages of hawt smexy vampire on vampire hunter luvin and now that you feel the need to shower off and maybe pop into a confessional, something has to happen....

Chandler know! Have one of the other vampire hunters burst through the door with a flame thrower in his hand and turn Lestat into so much dust buster fodder.

Why? Besides the fact that it's funny? It's unexpected. In the romance industry, you here over and over again people berate the genre for being formulaic and repetitive. So do something WAY outside the box, like lead your readers on with hawt vampire luvins only to destroy your vampire and -really- put your heroin into a new and exciting world of revenge and luvin.

Okay, right, genre writing is for the illiterate and people who drool on themselves?**

No problem, Chandler's line works even in the literal literary world. Take a piece of good old fashioned contemporary literature.

Let's say your angsty but thoughtful hero is at work (he works at a coffee shop, of course, while he's trying to get his writing off of the ground.) Let's say for this example that you've spent the last ten pages with him thinking about his quirky family, bad childhood, and disastrous break up. From here, you could have him decide that the world is a lie and that ultimately all things fall into nothing....

Or you could have someone walk into the cafe with a gun, rob the place, and shoot a co-ed while your hero is all but powerless to stop it.

Why? Because that's real life. It makes things happen, and it's a real honest to God tragedy that will really give your hero something to wax eloquent about for days at a time!

Action is good, it stretches all your thinking muscles and it gets the pages turning. When things happen in a book, things happen, and that's what makes a story a story and not just, say, a three hundred page blog entry.

*Not a comment on my opinion about Lucas, just an example.

**Not my opinion, forgive the hyperbole.

Networking?

noreply@blogger.com (Filamena) — Fri, 29 Feb 2008 05:47:00 +0000

So the idea is that as writers it's recommended that we branch out and make as many associates and allies in the field as possible. I have images of the Shellys sitting down to dinner and laudinum with Byron and his doctor friend.

I'd think in this universe of intertubes the potential of being in contact with a world of writers is endless. I say I 'think' because I haven't actually gotten that far yet. As a matter of fact, the only writers I talk with regularly are my local friends, most of whom I've known since high school with only barely more (or considerably less) experince in the field than I have.

So, thinking about it, it seems like there's two ways to go about it. There's all of these social networking sites. (Seriously, hundreds, horrifying staggering numbers of them.) What's cool, some of them seem to be designed for writers to do their thang not unlike MySpace was orginally for bands to get their music heard.

The problem I'm having with that in particular is I have NO idea how to make contacts. I imagine I have to post all over the place and stroke a lot of egos to get similar affection.

Or... I could spend that time writing. Ha.

A friend of my husband's in the music industry is of the opinion that the sorts of fans and contacts you make at places like MySpace are rabid fans who will never buy anything you produce. I don't know how true that is, but it's a bummer to think about and makes me very hesitant to invest a lot of time into it.

There's blogging and websites and such, but as you can see, that hasn't gotten off the ground much for me. I've a site and this blog but I haven't been able to see any clear evidence of it making me any money or building me a fan base. I may be counting chickens before they've hatched however, and I can admit that to myself.

There's also just personal contact with authors you like. Duh. I have sitting in my email box right now a congratulatory email from an author I really like. Have I written him back yet? No. Why? I'm shy on a lot of levels and don't want to appear to be kissing his butt or wasting his time. Yeah, I know that's dumb and I'm going to correct it immediately. (Or like, later tonight. Or tomorrow... hehe.)

I imagine a resourceful and brave little writer could reach on out into the intertubes and send out emails to all their favorite authors. Most of the big names will probably hit me back with a form letter, but there's always the possibility that rising stars might be more interested in what ever I can offer in exchange for what ever they can. It's worth a shot, anyway.

So I'll see how that goes.

TTYL

Update 2/06/08

noreply@blogger.com (Filamena) — Wed, 06 Feb 2008 09:33:00 +0000

I'm beat.

No big surprise. It's after four in the morning. Just thought I'd update quickly to say that I'm still slated to be in the Spring issue of Mouthful of Bullets! Also, there will be a picture!

I've got another acceptance in the pipeline, but I want to wait to announce it until I've heard back from the editor in a few weeks. They're full up until their Winter issue, but I'm slated to show up there!

I've still got five or so stories floating out in circulation and a whole slue of 'to do' stories on my white board. (I'll mention more on that later.)

To date, since December 1st of last year, I've submitted over 17 thousand words to magazines and have a 42% acceptance rate. I'm trying to enjoy that while it lasts, which I suspect, won't be long.

TTYL

I'm ready for my close up....

noreply@blogger.com (Filamena) — Thu, 10 Jan 2008 07:34:00 +0000

...Okay, so I'm not really famous yet, but my short story "Mars Ain't No Place for Ladies" did get blogged about here.

That's a step in the right direction, I imagine.

Plus, the 'zine that it was published on was nominated for the Predators and Editors Reader's Choice Award for 2007, from the editor. If haven't yet voted with P&E for your favorite 'Zine, you should go vote for Spacewesterns.com. Seriously. Nathan Lilly is a good guy and the 'zine is something fun!

"Mars Ain't No Place for Ladies" is Live!

noreply@blogger.com (Filamena) — Tue, 25 Dec 2007 02:02:00 +0000

Go check out Space Westerns if you wanted to catch my latest short story! I've been told it's tight and well crafted. Even if you don't like sci fi, check it out anyway, I think that you'll enjoy it.

Took me long enough

noreply@blogger.com (Filamena) — Mon, 24 Dec 2007 18:37:00 +0000

For Immediate Release

Filamena Young

writer@filamena.com

www.filamena.com

Modern Hardboiled Novel with a Paranormal Twist

Philadelphia, PA - January, 1st 2008 - In the proud tradition of the gritty, pulp, rough and raw detective novels of yesterday, Filamena Young makes available to the public \"Twice Dead Men: A Jack Doe Mystery.\" Only this hardboiled novel has a modern and paranormal twist.

J.R. Blackwell (http://blackwell.livejournal.com), blogger, writer, and photographer says this about the book. \"It’s chocolate in bright, attractive pulp packaging with a sweet and silky center. It’s the kind of chocolate people refer to as “naughty” or use the word “devil” in describing. It’s a noir detective story, with a detective who could have stepped out of Chinatown, sexy dames both naughty and nice, a mystery and action that keeps the pages turning. It’s fun. It’s delicious.\"

For the full review, visit http://blackwell.livejournal.com/165201.html

\"Twice Dead Men: A Jack Doe Mystery\" can be bought through the authors website, a print on demand publication through www.lulu.com .

# # #

Invest in an Idea Bank, the Interest is Priceless!

noreply@blogger.com (Filamena) — Mon, 17 Dec 2007 07:06:00 +0000

I keep an Idea Bank. Actually, I keep two, one for fiction and one for nonfiction.

I've heard a lot of writers worry about an over abundance of ideas, or worse, the fear that they'll run out of ideas before they run out of need. Fancy enough, an Idea Bank solves both of those problems.

All it is, for me, is a document on my computer with a running list of short story ideas. At least once a day, I drop in an idea that I can't work on right now. (I have them all over, written on my hands, on napkins, on a physical notebook in my purse.) This way, I don't have to worry about losing them. They're sitting there ready for me when I'm running low on gas. What do I do when I don't have extra ideas floating around? I look over my list again and force something out. The thing about an idea bank is, the story sparks don't have to be any good. They just have to be there, en mass. The more you have, the more chance of you stumbling upon something really good when you're in need.

Format is an issue, of course. With each entry, I throw up a date to keep myself honest, and I structure the format like this... Character + Event = Change of life.

I heard somewhere that a story starts where the main characters life changes. Something like "Jessica Fletcher picked up the phone and answered her nephews phone call. With her first mystery book to be published, her life would never be the same.)

(I'm watching Murder She Wrote. I feel no shame about that.)

So, I have Jessica, the acceptance of her book, and how it was about to spring her into a series of mysteries all over the globe. One or two sentences will do. More than that and you're taking too much time away from what ever projects you're supposed to be working on. --And you do have those, right now, don't you?--

Thank having been said, go make a deposit!

On Contracts

noreply@blogger.com (Filamena) — Mon, 03 Dec 2007 17:27:00 +0000

So, you know, you think you know everything because you've read an Idiot's Guide to a few things, and you've looked at some websites by writers and editors and agents. Seems like you've got all your ducks in a row and you start submitting your writing.

Then you get something accepted and suddenly you realize you weren't prepared for actually getting published.

Sounds crazy? I know. I was there. I have a short story being accepted by an ezine, and I was all a tizzy with joy and had already spent my gigantic twenty dollar pay out when I realized I had no idea how to handle getting published.

First, there's the anxioty of waiting for date of publication. (I'm a cynic, until I see the thing up, I'm going to assume the 'zine is going to close the day before I'm published, it's happened to me before.)

Then there's contracts. That turned out to be way more terrifying than it needed to be. Worst still, there was no need for it to be terrifying.

Basically, it went something like this. I got my contract in the mail and realized it didn't have a clause in it defining how much I was getting paid. I panicked. I thought it was the end of the world and I was going to lose my first good shot at getting a pub cred on my resume. Obviously that would result in me never getting away with one, my husband leaving me, and my daughter growing a tail and joining the cheer leading squad. (Yes, I overreacted.)

I called my parents in the music publishing world. I talked to friends, acquaintances, even friends siblings trying to determine if I was supposed to have that in the contract or not.

Finally, after a full day of flailing around like a chicken with her head cut off, I actually just, you know, wrote the editor and asked him about it.

He wrote back saying he thought that was standard.

I panicked again. I asked everyone I knew. Should I demand it in writing, or should I skip it and hope for the best? No matter what I did, I imagined my writing career going up in a cloud of smoke. Yep, I'm that naive.

After debating it with my husband for a while, I finally wrote the editor again. I firmly, but politely told him I needed the payment included in the contract.

I chewed my finger nails waiting for a response.

You know what? He said "sure, it's your writing, you get to be picky about the contract."

I about crapped my pants. He went on later to say: "I believe in Writer's Rights."

So what's the moral? Other than 'it's going to be scary, no matter how much you prepare?' Maybe. I also like 'ask for what you want. if you don't get it and can't live with that, take YOUR writing and go somewhere else. It is yours after all.'

Or something like that.

TTYL

Progress Report 11-18-07

noreply@blogger.com (Filamena) — Wed, 28 Nov 2007 20:54:00 +0000

The quick list.

This Silly Contest - Check
These Cowboys- Still waiting for a contract. I imagine it can't take too much longer since the story is supposed to be up at the end of December. Who knows.
Jack - Thanks to a marvilious review from a beautiful contorsonist, I've sold four additional copies! I've very nearly made twenty bucks off this book. Yay!
Unhero - Now that I've got Nano out of the way for the year, I'll let it rest like a pot roast and go back to fixing Unhero up. I've handed off half of it to a young writer I know because I think he can hit me with a very different angle, and I likes it.

I mean, that's not really all the progress I've made. I'll take credit for the fact that ten month old is beauitful and almost walking. She's over here, if you're curious.

Good News!

noreply@blogger.com (Filamena) — Thu, 15 Nov 2007 00:58:00 +0000

So Big Beautiful News!

The Cowboys finally got back to me and have accepted my short story "Mars' Ain't No Place for Ladies." Due to be up on or around December 23rd.

That's my first official publication, I'm even getting a contract in the mail. I am so amped!

TTYL

Progress Report 11/12/07

noreply@blogger.com (Filamena) — Mon, 12 Nov 2007 05:01:00 +0000

So, it's November, and no my Podcast isn't up yet, as you might be able to tell. I'm actually finding out the technical side is trickier than I realized.

(I.E. Technically, I don't know how to decide on music, so I'm waiting on my father and his musical composition degree to help me through it.)

More intrestingly, however, maybe, is that I'm into week two of my NaNoWriMo novel this year. I've heard a lot of crap about it being a terrible thing that besmirches the honor and dedication of 'Real Writerz.' TM.

I personally think it's a matter of what ever gets the words on the page. If that's drugs and alcohol for you, that kind of sucks, but that's your business. For me, it's high pressure deadlines, and I don't know about you, but a deadline like '2k a day for a month or you lose' as kind of high pressure.

I've done it a few times by now, but never as the mother of a screaming infant beautiful baby girl. It's sort of mile stone, in a lot of ways, and completion of this novella while still being Professional Mom is an exciting challenge.

I'm working out the kinks of a crit circle I've had in the back of my mind for a while. Let's see how that all works out. I'd love to know how other people run them.

Also, I'm going to try to update this more often even though I don't really have any readers yet.

TTFN

Progress Report 9-2-2007

noreply@blogger.com (Filamena) — Sun, 02 Sep 2007 16:05:00 +0000

Lots of news to convey, all of which I consider sort of exciting.

First off, and possibly most interesting to you, when I was talking to my father about thoughts on podcasting and the ilk, he grew really into the idea. He's a professional musician with a professional recording studio in his basement. We talked a little bit about microphones and recording software and all that business.

So last weekend, he invited me over. He's picked me up a microphone and all the rest of the hook up to have my own little mini recording studio. Mics, a mixer, the imputes for my laptop, da works, as they say.

What that means is that HOPEFULLY by weeks out, I'll be podcasting like everyone else and their mother.

That in mind, the plan is to do a writing podcast with a touch of focus on how motherhood (parenthood) effects a freelance career. They'll be stuff in there for my friends, for writers, for mothers, and for any mix there in. I should have a promo up soon, I'll admit, I'm having fun and my inner gear-head is being satisfied for now.

In writing news, I'm still waiting to hear back from the gentlemanly editor of SpaceWesterns about my short story "Mars' Ain't No Place for Ladies." He's wants it, and other stories, I'm just waiting to hear back on the money stuff. You should consider popping over there, it's a token market, but money is money and the material is fun to write (for me at least.)

I sent out a story about a dancer and the devil to Susurrus Press for their E-thology "I am This Meat" and look forward to hearing back, good or bad. The deadline is up, or I'd send you over there, however, the site looks like they're going to have plenty of more anthologies and looking for plenty of more material. Again, it's a small pay market, but a pub cred is a pub cred.

I heard back on "Peace in the Valley" from Clarkesworld ezine, and the editor over there, Nick Mamatas pretty much slamned it into the wall and then hit it with a sledge hammer. Honestly, he was right about most of the things he said, and I can't really blame him for being brisk. I appriciate his honesty, frankly, and I consider a lashing about the content to be a big step up from a form letter 'this isn't for us' rejection. In fact, I consider it a mark as growth in my writing.

Maybe more on that later. For now, I've got a podcast to get up and going.

I Hate Endings

noreply@blogger.com (Filamena) — Fri, 10 Aug 2007 17:51:00 +0000

I hate ending stories. Short stories, novels, it doesn't matter. I hate ending stories and I think that's mostly because I -know- my endings are never as strong as my beginnings, and I hate that about my writing.

So I heard something neat about problems with your writing. Find writers who do it better, and then read them until you figure out what you're doing wrong and what they're doing right.

What's your favorite author in terms of endings? Books? Who writes killer awesome super cool endings that are so perfect you read the book again and again for the ending?! At this point, genre and style don't matter. The more varied the better, really.

Progress Report 8/06/2007

noreply@blogger.com (Filamena) — Mon, 06 Aug 2007 16:11:00 +0000

My piece, "Mar's Ain't No Place for Ladies" is in talks with the editor of this site. The editor seems like a great guy, and he seemed to like it, so I'm excited.

I would actually recommend you take a look at the site for some quick fun reads. I've only read a few stories, and they were just that- fun.

David, my husband, told me he'd buy me a laptop when I got my first story published in a paying market. Of course, just because the editor told me he'd publish the story is not the same thing as actually being published, so I guess I shouldn't put my cart before my wagon.

Still... I can already picture me sitting on my lawn with my lap top while Tina plays in the yard and eats bugs.... It's a lovely picture really.

So if you know a good place to get a cheap laptop, let me know!

Progress Report 7/17/07

noreply@blogger.com (Filamena) — Tue, 17 Jul 2007 17:37:00 +0000

Today's Recommendation: Slushpile Musing

I've finished a short Sifi Western I'm probably calling "Mars Ain't No Place for Ladies" and am now trying to decide which market to throw it at first. It isn't my best, but boy if it ain't moody, and for the site I originally wrote it for, mood seemed more important than substance.

The question is should I just send it where it was written for, or elsewhere.

Ultimately, I want to send it off to Escape Pod, I think it'll read well. However, they like already published pieces. Why not get paid twice?

Unhero, my novel, is currently about half through some hard and harsh edits. I tell myself a month, but I lie to myself like an ex boyfriend. We have that kind of relationship, me and I.

A Brief Introduction

noreply@blogger.com (Filamena) — Sat, 07 Jul 2007 15:32:00 +0000

My name is Filamena, or at least, that's the name I write under. I'm 26, married with a six month old, and I write because I have to.

This journal is primarily so that I can maintain a written record of my experiences as a writer and author.

It should get more interesting from here.