David Thurston has... » Writers of the Future

…other things on his mind

David Thurston — Fri, 17 Jul 2009 12:51:29 +0000

Seriously, I should be doing a lot more about the CVS 2.0 stuff than I am, and that really sucks. We have this great mutual support idea where we’re all going to go out, finish up big projects, then start being a visible force at Capclave and Balticon, and what have I done since then? I’ve reopened Conqueror Worm and started doing some editing on it, but haven’t gotten very far, and realized that I need to completely throw away Chapter Two and start over with it. Why? Well first drafts are great when you’re just getting ideas down, but when you go back and start making sure everything is accurate…and you have two historical characters who were both teatotalers sitting down and splitting a bottle of cognac…well, that’s what I like to call a serious “second draft issue”. And since this is the second draft.

I’ve also discovered, through his letters and other non-fiction writing, that a certain character of mine who shall remain nameless was a racist, xenophobic luddite. And another character of mine is a Slavic inventor. Which I’ve also got to take care of this draft. And a certain horrific otherworldly realm of horrors and nightmares that shall remain nameless is presented as, if anything, silly in the first draft. I always knew that was the problem, and was kind of hoping that would be the focuse of my second draft, reworking those sections, but with the need to potentially change the whole interpersonal dynamic between two characters…this is going to be a hell of an edit.

But really, I’ve gotten almost nowhere, and for that I blame the fact that I’m running off to get married in two weeks (my god, is it only two weeks?) and just haven’t had my mind in the game. Hopefully when I get back, I’ll be more focused, and more ready to really tackle CVS 2.0 and the big editing pass on Conqueror Worm.

Oh, finally got my Writers of the Future rejection for Belmeth, a few weeks later than usual and after the submission deadline, but I didn’t have anything else ready to go anyway. What with focusing on Conqueror Worm, my short story career right now will probably be to just cycle Belmeth, Sleep, and Div0 to a few different markets, possibly to include Escape and Pseudopod, which someone got me hooked on (though good timing, since my favorite radio station just got taken away, screw you very much CBS Radio). The same someone that really needs to make a blog post about her vision for CVS 2.0, since she’s one of the ones who started it, dagnabbit.

…faced down rejection.

David Thurston — Tue, 16 Jun 2009 12:48:24 +0000

Got informed yesterday that The Doorman did not make the finalist cut in the Rod Serling competition. My congratualations to those who did, none of whom are likely reading this, so I could probably say some equally nasty things, but I won’t.

No word from Writers of the Future about Queen of Belmeth yet. Which has me rather more optimistic than it probably should. Last two times I entered the WotF contest, I had my rejection firmly in hand by the first week of the judging month, which I think is to encourage people to turn something around and get it in before the next deadline. We’re now past the halfway mark in June, and I still haven’t seen that little SASE in the mail. Which could be a good thing. Or could be them just running a little slower this quarter. Or me mis-addressing my SASE. It could be any number of things other than good news.

But it could be good news. So until I have reason to doubt that, I’ll choose to keep hope alive.

Though I have no idea what I’ll submit this month if that SASE does come back with rejection.

…to clean out some spam

David Thurston — Thu, 23 Apr 2009 14:26:57 +0000

Damnit. Must have been awhile since I’ve updated, as the linkback spammers hit last night. Bastards. So as long as I’m here, how about an overdue update.

Contests: End of March I entered both Writers of the Future and the Rod Serling Screenwriting contests. Writers got Belmeth, Serling got a teleplay adaptation of Doorman that I was much happier with than at any point when it was a short story. Writers has been encouraging lately, as I got a hand-written “Keep Entering!” from the contest head on my last rejection, as well as an email that started “Welcome back!” when they said Belmeth had arrived. So while I’m not doing well enough to be an honorable mention, I’m at least doing well enough to maintain a little name recognition.

Shame it’s blind judging. Oh well.

Arkham: Been working on the new pilot with Blythe, and we’re both liking it better than the original pilot. Lots of monsters and blood and ooze and body parts and screaming. Which I think will bring more people into the show than kidnapping and some stuff that, if I’m to be honest with myself, was largely ripped off from X-Files black oil.

Capsule: Been world-building, and am going to present what I have of it tonight at CVS for comments and to see what kind of questions people have about it.

Hench: New project, don’t know where it’ll go yet.

Conqueror Worm: Just as soon as this draft of Arkham is done. Probably mid-May.

…a plan of action.

David Thurston — Tue, 30 Dec 2008 15:43:13 +0000

I was originally going to call this another resolution, but I realized that’s not really what it is. Resolutions are things that you want to get done in the coming year, and the reason a lot of them fail is that people have goals, but don’t really have a pathway planned out towards achieving those goals. So, for 2009, I’m going to have Writing Days. These are going to be days where writing is my job. Clock in, do at least 6 hours work in some kind of writing, then (and this is the important part) clock out again. These aren’t necessarily days I’ll specifically take off from work, January’s will probably be my employer-given day off on MLK Jr Day.

Now, I can already hear you. But David, you’re saying, don’t you normally work an eight hour day? Part of the goal will be to ramp up. January: 6 hours. Feb: 6.5 hours. By May I’ll be taking an 8 hours writing day. It’s something I’m going to have to get used to, but it’s something I want to get used to.

Follow up to yesterday: submission is safely being whisked off towards Los Angeles.

…a submission printing!

David Thurston — Mon, 29 Dec 2008 17:33:26 +0000

I’m writing this while waiting for an edited version of Sleep to print out. Once it does, it’s going into a nice big envelope along with an SASE for a trip out to Los Angeles to be considered for Writers of the Future. Been so long since I’ve submitted anything that I’m reading the rules three, four, and five times over to make sure I haven’t done some stupid thing to get myself eliminated from competition without a word being read. Especially the rule about the fact that the story must never have been previously published, a rather important distinction for anyone who knows the history of Sleep.

No name on the work except the cover. Check.

Page numbers. Check.

Manuscript format. Check

SASE. Check.

Printing has completed. Now it’s just working up the nerves to head down to the car and get me to the Post Office. After this one heads off, the next project will probably be a big edit of The Dorman, a story that I think has a lot of good potential, but also needs a really strong editing pass.