A Super Long Shot

I am behind.

I suppose as a writer whose full time job is not being a writer, that happens sometimes. The reason I'm worried about it is because I'm behind on an assignment for the Confabulator Cafe. Other people are counting on me there, so it's not my own success that's on the line.

But I have no plans tonight, so I will buckle down and get it finished.

It's a story for flash fiction week next week, and the reason it's late, aside from the fact that I just haven't worked on it, is because I really like it. It's like, one of my favorite things I've started writing all year, and it has so much potential to be awesome, that I'm thinking about it too much. I need to just drink a glass of wine, let go, and finish writing it. There are major changes I'd like to make some day, but I can clean it up and edit it for submission later on down the line.

I need to finish what I started first.

In other news, I took a huge gamble today. Well, truly it wasn't a gamble at all, because I don't have anything to lose, really. I submitted a story that I wrote almost ten years ago and have spent at least once a year every year in that amount of time polishing it. It has been sitting there on my hard-drive all that time, wanting to be told, and I had resigned it to something I might someday self publish.

Instead, I decided to clean it up one more time - polish it within an inch of its life - and submit it to Tor.com.

See? Insane crazy long shot. They receive hundreds upon hundreds (maybe even thousands) of submissions a year, and I'm not confident this story is good enough to be part of the Tor catalog, even if it's only an online short story version of Tor. It's still freaking Tor.

Tor. One of the big names in sci-fi and fantasy.

I decided, though, that it was better in their hands than doing nothing on my computer. The only drawback is that now I have to wait around eight months or more to receive the likely rejection.

That's ok, though. I have lots of other projects to keep me occupied while I wait.

Wish me luck. Check back in about a year to see whatever came of it!

http://www.tor.com/

Promo Day - My Wine Education and Page-Turning Tips

It's Tuesday, which means it's Promo Day! This is where I plug the two other blogs I hang out on every week.

At the Cafe this week, the Confabulators are talking about how we keep readers turning the page. It's our jobs as writers to write compelling stories so readers stay engaged, and we all have different suggestions on how to do that. My suggestion? Just Write Awesomely.

Over at Red Wine Reminiscence, I talk about the night I received my red wine education from my sister's roommate. There's a lot to learn about wine - I'm still learning - and she gave me a place to start. It's too bad that the Senda 66 wasn't a very delicious start. But at least I ended up with a pretty bottle from it.

Thanks for stopping by. Enjoy the posts, and see you Friday!

I'm All Sorts of Official Now

I've been toying with the idea of creating an author/writer page on Facebook for awhile. It seemed silly, though, since I didn't exactly have any publishing credits, and short of plugging the Confabulator Cafe and this website, I didn't have much to post about.

Now, my very first published work will be available for purchase at the end of this month (I'll share the details as soon as I have them). Also, at the rate I am submitting stories, hopefully I'll have another credit or two to add to that soon. So I thought to myself, "self, you deserve an author page, now that you've gotten a paying writing gig."

And so my official FB author page was born this week: Sara E. Lundberg.

I am up to 10 whole likes already. Woohoo!

I still need to take some time to figure out how to promote it and link it so people can find me easily, and I need to work on adding content (it's a bit naked right now), but it's a start. Oh, and eventually need to make new business cards with the FB page address. Argh! I still have over 200 from my last batch. I don't give too many out.

This whole self-promotion thing is a strange beast. It feels weird for me to do. It's against my nature, really, to brag about myself and my accomplishments. I'm not exactly modest - I'm a writer, after all, which in and of itself begs for attention - but my self confidence level isn't quite high enough to put myself out there in these ways. I have to push myself to do it, and always wonder if I'm going too far.

At any rate, that's my big news this week.

Well, actually my big big news this week was receiving payment through Paypal for my story! It was a small, token amount (I can't even buy a gallon of gas with it) but I am ridiculously excited that I got my first "paycheck" for writing. Teehee. I'm officially a paid writer.

This is really happening.