I’m Doing Stuff, Lori. Things.

*taps mic* Hello, is this thing on?

Okay, good. Now that we’ve gotten the awkward “I haven’t blogged in a long time so allow me to defuse this with humor” joke out of the way, I can get to telling you about what’s been happening over the last *checks date* five months. Ouch. I’m also going to let you know about some exciting things that are coming down the pipeline. If you’re not interested in past stuff, feel free to skip ahead. I won’t be offended.

FLASHBACK (not really)

For starters, I’m on submission and have been filling the time waiting by writing a lot, working on this WIP or that one. I’d talk about them, but I get kind of superstitious with my first drafts. I can, however, tell you the genres! Adult Contemporary Fantasy, YA Sci-fi, and Adult Historical Fantasy. Yep. I’m one of those dastardly genre-hoppers. Occasionally, I also dabble in poetry, and am currently looking for places to publish some of it. Fingers crossed!

When I graduated, I worried I’d lose my motivation and/or discipline to write every day, but the reverse has been true. I still want to write all the time. The only difference is now I can actually do that! It’s pretty great, not gonna lie.

Apart from the writing, I’ve also been reading. If you’re looking for recommendations (and don’t mind some fiction with adult themes), check out Boy, Snow, Bird by Helen Oyeyemi, Dark Places by Gillian Flynn, and Chopin’s Funeral by Benita Eisler. The last one is nonfiction, and may only be interesting to those who care about Chopin to begin with but THAT’S ME I CARE ABOUT CHOPIN *ahem* so I’m recommending it anyway.

In other news, I’ve revived my love of Chopin, but no I don’t really want to talk about it. Just kidding. I’d love to talk about it. I’ll talk your ear off about that moody composer if you let me.

Let’s see… what else… oh!

I have had another poem published! You can find “On the Reservation” in the 2015 edition of Calaveras Literary Journal. It’s about my great-great-great(?)-grandmother, who was part Cherokee, and lost her leg due to a snake bite. Sadly, this is a limited print, and you can only pick up copies from Sacramento State, but if you’re interested and in the area, there you go!

I was also asked to give my thoughts about story designing principles over on Tracie Martin’s blog. You can find that post HERE, and check out Tracie Martin’s other posts about story structure while you’re at it!

Lastly, I have been working as a judge for the 2015 NYC Midnight Short Story Challenge. It’s been a blast getting to read so many different stories and offering suggestions for improvement. I have the utmost respect for writers willing to put themselves and their stories out there! Keep on keeping on!

UPCOMING!

For those who haven’t heard, I will be an Adult mentor for Pitch Wars this year! Pitch Wars was a wonderful experience for me last year, motivating the edits that ultimately got me an agent, and putting me into contact with loads of other amazing, encouraging writers. If you have a completed manuscript, I highly recommend entering! There’s no entry fee, you get the chance to work with industry professionals to polish your MS, and at the end, there’s an agent round where agents come and make requests! What’s not to love about all that?

On the business front, I will soon be offering editorial services for adult and YA fiction! All the information will be provided on the page in question, and it should be up sometime next week (if not before then).

And that’s about it!

So, what have you all been up to? Exciting things, I hope! Let me know in the comments!