So as a write my short author bio for Penumbra (and hopefully more publications to come) I’m having trouble deciding whether or not to mention I’m expecting my first child. And if so, how. I’m something of an open person – something I try to curb on the internets so as not to give away EVERYTHING – so I find the fun quirky bits in bios to be quite endearing. I’ve been really hemming and hawwing over this, though.
So what do you include in your bios? Or what do you like SEEING in author bios?
I know everyone has different opinions on what to include in their bios, and whether or not to make them amusing, so if you disagree with the idea of including discussion about my pregnant state, you are welcome to say so. I’m cool with seeing where everyone lands on little issues like this.
So I’ve already gleefully announced this via Facebook and Twitter, but I made my first professional sale last Thursday night!
Penumbra Magazine bought my flash story, “The Business is Dying” for their Zombie Apocalypse issue (coming out next month), and I couldn’t be more thrilled. From the emails with Celina the head editor and the speediness with which they sent my contract (I hear they pay promptly as well), I can tell that this is a great publishing family to be a part of. I’d love to work with them again – so it looks like I need to get cracking on some more short stories.
“The Business is Dying” is a zombie story, of all things. While I totally love my story and had one of those “I think i can sell this” feelings about it immediately after writing it, it’s funny that my first sale ever, let alone at professional rates, was a cliche that has been saturating the market for years now, including Penumbra. Apparently there were over 600 submissions for this particular issue. THAT was a fun tidbit from the acceptance email that made my inner kitty purr.
One last note on my sale is that, after a few beta readers took a look at this story, I rewrote the beginning and made a few changes in the middle and end to better reflect the changes at the beginning, but I still prefer the original beginning, info dump and all. I’m not going to question my decision to change the stuff that I found so amusing, though, because clearly making those changes didn’t hurt me at all – that what Celina read and that’s what she bought. There’s no guarantee that she or anyone else would have found my intro as humorous as I did, and I definitely think the opening as it will be published develops the setting and characters more. So there’s that.
Selling this story at the beginning of the year like this is clearly a sign that I need to make 2013 a stellar year. I plan to keep up the momentum by writing at least 6 new short stories, continuing to submit my short stories as usual, finishing my middle grade fantasy novel and taking it through at least one round of edits, and – oh yes – giving birth.
Even though it’s the beginning of December, I’m already taking a look back at my resolutions from the beginning of the year. I accomplished a significant number of them – among the list, I lost ~7 pounds past my goal weight (don’t hate!), I wrote more short stories than I’d planned, and I’ve spent more meaningful time with my husband. The last one is the most important – this has really been the best year together – my husband’s awesome!
I fell short on other resolutions, of course, including finishing two novels this year. Erm. But I’m forging ahead.
I may be getting ahead of myself, but here are my three works-in-progress, all of which I plan complete in the upcoming year:
Why am I announcing here first, and so far down on the page? (though I admit I’ve told quite a few people in person already.) Because I think it’ll be awesome (or possibly depressing) to see who’s actually reading my new blog.
I’m stopping here for a minute ask that you hold off congratulating me on Facebook or Twitter or wherever else until I say something this weekend. Why? Again, because I want to see who my REAL friends are. Just kidding. Maybe.
Anyway, just have fun sharing my semi-secret work-in-progress with me here for the next few days. I’m really excited to be pregnant, but I’m also pretty apprehensive about how I’ll manage writing time and mommy time over the next couple of years (and beyond – I’m a big family kind of girl). I have a lot of questions/concerns that I’ll be voicing over the upcoming months, and hopefully some of you can help me find solutions, or at the very least possibilities.
So I’m actually quite behind on updating how things are on the writing front. I usually don’t have THAT much to update, so… this is nice.
Okay. So. I have now made 52 submissions to various short story markets since August 31 of last year, and all but three of those were made in 2012. I’m quite pleased with this, as I means I’ve been active about sending my stories out, and that I’ll definitely have made 50 within 2012 alone. I am doubly impressed with myself, as I started out 2012 with only 2 stories, and am finishing with 10, plus a partially completed novel.
The next bit of good news is that I was named a semi-finalist in the 3rd quarter of the Writers of the Future contest! This news came around the same time that I won 2nd place in the Story Star Publishing contest, so that was a pretty good week. I received my critique from David Farland, the coordinating judge for the contest, who mentioned that my story almost made finalist, except that he didn’t like the ending.
… drat.
But! still.
So with all that news to distract me this month, I’ve been editing two of my short stories to get them where I think they’ll have a better chance of selling than they did in their previous incarnation, plus I’m slowly pushing forward with my children’s novel. My goal is to finish THAT project by the end of the year.
We’ll see.
Anyway, that’s it for now. Here’s hoping I can keep filling this sweet little blog up with happy bits of news to chew on during the times that nothing seems to be happening with my career.
I’m published!
Check out my first published short story, Birthing Fire. It won 2nd place in the Story Star Publishing short story contest earlier this month. (I’ve been a little slower to update the blog than I planned, for various reasons that I’ll go into in a couple posts from now.)
This was a nice piece of good news for the year, as it means that I was published within the first year of buckling down and submitting. Woot!
You can also read the interview they did with me here.
Welcome to my blog! This is where I’ll chat about writing, publishing, reading, and other things that I find interesting and necessary to life, such as dance, Pilates, cats, and baking.
Happy reading!
Dantzel Cherry 