MatthewWuertz

I’m happy to announce that I sold another fantasy short story to MindFlights.  "The Magicera's Confession" will be available online once it’s published.

I’m still working on the first draft of the new fantasy tale, and it continues to shape itself into something over 5K (though I’m not that far into it yet).  I’m trying to add much more fantastic elements into this story than previous tales in this particular series.  I also sat down earlier today and typed out an opening for a new fantasy short story so that I’d have it down.  It seems my fiction writing pendulum has swung heavily towards the fantasy side at the moment.

I’ve got seven stories that I consider “live” at the moment (seeking magazines to call home), and I think that’s a personal record.  Part of the reason for this is the varying turnaround time with markets along with the fact that I’m focusing only on short stories rather than trying to write short stories and novels.  After a very insightful discussion with my wife recently, I’ve gained a great clarity with writing short stories, and I’ve felt a lot of peace (which I never had when I was also working on novels).

My current project is another fantasy tale, a final story for one of my protagonists that will also bring closure to his series.  I have a sense that this could be over 5K when complete, but it will depend on my mood and the overall pacing I choose to set.  It will be a bit of a sad farewell, but perhaps he’ll return in a lesser role in another story someday.

I need to do a couple of quick fixes to the fantasy short story, and then it’ll be in submission somewhere.  I’m sticking with fantasy editing for now, working over an older story that’s currently over 6,000 words long.  I’m not sure what the next original project might be.  There are random ideas in my head, but I haven’t spun them into anything constructive yet.

The time travel story needs something more.  I’m not sure what to do with it just yet, so I’m pushing it aside for a while until I have a chance to think through things.  I’m still cleaning the fantasy story, but I think I’m close to finishing it.  After that, I’m going to clean up an older fantasy story that’s been hanging in limbo for too many months.

The past week and weekend gave me ample opportunity to work on my latest fantasy and science-fiction short stories.  The time travel story is at a place where I need to read it aloud and hopefully bounce it off someone for some feedback.  The fantasy story went through the big sweeping changes edit, so there’s still a lot of cleanup work left to do.  I think that by the end of March (if not sooner), both stories will be in submission queues somewhere.  Then I must consider my next project…

I started editing my time travel story last night.  I spent more time checking terminology than correcting the story itself.  Perhaps this story will kindle an interest in writing historical fiction, something I’ve only attempted once before.  I enjoy history, so I wouldn’t be surprised if I meddle in the genre at some point.

I completed a rough draft of my fantasy short story. I don’t think I have any humor in it at all, and it is quite dark in places. Dark, for me, does not mean that it fringes on horror. In my works, dark fantasy means that the protagonist is experiencing something quite unpleasant without ending up happily ever after. In this story, I think the protagonist ends up in a somewhat worse state of mind.
 

I'm continuing to work on a rough draft of my latest fantasy tale.  I think it's going well for the most part.  Progress is progress.

I’ve been pretty behind with writing projects for the past month, but as life is becoming more organized and we continue to adjust to a new person living with us, things will get better.  Today I submitted three short stories that have been waiting to go back out to fresh markets for several weeks.  Usually I can redirect a story back out within the same day of receiving a rejection, but I couldn’t keep up in December.  Time to get life (not just writing life) back on track.  Huzzah to 2009!

I’m writing sporadically due to a shortage of time. Apparently there are now fewer hours in the day, or so it would seem. When I do find available windows, I’m working on the new fantasy short story. This story is rooted in the lore of my standard fantasy world and may include a reference to Klevtrìth (the protagonist from the series of fantasy stories published in The Sword Review). It will likely be quite dark at points, at least in relation to my other works, but I hope readers find it engaging.

I’ve put the recently completed rough draft of the time travel story aside so that it can age like a fine wine.  Actually, I’m just hoping to distance myself from it long enough that I can edit objectively.  In the meantime, I began a new fantasy short story with one of my favorite protagonists.  He hasn’t seen the light of print yet, so he’s still unknown to the general public, but he’s very near to my heart because I expose a lot of my weaknesses through his character.  I'm looking forward to exploring him some more.

I’m excited about selling a science-fiction story to Aoife’s Kiss.  This is the first story I’ve sold that wasn’t fantasy, and it’s nice to have a sense of validation for writing in a different genre.  The story is titled “fc01a9” and will be published in September, 2009.  This was not the latest science-fiction story I finished; in fact, the two are completely unrelated.

I finished a rough draft of the time travel story.  It is the very definition of rough.  Some of the dialog is repetitive, I left dates as XX because I haven’t decided on them yet, and I a few of the details are sketchy.  Still, it’s progress.  One draft is complete.

The other science-fiction story is already touring the desks of magazine editors (or wherever slush is collected).  That raises my current number of “active” stories to five.

I’m working on a new scene with the rewrite.  Once I’m finished with it, I need to go over the entire piece again to smooth out all of the recent changes.  I’m enjoying the work, but this has got to be the most arduous writing I’ve done for a short story.  I hope it pays off.

I received some very helpful feedback on the science-fiction story from an author with much more experience than me.  I’m in the process of reworking the story in light of his comments in a way that makes sense to me.  It was good to get a handle on my current weaknesses as a writer, or at least the ones that stand out the most.  I don’t have a time estimate for the rewrites; a lot will depend on my availability in the coming weeks.

I’m awaiting feedback on my science-fiction story, so in the meantime, I began a new tale.  I stuck with science-fiction again (two in a row is a record), taking what I hope is a bit of a new angle on time travel.  Can there ever be too many time travel stories in the world?  If so, I hope there’s still room for one more.

I’m several drafts into the science-fiction story, to the point of thinking through the nuances of it.  It’s currently a little over 3K, but I’ll take that.  I found myself rethinking much of this story over the past few weeks, and the current version doesn’t look much like the original.  I like it better as it is now.  When this is finished, it’ll be time to move on to the next project, perhaps another science-fiction tale that I’ve been imagining for a while now.

I found a few days to write this week, and I’m working on the last scene of the science fiction story. I rewrote the first part of the story because it needed to go in a better direction, but this is essentially still a rough draft. I’ve already thought of quite a few big things I need to change during the rewrite, but I’m trying to keep my rough drafts as rough as possible, something that I find very difficult to do. I have to keep reminding myself that this isn’t the time to think through the structure of a single sentence, thinking about the right verb to use. I think this story will have a finishing length somewhere shy of 3K, and I think that’s about as long as I want this one to be.

I've been out of town for a few days, so I haven't had any time to write, but the ideas around the latest science fiction story are swirling in my mind.  I think that at the point I'm able to sit down and type, it should come out pretty quickly.  I'll try to keep it rough on the first draft so that I don't forget anything.