R.J.K. Lee's Figments Blog: Hit my goal! Fyrecon was Awesome!!! Deadlines from November's end

I hit my goal of 100 rejections in 2020, so yay! A rejection from Apex Magazine was number 100.

Total submissions: 124 (122 to publications of 5-20¢/word; 2 to 1-4¢/word)

Rejections: 102 (63 short, 34 flash, 4 poems, 1 novel writing grant application)

Pending: 23 (17 short, 6 flash)

You can jump to the deadlines lists below (several on 11/30 and at the start of December), but first, let me just say WOW! I loved Fyrecon 2020. I feel so inspired now. I was lucky to get that scholarship. I feel so thankful to the organizers and founders DawnRay Ammon and Jenna Eatough for being flexible and allowing me to add and change classes early on. I managed to attend several master classes, in addition to the general admission classes. I originally planned to attend Amy White's master class, as well as Moon's Howling Plots class. I did attend Moon's class, but Amy White had to cancel her class due to some personal trouble. So hopefully next time I can attend Amy White's. Instead, I added 3 mornings of Dave Farland's class on how to launch a book, and Michael Gallowglas' master class on Poetry in Genre. They were all incredible, and I took plenty of notes to review.

In Moon's master class, I got a much better grasp of incorporating the essential elements of prize-winning stories. The exercise in class was great, and helped to solidify the pieces of a new short story that I will write up sometime soon (sea serpent riders and family trouble, oh my! family trouble seems to be the recurring theme in my work for multiple reasons). I've studied Moon's Super Secrets a lot, but this class helped them really take flight in my brain, so I'll use this for drafting or editing a piece in December for the Q1 deadline of WotF.

Dave Farland's class was a must-take and will help me a great deal as a I wrap up my rewrite of Hum in the Highways and start shopping it around. I am also considering some other writing projects, such as co-writing a series. So much wisdom in Farland's class provided--I was foolish and took notes by pencil on the first day and actually got a bruise as a result; I used Scrivener for note-taking the following days and that went much better.

And the Poetry in Genre class was excellent. We wrote so much, everyone shared their wonderful poetry, and there was an overwhelming amount of creativity. I wrote up a whole new poetry form for my HM winner of WotF Q3, By Sword or Son. Also got poem done for my Q4 winner that touches nicely on the MC's emotional trouble. I am looking forward to watching M. Todd Gallowglass' teaching on Twitch and joining a write-in with him in the future. Take his classes if you get the chance.

I took a bunch of general admission classes/roundtables/editing sessions: Self-Editing with Troy Lambert, Nail Your Openings with Wulf Moon, Improvisational Game with C.H. Lindsay, a combining genres roundtable with Ryan Decaria, Ravyn Evermore, and C.J. Workman, as well Pros and Cons of Collaborations with Jana S. Brown, a 3-to-1-editing session, Making Characters Funny with Michael Darling, Infinite Worlds in Finite Time with John M. Olsen, Creating Accurate and Believable LGBTQ+ Characters with Ravyn Evermore and Rowan North, Protagonist Archetypes with M. Todd Gallowglass, 3-to-1-editing session, Rituals Around the Keyboard with Dave Farland and Wulf Moon, Writing Horror/Boundaries with Sarah E. Seeley, Endings with Robert J. Defendi. What a blast all that was!

For Fyrecon 2020, I was up before 1 am three mornings in a row (slept 6-12 the day before) and then stayed awake for hours and hours of learning and creativity until 2 or 3 pm. Was such a blast. On the last day, after we finished sharing our poems, I even stopped in at BarCon for a moment, because I didn't want it to end! Oh well, life goes on, but I will definitely be keeping in touch with many writer friends made and am looking forward to more at the next Fyrecon.

EDIT: I just realized I mentioned nothing about NaNoWriMo. I am still picking away at my novel rewrite of Hum in the Highways, with some nice inspiration from Fyrecon and some of my fellow writers who read some of the novel and related flash pieces. But I likely won't hit the 50k NaNo goal, as I have other short story deadlines I've been giving priority. I just sent out a flash piece for Flame Tree's monthly contest; it was a horror flash set in the childhood of my novel's main character. I also really want to get a piece in for Cemetery Media Gates. I like their story calls. Anyway, still time for NaNoWriMo. I just sent in my latest voiceover job. That was a hard one, full of difficult to pronounce language related to temples and Buddhism. And now I'll have some free time coming up, right after I celebrate my daughter's 10th birthday! Anyway, carry on. Follow this blog for the deadlines, and feel free to follow me on FB, Twitter, and Insta, if you like.

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Wednesday, November 18, 2020

Hit my goal! Fyrecon was Awesome!!! Deadlines from November's end