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Meetupdate

Published by Kelly on September 15, 2011

As you may recall, I started attending a meetup group for writers since I am new to Austin. Since the first meetup, the group has grown quite a bit and I am – apparently – an assistant coordinator. I’ve gotten some feedback for Sister Christian and Diatomaceous Earth that’s been very helpful, and the writing prompts of ours have been fun for me. I finally remembered to bring my laptop so I could record my prompt results. I decided to go ahead and share the story I wrote from the prompt. Keep in mind this was written in 10 minutes, and hasn’t been edited at all.

The prompt was: You are in the green room of a talk show with a kangaroo. What happens?

“Why is this fucking kangaroo man in my green room, trying to steal my thunder?” I thought. This show was supposed to be all about me and my fucked up problems, not about some weird human who uncannily resembles a kangaroo. I looked over at the kangaroo man, waiting for him to make eye contact. He didn’t. He kept staring at the pouch in his lap pretending I didn’t exist, that I wasn’t 4 fucking feet away from him. Clearly, I would have to be the bigger person here and make conversation first.

“What’s your name, freak?” I ask. He continues to stare at his pouch, but reaches down into it and pulls out a Ziploc bag half-full of what I suspect is cocaine. I wonder if his kangaroo snout makes it easier or harder to snort coke. I’ve never been a fan of the stuff. I just can’t stand having things in my nose. And I hate the smell of smoke. I’m okay with needles; maybe I could do intravenous drugs.

“Sully,” the kangaroo said. “And yes, I am still human. I killed my entire family falling asleep at the wheel and just wanted to hop away from life after it happened. Spent my entire retirement savings on plastic surgery to turn myself into a kangaroo. Killing your family will make you do fucked up things.”

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New story up: Diatomaceous Earth

Published by Kelly on August 30, 2011

Ever since I moved to Texas, there has been one neighbor I haven’t cared for much… the gigantic cockroaches that live in the trees behind our apartment. It’s rained once since I moved here, for about 45 seconds, and the whole city is in the middle of level 2 water restrictions, so the cockroaches have been coming inside to look for water since they’re not getting it outside.

We’ve tried a lot of methods, both of us being pacifists who would rather throw the bugs back outside than squash them, but we’ve only just now found a system that seems to work at keeping them outside, where they belong. Still, it got me thinking about the cockroaches, and how it must be hard for them to face the danger of scavenging in peoples’ homes (although cockroaches in the lab have been known to go 3 months without food), so I wrote a story about it. Then again, maybe they just really don’t give a shit, like the honey badger.

Check it out, and tell me what you think.

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Vote for me! (If you want.)

Published by Kelly on August 15, 2011

I’ve hinted at this before, but some time ago I took a freelance writing side job working on other people’s online dating profiles. The job and I have had our ups and downs, but the bottom line of it is that I’ve learned a lot about this crazy world that is online dating, enough in fact that I thought it might be a good topic for SXSW Interactive 2012. If you think so too, give it a thumbs up. The SXSW world needs more stuff like this and less “how to reach your target market.” Although, I suppose this is kind of like that…

FYI – public voting counts for about 30% of whether or not a panel gets selected, so I promise not to hate you forever if you don’t vote for me.

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New poem – Sister Christian

Published by Kelly on July 8, 2011

I wrote the idea for this poem on an envelope I stole from the greeting card aisle in a Price Chopper. When inspiration strikes, you’ve gotta be prepared. Yes, I ripped off the title from one of my favorite 80s ballads, so hopefully I won’t get sued.

What do you think?

Read it here!

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“The Pollen Bath” coming soon to a Line Zero near you…

Published by Kelly on April 15, 2011

Well, it would seem my second published short story is going to be in the same publication as my first published short story. No skin off my back; I’m just glad it’s being accepted anywhere. This will be the third issue of Line Zero, and the first publication of The Pollen Bath. Getting something published is always happy news, but it also comes with the unhappy task of contacting every single publication where I sent it for consideration and notifying them, some of which get all pissy about it. Funny enough, I had a pollen bath on my car yesterday and the air made my eyes catch on fire.

Still, it can’t compare to seeing your name in print…

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Weekly writing challenge 1/1/2011

Published by Kelly on January 10, 2011

As part of my writer goals for 2011, I am making myself write something every week. One of the things that helped keep me motivated last year was to give myself a weekly writing challenge. If I got inspired by something, I made it my challenge to put it to paper. If someone threw out a challenge, I picked it up. Some were easier than others, some ended up getting killed in the creative process, and some turned out to be phenomenal.

I was handed this challenge by one of my Twitter followers who is hosting a contest. I typically don’t go for writing contests because they usually have some ridiculous price tag and a ridiculously unattainable or puny prize. I also typically don’t bite for horror, because it’s not really my genre, but then again, I don’t really have a genre so I figured I could pull it off. It may or may not be as predictable plot-wise as every horror film from the 1980s, and may or may not be far too much like Rosemary’s Baby, but I hope what it lacks in originality it makes up for with literary merit and proseworthiness. But you be the judge of that.

New short story – The Rainbow Prison.

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My first electronic publication

Published by Kelly on January 6, 2011

One of the cool things about getting smaller works, like poetry and short stories, published is that they are considered small potatoes. The publisher gets one-time rights to print (or copy and paste) your work in their work, and then the rights revert right back to the author, which means the author can do anything she wants with it.

Trouble with this is, no magazine wants to publish something that has already been published somewhere else. They want to be the first ones to publish your work. So, after that manuscript has been published, it’s essentially useless.

Unless, as I recently discovered, you self-publish it as an e-book. I found Smashwords quite some time ago, and was very intrigued with their business model. If you’re unfamiliar, I suggest you go check them out. I decided to self-publish my short story Two Steps Forward, since it was published in a print journal late last year. After all, no one else is going to publish it, and it’s short enough I figured it would be a good one to cut my e-book formatting teeth on.  I read the Smashwords style guide, which was amazing detailed and full of information, but also made me inordinately grateful I wasn’t trying to format a science textbook for self e-publishing.

After a few hours, I had my first e-book. Yes, it’s 3 pages long, but they still call it an e-book. I’m not the only to put their short stories on there, so I figure it’s fair. If you’re a Kindler, as I recently am, you can find it here. Hell, even if you’re not, you can just download the HTML. I have no way of knowing how many people bought the first issue of Line Zero, where this short story first appeared, and I have even less way of knowing how many of those people read my story, but I do know that in less than 48 hours, I’ve had just shy of 1o0 people download my free short story to their e-reading devices, and only two of them are people I know. I’ve also already gotten one four-star review. All with very minimal tweeting and facebook promotion.

I made this one free, since it’s my first crack at it, and it’s already been published in print. You can bet your last dollar that I will definitely be adding more of my own published works to Smashwords. If I can get 92 downloads in two days, I bet I could probably charge 99 cents for my next work and at least make $20. And that will be the first time I get paid as a writer. Hello, 2011.

Unless, of course, you count my professional life.

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