Going off-line for a while.....

I'm going off-line for a while.  Probably about two years.  I have new expenses with a new apartment.  And I can't afford internet right now for my laptop.  So, I'm putting all my blogs into hiatus for the foreseeable future.  It's been fun.  However, I'll still have personal and professional email accounts if you need to get a hold of me online. 

Thanks,
Regards,
Blake Wood Walker
St. Louis, MO
USA

Tried my hand at satire

I tried my hand at satire this week on a dark subject.  Mobile trailer meth labs and the children who are sexually abused by live-in boyfriends of their meth lab mothers who cook this crap up in front of children to leave the taxpayer stuck with the thousands in clean-up bills, 

To which I reply, "Trailer fire.  Trailer fire.  You're going to die...."

Blake

Copy editing of Kepler Falling Complete

My copy editing of Kepler Falling is now complete.  Time to move onto other projects....

Blake

Copy editing Kepler Falling

I'm going through and copy editing Kepler Falling for mistakes.  I've gone through my other novellas.  My last novella was Eternity's Edge.  That's a sequel to Kepler Falling.  I have numerous novellas to take to Writers Under The Arch this fall.  It'll keep me busy most of the the next two and half years.  Not much else is happening, right now.  I'm in a waiting mode until tomorrow or this coming week...

Blake

Week in review....

I spent the weekend going over things online.  I tried writing to no avail.  I'm going to give it another shot later this afternoon.  I've got a bunch of poetry to read, edit, and have critiqued.  I'm still working on a rough draft of Eternity's Edge.  That will take awhile.  I've run out of things to read.  I want to get more done this coming week.  The goal is 1,000 additional words. 

My younger sibling finished the first rough draft of his novel.  It's over 286,000 words!  It's way too long for a first time novel.  But he's done.  It's a cyber-noir crime story.  He's been working on it for a long time.  This was his second attempt at writing it.  It's long and involved.  My brother is a much better at descriptions and world building than me.  However, his characters have had little empathy in the past.  I don't know if that's changed with his latest writing.....

Blake 

I'm working on new summertime projects....

I been reading A Collection of Short Stories, Volume:  One by Louis L'Amour.  I've also read a couple of Napoleonic fantasy novels that were OK.  I could write better stuff than what I've read.

Writing-wise, I've tried my hand at poetry.  I've also written a western short story (it's actually flash fiction).  I also restarted my rough draft of Eternity's Edge (about 27,251 words).  I hope to have about 40,000 to 50,000 words by the time I'm done with the rough draft. 

That's it for now...
Blake

Finished draft of Nordic Sun...

I finished the ALPHA draft of the sci-fi novella, Nordic Sun, this past week.  I'm going into my BETA draft revisions now.  It will take a while to complete it.  It's about 26,000 words long.  I'll see how much I wind up cutting.  I cut off quite a bit, so far....

Blake

New spring prose projects....

Here's what I'm working on this spring:

1)  Eternity's Edge:  I'm working on the rough draft of a new sci-fi novel/novella.  It's a sequel to Kepler Falling.  I have about 26,000 words done.  I'm looking to finish the rough draft later this year....

2)  Revision of Kepler Falling:  This will be the second revision of the third draft of Kepler Falling.  I don't know how long it will take.  Probably the next six-months (maybe).  I'll bring the revised draft to WUTA for critiquing at the end of the year...

3)  Nordic Sun:  I'm about two-thirds of the way done with my third sci-fi novella.  This was my attempt to write hard sci-fi (instead of the religious based Kepler Falling space opera and Colonel Singh military sci-fi stories I wrote previously).  I have two more novellas to review at WUTA later this year. One's historical fiction/fantasy.  The other is steampunk... 

Literary journal rant....

I'm tired of dealing with literary journals.  My poetry has been rejected once again as unusable without any explanation.  Other that it didn't meet the current publishing requirements via a form letter.  I save my rejections letters.  It's a history of where I've applied and where I don't need to, again. 

What they don't tell you that your work wasn't left-leaning enough, you didn't graduate from the right undergraduate institution, and you didn't sleep with the editorial staff while in graduate school.  I'm amazed some of these presses are still in business, other than to nurture said baby-academic writers. 

Am I too cynical?  I sent my best work to them.  And when I mean my best, it was my best.  Only to be gutted by silent, pro-forma rejection.  What qualifies as acceptable work? 

I wonder....

Completed projects....

I completed the rewrite of my draft of Kepler Falling earlier this month.  I'm now working the rough draft for Eternity's Edge.  I'm also working on my weekly critique and revision of Nordic Sun, too.  That should be done in ten weeks...

Blake Wood Walker