This post is probably way too long, but bear with me…
It’s hard to believe 2020 is coming to a close, and we’re no closer to life returning to “normal” than we were six or seven months ago. The coronavirus is forcing us to search for a new normal, but it may be difficult for many Americans to (1) accept, and (2) practice. I’m old enough and wise enough to know that I do not want to find myself in the hospital, or worse, due to someone else’s carelessness. So, I’ve spent a lot of time at home during the pandemic, trying to improve my writing.
Here’s the “big” stuff…
The bright side to staying home has allowed me to “attend” a wide variety of virtual events, including four conferences (Murder and Mayhem (Chicago), Writers Police Academy/Murdercon (North Carolina), WriteNow! (Phoenix), and Bouchercon (Sacramento) and many excellent webinars with featured speakers such as Walter Mosley, Lou Berney, Rhys Bowen, Joe Ide, Dennis Palumbo, Tiffany Yates Martin, Isabella Maldonado, and Bruce Robert Coffin. (More details are on my Events page.) Although I enjoy the person-to-person contact of a live conference, it would have been impossible to attend so many events. These online get-togethers (mostly on Zoom or Crowdcast) have reinforced my belief that writers are an incredibly generous group of people who will do almost anything to help someone become a better writer.
I imagine we’ll have to participate in this virtual world for a while longer. As such, I’ll continue to attend online events for writers while searching for the light at the end of the tunnel sometime in 2021.
And here’s the “smaller” stuff (although no less critical)…
This year, I spent quite a bit of time working on several short stories, almost all for various contests and anthology submissions. I tried micro-fiction, flash fiction, short fiction, and the “usual” fiction for me, about 4,000-5,000 words. I rediscovered the challenge of telling a story quickly, where every word has to be the right word…no fluff, no “muddle in the middle,” no trying to figure out the end of a novel at the 50,000-word mark. I’m still waiting to hear whether I made the cut for an upcoming anthology. A few days ago, I received word of another anthology submission deadline coming up in Spring 2021. With my one and only publication credit being a short story, I’m sure I’ll continue writing these stories.
Finally, I joined a critique group about three months ago. The group has proven to be invaluable. Our online sessions have been fun, and, on more than one occasion, I’ve been told by the ladies in my group (I’m the only guy) that something in my novel “didn’t work” for them. With those “somethings” now fixed, my book is better than before, which is excellent. Maybe I will find an agent one of these days…