Work, work, work. Work, work, work.

Between working on freelance book editing projects and the start of school, I've been damn busy this last month. In addition to the four creative writing high school classes I teach, I'm teaching two creative non-fiction courses at Chapman University this semester. I've got a great batch of students at both schools, and besides having gobs of papers to grade, I can't complain.

Despite this busyness, I've actually had a productive month on the writing front as well. Two stories I've been shopping around for a while found a home this month and both are available free on-line. The first, “Robbie,” is a sci-fi/horror flash fiction story. You can check it out on The New Flesh.

Sailing the Black Seas

On July 27th, I got a call asking if I was available to head out for thirty days to the Gulf of Mexico and perform air testing associated with the BP oil spill cleanup effort. I used to do air sampling work full-time, and still work with my old company on occasion doing odd jobs and technical writing work, so it wasn't a matter of qualification that gave me pause. Neither was it the opportunity to see the oil spill first hand. Rather, it was the prospect of packing up and leaving my life as I know it for thirty days to go live on a barge that made the decision very difficult. After consulting with my girlfriend, family, and house mates—and getting plenty of assurance from them all that they could maintain things without me for a month—I decided it was an opportunity I couldn't pass up.

All Work and No Play...

Yikes, it's been nearly two months since my last post. Between finishing up the semester of teaching, getting grades in, sneaking in a quick vacation (3 days is all), and getting to work on a freelance book editing project, I've sort of lost track of time. Hopefully, I haven't forgotten how to write.

Not much has happened on the writing front since my last post. I managed to write one flash fiction piece for an anthology, and tried my hand at sports journalism—that's it. The flash piece came out fine, I suppose, and the sports article came out good {I think), but I definitely learned that I'm not cut out for journalism. News publications expect quick turn around times and a lot of articles. I'm a bit too deliberate and slow in my writing, it turns out, and with all my other commitments, I just couldn't keep up. For what it's worth, here's the link to the one article I wrote: RON ARTEST THE ONLY PLAYER SACRAMENTO KINGS FANS CAN ROOT FOR IN FINALS? It's a bit dated now and geared towards Kings fans, so take it or leave it.

That's it on the writing front. No new bites from agents on Dreamwielder, the agent for This Book is Sh*t! hasn't had any luck either, and I've done nothing for the last month except do editing work on someone else's book. It's sort of depressing really, and it's gotten me thinking about how I make money (it's not with my own writing, let me tell you! [at least, not yet]). Teaching is my bread and butter during the school year, and I supplement that with freelance writing and editing work, and some random handyman gigs here and there. Then, in the summer, it's whatever I can scrape up. None of it pays well and I'm usually scraping by one paycheck or invoice to the next, but the bigger problem is that teaching writing and doing writing/editing work for other people sort of burns out my writing fuse. I love writing, but after spending ten hours on the computer copy editing, I certainly don't want to spend another few hours working on my own stuff.

On the Cusp...

It's been an exciting month. As I mentioned in my last post, I've been hunting for agents for both Dreamwielder and This Book is Sh*t! After an initial quick response and request for sample chapters from one of my top agent picks for Dreamwielder, all's been quiet on that front. However, I did find an agent to shop the This Book is Sh*t! proposal to book publishers in New York, and even more exciting, the Baldairn Motte book I worked on with Craig Comer and Ahimsa Kerp has been picked up by L&L Dreamspell. The three of us just inked the contract, and if all goes according to schedule, The Roads to Baldairn Motte will be coming out as a trade paperback and multi-format e-book in the second quarter of 2011!

Taking Care of Business

Well, it's been well over a month and a half since my last post, but I can honestly say I've not been idle. After finishing the first draft of Dreamwielder, I needed to take some time away from it for two purposes: 1) to give my peer reviewers a chance to read the damn thing, and 2) to give myself some distance so I could come back and look at the book with more objectivity.

So during that time I banged out the book proposal for This Book is Sh*t!, sent out the first batch of query letters to agents for This Book is Sh*t!, drew my map for Dreamwielder, and drafted my query letter for Dreamwielder. By then, the feedback was in from my reviewers and I turned my attention to revisions. There weren't any catastrophic problems with the first draft, and I actually enjoy the revision phase, so it went pretty fast. Most of the revision work consisted of fleshing out character motivation, ironing out some dialogue, and adding in scenes that were previously only summarized. All in all, I added about 3,500 new words to the book (knocking it up to 86,500 words), and the resulting product is 100X better. I'd like to officially thank my reviewers: Ahimsa Kerp, Eric Tryon, Mandy Burke, Craig Comer, my Aunt Linda, and my mother, Shirley Phillips. The critiques and suggestions they offered were critical in taking the book to the next level.

Up Yours, Chapter 32!

I am finally, finally done with the first draft of Dreamwielder. The climatic chapter was a beast to write. I spent damn near 20 hours on the single chapter alone, including one grueling 13-hour stint Saturday night where I nearly made it to the end, but fizzled out.

I make a habit of emailing myself the novel manuscript every time I add to it or make significant changes (just to make sure I have a back-up copy), and here's the transcript of my e-mail to myself when I finally crapped out early Sunday morning:

*

from Garrett Calcaterra

to gcalcaterra

date Sun, Feb 7, 2010 at 5:46 AM

subject Dreamwielder

mailed-by gmail.com

Message:

Fuck. 32... alolst

-me

Attch: Dreamwielder.doc 995K

I'm Somebody!

It's official: "The Key Ring" was voted Best Horror Short Story of 2009 in the Preditors & Editors Readers Poll! Thanks to everyone who voted and passed on the word to others. I have to say, this is way better than just being in the phone book.

Anyhow, I'm hoping to get "The Key Ring" published in a stand alone book with another novella I wrote a while back, "The Shadow." The book is tentatively titled Umbral Visions, and I'm sending out query letters as we speak. I'll be sure to make it known if I get any bites.

In the meantime, I'm finishing up work on Dreamwielder and am still taking submission for This Book is Sh*t! I have accepted about six non-fiction pieces for the poop anthology so far and will begin searching for a publisher as soon as I wrap up Dreamwielder (hopefully by the end of next weekend).

That's all for now. I'm off to send out those query letters and prep for my awesome Zombies in Film & Literature class I teach this afternoon.

Thanks again and cheers!

-Garrett Calcaterra