Category Archives: Writing

Wow, haven’t updated in a while.

It’s been a long time since I last updated, let me summarize what has been going on. I’m still in community college, though I am no longer at Santa Monica College. Now I’m taking my courses at El Camino College which is much closer to where I live and I am thriving there. I’m finally going to have enough credits in my major to apply to a four year school. Currently I plan to apply to USC, UC Irvine, UCSB, UC Davis, UC San Diego, CSU Long Beach, and University of Texas – Austin. The vast majority of these schools either have programs that will help me with my ultimate goal of becoming a video game designer or are close to video game studios I can intern at.

I am sad to say that my hectic schedule has left me little opportunity for creative ventures. It is something I hope to remedy soon but it is unlikely I will get anything done in what I really want to do anytime soon. My mentality is that I’m eating my vegetables so that I can enjoy my dessert but I fear that I must finish these vegetables quickly before my dessert gets cold.

Submission time!

Let it be known that the work on my new story still continues.

I have submitted the story I wrote for the Writer’s Digest story competition to Clarksworld, a science-fiction webzine. They’re certified as a qualified short story venue by the Science Fiction & Fantasy Writers of America (SFWA), which means they’re legit and getting a story published on their website counts as a single credit toward getting a membership in the SFWA.

The SFWA is the same organization that hosts the Nebula Awards so I trust their judgement.

Thanks to the online submission system they’ve implemented I can find out if I’ve been accepted or rejected sooner rather than later. I will find out if I’m in consideration for publishing later this week if I’m lucky!

The Goal Has Been Set

 I ran across this the other day:

http://www.arts.gov/grants/apply/Lit/GrantProgDescription.html

Apparently, every two years, the NEA awards a $25,000 grant for creative writing in prose and poetry categories. Unfortunately, I am too late to apply for the 2010 grant but I can still start work for the 2012 grant.

In order to qualify I must either write and publish:

  • 5 short stories published in at least two different publications
  • A collection of short stories
  • A novel or novella

I can’t self-publish anything, I can’t collaborate with anyone, and I can’t be employed at the publisher that publishes my work.

Sounds like quite the challenge, but I’m up to it. This could well be the incentive I need to write enough stories to either get this grant or get hired at Blizzard or Cryptic as a quest/content designer. I’ve started my first story this week and if it progresses at the speed it’s going right now I should be done with it by the end of April.

Bad News

Unfortunately it appears that I did not win the Genre Short Fiction competition being held by the Writer’s Digest. I’m not disappointed because I knew getting into it I would be up against a lot of tough competition.

Still I would have been happy to have gotten that $2,500.