A promotion and the dust settles

Well, the dust at work has settled. Out of it came a promotion for me and some changes in the office. I'm now a 'Senior Software Architect'. They tell me that is what I've been doing for them for the last four years or so. I personally dunno... still seems like a 'feel good' offering. Either way a pay raise is a pay raise right? This way I'll be able to save up money a good bit faster, increase my mutual funds and IRAs and my plain old savings accounts. Not to mention get some money set aside in case I do decide to try they route of 'self publishing' through the likes of i-Universe with say my Kinloch manuscripts while I pursue publishers with other manuscrupts I've been working on.

Speaking of which, I've completed 'Cold Case'. Modest sized short story at 12,000 words. I'm very proud of it, I sat down at lunch and began editing it and blew through a ton of it quickly. Overall the story is as I would like, its just my spelling and so on needs touch up. A brief run through Ms Word and asking for a second pair of eyes would help with that. I'm thinking even though its a mystery, its got an 'adventure' flair. I'll try the more 'adventure story' based magazines first; see who shows interest. While that one is out there, I may re-work 'Story to die For' as well then send it out.

On the horizon... with luck.. a vacation! I need one badly. Aside from that, I've got an outline for a sci fi work that I've been toying with. Not sure if its a short story or novella or even a novel. I'll see once I get into the outline proper. I'm hoping to get to that by this weekend.

Also, grinding away on Kinloch 2; given the bad reputation of Publish America I've not been so hot and heavy on Kinloch 2. Just taking my time on it. Which is ok, had some nice ideas I'd not thought of for that plot that I want to work in.

Too much to do, too little time

April came and went in a flash.. well not quite so. Mindless grinding at work is more like it. I designed and assisted in coding a system that reads documents from a specific site over the web, determines which document it needs then stores a copy for later. Kinda neat. Issue is the personalities and highly stressful work environment... some people don't believe the software concept of reading those financial documents like that is sound. Well, it actually is a sound idea, just hard and all getout to accomplish, but its nowhere near impossible. Then there is the 'burn-out' factor, due to a harsh ( and I mean harsh ) work environment, key people are quitting. I've a suspicion that they secretly hope it will change the environment or even hurt the business in a way (its a small business). I really don't know. I personally just want everything to settle out; I've enough stress without the additional load.

Got my story back from Mystery Mag; they didn't need it at the time but were very polite about it. So , off to edit it and send it out again. Also, I'm nearly done with my next short story. Just one more section to go and its edit time. This one feels smoother though, best plotline I've written yet I think. I bet the editing goes much easier than in the past. Hopefully that will mean it will get a better reception. Eh, who knows. That is the nice thing about being a writer... if its rejected, so what? I like what I wrote and I can always write other stories if the other story ideas just won't pan out. I'm still working on Kinloch 2, I am taking that publisher's advice about Kinloch in that even though its a good story, its tied to Pub America which will cause my work to get that 'guilt by association' problem. That's ok. I'll continue on my short stories, work on a new sci fi novel idea I've got and if all else fails, I'll publish Kinloch 2 myself. Self-publishing I think is viewed like being a lawyer and having yourself as a client but I think nothing ventured, nothing gained. If I can sit at a signing table and sell 16 out of 20 copies in 1 to 2 hours at a Barnes and Nobles, then dang I've got something. I'll just make sure this time I get a publicist right before the release instead of after!!