Daniel J. Hogan's Blog

I started expanding/revising one of my short stories this morning, Slow and Steady. It was a submission I wrote for Shimmer's Clockwork Jungle issue, but it wasn't accepted. However I got back some positive feedback, so I figured I was on the right path. It was my first time doing a short story for a submission, so the draft I sent in may not have been the strongest because I was still learning how to write a short story--and how to work within a word limit.

Slow and Steady is pretty much a steampunk Wind in the Willows. As you can probably guess by the title, It is based on the Tortoise and the Hare fable and involves two inventors who race their mechanical animal machines. The heroes are an old owl woman named Theena and her young duck apprentice, Phillip. Their vehicle is a giant turtle shaped machine that runs on steam. The villain is Count Boodle Bodell, a stocky well dressed cormorant man from parts unknown. His machine is a biped rabbit, but it runs on a mysterious element (the main hook of the story).

Reading over this story again, I realize just how much I like it and how much fun I had writing it. I'm hoping that by expanding it I can make it into the story it should have been. I can expand a few parts and build some things up a bit.  I'm glad I finally got around to writing again, I haven't done much since I finished A Queen's Tale back in March.

I haven't decided yet if this story takes place in the Eyri universe or not. It has references to Magic of Eyri, so I think I might just say that it does but at a different time. We'll see.

Here's an update on the short story front.  Wednesday I was emailed by the editor from CatsCurious Press (the people I was doing the fairy tale submission for) and told that she liked my story and wanted to hang on to it until they made their final choice for the book.  I didn't want to post about that right away, I decided to wait until things were finalized.

Well, I heard back from her today and I didn't make the final cut--but she gave me lots of positive feedback and asked me to keep submitting stuff to them. 

I think (but can't confirm yet) I was one of seven final choices for the book, and that's an accomplishment in itself if it turns out to be the case. They could have rejected me right out, but they didn't, so I'm happy.  If my first two submissions have come back with very positive feedback, then I know I'm doing something right.  Just gotta get back on the horse and try again. I'm not too surprised I didn't make the final cut because there were times when I was reading through it that I thought "hmmm....maybe I should have made this funnier," or something else.  But that's okay, I have a short story I'm proud of and they didn't tell me to get lost or anything negative, so it was a great experience.

Slugging through my taxes  and not having fun...if I could show myself a year ago just how much I'd end up spending all this self-published stuff, I would have very much reconsidered this route. Oy. But then how do you put a price on all the experience I've had in the past year or all the great people I've met? That's a tough call.

I finished and emailed off my submission to CatsCurious Press Fairy Tale Project.  I called mine, A Queen's Tale and it is based on Rumpelstiltskin.  I'm totally drained, but happy with the story.  I just fixed myself a celebratory cocktail and then I am off to bed.  First draft was 11,800+ words and I cut her down to 9,920ish.  Not too shabby.  My last minute tweaks certainly made it better.

Finished the first draft of my CatsCurious Press submission last night around 10:00. Ended up being 11,800+ words so I have to cut it down to at least 10,000 (the max allowed). That shouldn't be too much of a problem. I was able to cut around that much from a 4,000+ short story (my steampunk story, Slow and Steady -- which I may read at Penguicon next month), so I should be able to do the same for something considerably longer. Doing these short stories has made me a lot better a self editing, especially in regards to being less wordy.

I am very happy with this story, a retelling of Rumpelstiltskin from the first person POV of the girl. I had a lot of fun with it and certainly steered it towards wacky waters. I don't want to give too much away, mainly because there's a chance jimhines  could be deciding the fate of it next month (he'll pick a story he likes and do the POV of the story's villain, in my case Rumpelstiltskin), but my main character Agnes is certainly not your typical fairy tale maiden.

The last act of the story was very Hellboy inspired, mainly in regards to how Agnes deals with local folk lore and fairy folk in her quest to find out Rumpelstiltskin's name. It was a lot of fun to write and hopefully people don't think I'm (too) crazy, and I'll probably have to tone down some of the action a tad. But the story is funny, which was one of the requirements and I think anyone familiar with this fairy tale will enjoy my unique twist on it. Back to editing, I gotta send this baby off by Monday!

Going full throttle on this fairy tale submission for CatsCurious Press.

Wrote a decent amount yesterday, last night and so far today. I'm over 7,000 words (max is 10k, min is 5k) and I'm getting close to where I can put a fork in it and start editing. Story is due by the 31st--I will get this done by wacky. I'm happy with the story thus far and liked that I've been able to link it to other fairy tales or at least reference them. Writing from the Point of View of a fairy tale heroine is a new task for me, but writing female characters is nothing new. Magic of Eyri is chuck full of female characters: Eira, Fel-Ra, Tuuga, Queen Lana the IV, and the Three Sisters just to name a few and the main character of my rejected steampunk fable, Slow and Steady, was a female owl inventor named Theena.

But none of those were first person point of view stories like this one is, and since I'm doing Rumpelstiltskin I have to figure out how the girl (Agnes in my story) deals with her father, the king and not to mention Rumpelstiltskin himself. It has been a good exercise and I'm happy with the character I've come up with. Agnes is anything but helpless and is very resourceful. Back to work!

Been working hard on that fairy tale re-telling for the CatsCurious Press submission. My stupid sinus infection last week cost me too many days of potential writing, so I'm sort of behind where I wanted to be at this point. But, I'm getting there. I'm over 5,000 words (the minimum) so I can put an amen on it at any point. I'm happy with the story thus far, although there are a few things I'll tweak. My only concerns are some parts coming off as too dark/creepy and not that funny. But, that's what the revising process is for--and I'd argue that the bad guy in this should be kind of creepy. You have to have a balance between funny/serious, light stuff/dark stuff, I think it makes for a well rounded story.

Oh, and I'm doing Rumpelstiltskin.  I don't think I mentioned that yet.  Having to write from the first person point of view of a young miller's daughter is a new challenge for me, but I think I'm doing a good job at not making her come off as a stereotypical helpless female character.  My goal from the start was to avoid that, which makes the story way more interesting.  She ain't helpless, that's for sure. Shes crafty and looking out for herself, which has been fun to write.

Also got the first disc of season 3 of Battlestar Galactica from Netflix. 'Bout time too. MAN...Apollo got faaaaaaat.  Anyone know where I can watch those webisodes that lead up to Season 3?  They did an OK job of filling in the blanks in the season opener, but I'd still like to see 'em.

In my continuing dream of some day doing a webcomic of sorts, I'm thinking of downloading a trial  version of Manga Studio and giving it a try.  Not that I expect it to increase my drawing skills overnight, I'm just looking for something easier to do drawing and layouts in. Flash is OK, but I'd like something a little better. Photoshop is a tad clunky for drawing straight into, for me anyway.  I still prefer drawing on paper, but that takes a lot more steps, but I may go back to that for my sketchblog nonsense at some point.  One of my favorite webcomics, Octopus Pie, is drawn in Manga Studio so it looks like a pretty neat program.