Flash Story up at After Ever After

'The Unmoveable Sky' is  up at After Ever After,  a flash tale of savage aliens and a Hindu wisdom goddess.

How to Take Your Story to Nebula* Nominated Level

I don't know the answer to this, but Ferrett Steinmetz does, and in his post, 'How I got from First to Final Draft on 'Sauerkraut Station,' he explains the process. Including a link to his first draft with sixty-plus annotations about the changes he made on his 17K word story. And he's happy to answer questions. What a generous offer

Now every writer's different, but isn't it fascinating to take a peep at such a successful writer's process?

*The Nebulas being the annual awards of the Science Fiction Writers of America Association, a very prestigious award.

Why can't . . . Writers Judge the Quality of their Stories?

In an interesting post, a few weeks ago, Luc Reid explores in his post, "Your Opinion and Twenty-Five cents: Judging Your Own Writing" 

Luc says, "I don't know, personally, whether it's merely difficult or actually impossible for writers to judge our own writing well"

I've often bemoaned the fact that I never know what's going to sell. It's very odd. But is this the same as quality? I wonder. 

A recent sell to a good market was on it's 12th sub. So you could argue that it's just a case of hitting the right market with the right editor. There's an art of matching story to venue. It's all very difficult. 

This week I've revisited some of my older stories, to give them a quick polish before submitting. Definitely distance in time makes a lot of difference in the ability to make judgments about a story. 

What do you think? Are you able to tell the quality of your own work? Does it matter? If you don't know what you're doing right, is it possible to improve?

Happy Birthday NewMyths.com

NewMyths.com is celebrating it's four year anniversary with a book giveaway. The first 30 plus people to blog or mention this giveaway on Facebook will win a Fantasy or SF book.

NewMyths.com is a great venue for fantasy and science fiction stories, poems and non-fiction, check out the guidelines here.  I'd recommend Nancy Fulda's article, 'A Practical Guide to the Proper Positioning of Space Stations'. You can find it by using the search engine on the site. And while you're searching you might want to look at a poem published by yours truly (search under my name, or Threshold).

The latest issue has an interview with M.O Muriel, the first winner of both the Writers of the Future and the Illustrators of the Future competitions. And congratulations to Scott T.Barnes who has just placed second in the Writers of the Future fourth quarter competition.

Happy Birthday NewMyths.com and here's to many more.

edited to add: And I've won: Unplugged: the Web's Best Sci-Fi & Fantasy. Thanks Scott and Nu.