Tag: indie author mum life

Goodbye April, Hello May

Posted on by staceyjaine in Stacey Jaine McIntosh

Goodbye-April-Hello-March-Floral-300x111

Goodbye April, Hello May!

As another month passes by and these are very different times, I’ve decided to take a moment and list a few of the smaller things I want to accomplish this month.

1. Write every day.

2. Read at least 4 books.

3. Finish something! (and by something, I mean one of my longer 10k stories.)

Alright! So, it’s only three things but when you’ve got four kids who are currently homeschooling even small things like those three can seem huge momentous things.

They’re not… by the way, but April was a mess of stress and anxiety for me. I’m hoping May will be a little better.

Fingers crossed May is kind to all of you, too.

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4 Horsemen of the Apocalypse

Posted on by staceyjaine in Stacey Jaine McIntosh

Iron Faerie Publishing have opened a new submission call! If you love drabbles and are looking for something with a more apocalyptic horror feel then this call might be for you!

THEY ARE LOOKING FOR: Drabbles about the four horseman of the apocalypse.
Conquest : War : Famine : Plague
Horror and Dark Fantasy genres accepted

WORD COUNT: 100 words (max 5 drabbles accepted per author) Send one and wait for a response.
You can send 1 story each for conquest, war, famine and plague at the same time. Separate emails please.

REPRINTS: Yes, rights must have reverted back to you

SIMULTANEOUS SUBMISSIONS: NO

MULTIPLE SUBMISSIONS: YES

PUBLICATION DATE: TBA

AUTHOR COMPENSATION: One eBook copy

If you are submitting a reprint, please include the publisher and date of first publication.

Send your story as an attachment in .doc or .docx format to ironfaeriepublishing@yahoo.com

Your subject line of your email should be Anthology Name – Story Name – Author Name

For example:

CONQUEST – My Story – Author Name

WAR – My Story – Author Name

FAMINE – My Story – Author Name

PLAGUE – My Story – Author Name

November is Coming

Posted on by staceyjaine in Stacey Jaine McIntosh

Yup! It’s that time of year again… no, I’m not talking about Halloween. Although it is coming up awfully fast and I’ll blog about that in another post. I’m talking about NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month for those not in the know)

Every year since November 2005, I’ve participated. And every year, bar 2008, I’ve won.

This year, I’ve decided to not be a rebel and write a novel from scratch. 50,000 words – all of them new. In an effort to kickstart a new series.

So far, beyond the main characters and setting, I’ve done little pre-NaNo planning.

Basically, I’m winging it and pantsing. It’s worked quite well in the past and whatever doesn’t work post NaNoWriMo will be edited out.

I’m thinking I might post snippets every day of November so you can see a little of my progress along the way.

Anyone else doing NaNoWriMo? Let me know in the comments below! I could use some buddies throughout the month.

For those who might want to look me up, I go by Rhiannon Brid on the forums.

I’ve Totally Got This Under Control

Posted on by staceyjaine in mum of four, Parenting, Stacey Jaine McIntosh

woman-hiding.jpegI’ve totally got this under control.

I do. I really do.

I wish I did.

No… this isn’t one of those blog posts. I’m not down on myself. Far from it. It’s just been a really mentally exhausting week.

It started off great. I was on track… to the point where I was a day ahead of myself. Yeah… funny that. And then I got a phone call. Just before one o’clock on Wednesday afternoon. I recognized the caller ID immediately.

The Primary School where my kids go was calling… somebody needed picking up… because they were sick… or so I thought.

Not… quite. Somebody – my ten year old son – needed picking up because he’d collided with another boy and was now sporting a big egg right above his eye near his eyebrow.

Now, I know what you’re all thinking. You can totally use this as writing fodder… and trust me, it’s being squirreled away for sometime in the not so distant future. But for now, it’s more of an: OH MY GOD! Anxiety overload situation. Yes… even days later. It takes roughly three days for me to get over anxiety. It’s usually three days of not being able to write much, if anything, at all.

It’s not like I haven’t dealt with bumps and bruises before, because I have. Cracked skulls… check. Stitches and broken bones… check! But when your son complains of blurred vision panic starts to set in. So… a trip to emergency ensued.

Sadly, mum life trumped Author life. Who am I kidding, Mum life always trumps author life. Hands down. Wouldn’t change it. Okay, I would on weekends. I need to start saying “no” to my kids more when it comes to the PC because the PC is mine! Yeah… never going to happen. LOL.

So, amidst all that lovely chaos, I got very little writing done or blogging, despite wanting to work on more of In My Blood for you all. Next week, I swear.

Here’s hoping to a much better and more restful weekend.

 

 

Submissions, Rejections… and Acceptances

Posted on by staceyjaine in Anthologies, Stacey Jaine McIntosh, Writing

submission, rejection and acceptance

Submissions, Rejections… and Acceptances

It’s bravery, hope, sadness and glee… all wrapped up in a neat little package.

And do you know what I did despite receiving a rejection letter this week? I pushed on. In the wake of that rejection, I went onto receive three more acceptances, which pushes my total for the year up to 18! Not bad considering.

And that rejected story? Well… it’ll be fleshed out to a more respectable (novel) size and published.

So, all is not lost.

 

Confessions From an Indie Author Trying to Make it as a Blogger

Posted on by staceyjaine in blogging, Stacey Jaine McIntosh, Stuff

44148_20150318_232444_FIGHTAlright, I confess. I tried something new today with my blog. I posted two blogs when I normally only post one.

Surprisingly, it got results. Bigger and better than I ever would have hoped for. So, THANK YOU!

The blog itself was inspired in part by all the poetry blogs I have subscribed to, and… the fact (which I didn’t know until today) that’s it’s National Poetry Month! Finally, it was written because I didn’t want to just write another post about the Arthurian Myths (which I adore) lest I bore you all to death. So, I shared Tennyson’s rather epic poem instead.

The second was my obligatory weekly recap for the 365 Writing Challenge post. Long overdue, as I try to write them weekly, but last week was met with a flurry of blogging updates, and little room or time to actually write that second post last Monday.

I can’t promise to write every day. That’s just… impossible for me between trying to split myself between family and writing. I’m not quite organized enough to successfully schedule my time the way I know I should. I try but I inevitably wind up dropping balls or something unexpected happens that wipes out everything I had planned for that day, and attempting to catch up the next day never works the way you think it will.

But, I do promise I’ll try. Assuming you’re all willing to stick with me as I navigate the blogosphere.

So, on that final note, I’d like to say a huge THANK YOU again to all of you who’ve stopped by recently and liked or followed my blog, I really do appreciate it from the bottom of my heart and I hope you’ll keep coming by so that you can stay up to date with my writing progress. Whatever the achievement.

Until next time,

Stacey