Market research: Inaccurate Realities & Writing prompt 10

Fair warning: today's post covers a lot of ground. Not only did I go hunting for another literary magazine to review, but I chose one with an upcoming themed submission deadline to inspire this week's writing prompt. And finally, there's also a ROW80 update. I've used bold headings so you can skip ahead to whatever interests you most.

Market research
Inaccurate Realities

• Brand-spanking-new online and print quarterly publication. First issue scheduled to be released October 2013.
• Paying market - currently offering token payment of $15-25 per story.
• Specialize in short (2K-5K words) speculative fiction stories for young adults.
• Submission guidelines don't say whether they accept previously published work, but I tracked them down on Twitter & they said they do accept it so long as the rights have reverted back to the author. Simultaneous subs okay. Only one sub per issue, but can sub to more than one issue at a time.
• Submissions accepted via email only, and only in the body of the email (no attachments).
• If accepted, they get worldwide first print & electronic English-language rights and exclusive rights for one year.

Inaccurate Realities is run by three women in the publishing industry in Ottawa, Canada, two of whom write YA fiction. They ran an IndieGoGo campaign to crowdfund their start-up costs, and although they didn't reach their target amount they appear to be moving ahead with Issue 1. Each quarterly issue will have a theme.

Which brings us to this week's writing prompt and the theme of Inaccurate Realities Issue #1.

Prompt: Fear

If you're using the prompt as a warm-up, try freewriting about it for five to ten minutes. Write down anything that pops into your head - no judging allowed. Even if it seems like it's getting off track, go with it. The point is to write, right?

If you write YA genre fiction, consider writing a 2K-5K story on this theme and submitting it to Inaccurate Realities. The deadline for Issue 1 is Aug. 15, which could work in your favor because you only have four days to get this done! If that's too tight a turnaround for you, check out the themes for the other issues.

ROW80 update
For the sake of saving space and time, I'm going to refer to my goals by their numbers rather than re-listing them every week, but you can see the goals the numbers refer to in this post.

1. (a) There are a couple readings coming up that I hope to attend: poet Willa Schneberg (whose name you may recognize from this blog because I interviewed her for VoiceCatcher) is reading at Stonehenge Studios on Sunday, Aug. 11, and my lovely, sweet, talented friend Emily Schikora is reading at New Renaissance Bookshop on Friday, Aug. 23.

(b) I had a great time interviewing Trista Cornelius last week for my next VoiceCatcher interview, which will come out in September. Trista is a writer, an artist and a writing instructor; she writes the grammar column for voicecatcher.org; and a day or two before we met she decided to take a leave of absence to embark on an adventure! =*D It also turns out that she's the same Trista my dad's wife's sister has been telling me about for years. Small world.

(c) Interview questions have been emailed to August's author, Jay Ponteri, whose first book, a memoir called Wedlocked, was published by Hawthorne Books earlier this year. So excited! I also have an author lined up for September who's a friend of Kiersi Burkhart. I overheard him talking about his writing process at a coffee shop one day, and I was like, "Oh my gosh! What a great idea! Can I interview you for my blog?" And eventually I wore him down and he agreed. Hurrah!

(d) Prompt posted above.

2. Despite the fact that this last Sunday was the first day I'd taken off of work in about a month (not healthy), I have been feeling overwhelmed and inefficient, and things like blog posts and creative writing (not to mention house cleaning) have been falling through the cracks. So I'm trying a new schedule that will hopefully not only lead to greater productivity but also to my having an entire 1.25 days off every week. Luxury!

Oh, right, but this is about whether I've done any writing sprints. The short of it: I've done a little creative writing, but not in sprints and mainly during stolen moments. My new schedule includes an hour five days per week to show up to writing. That said, I've scheduled the hour at the end of the day, which may not have been smart. Monday night I was too tired to write during the scheduled time (though I did steal some time earlier, during my dinner break). Last night I wrote utter nonsense for maybe 20 minutes before passing out.

3. Market research done! Yay!

4. I have made contact with a local press, have heard back, and am in the process of scheduling a meeting. Am still being cagey about it because I don't want to jinx it, but so far it's looking good!

5. Blerg. This is another thing that has been falling through the cracks. BUT my new system also involves a more manageable to-do list, and that to-do list includes this goal, and I am happy to report that I actually have commented on two ROW80 posts so far this week. Yay! 

This is a blog hop! Click here to read other ROW80 participants' check-ins.