30 cubed

MY ANNUAL WRITING and DESIGN PERFORMANCE SURVEY: 2014

At the end of every year I work anywhere, I gather information regarding my projects and accomplishments to track what I was able to get done.

I compare it to the plan I started the year with and to see if I was successful. Now that I am a professional writer, I bring the same practice to my writing career which helped me succeed in my information technology work.

In this instance, I accomplished most of what I wanted to do and have a blueprint for a schedule of things I hope to accomplish next year. I hope to add another novella and novel to the list. I started doing this years ago and it has been one of the most challenging things to accomplish at the end of the year, but well worth the effort.

WRITING SUMMARY

349 total articles or short stories for the year

Sold 25 stories to various books, anthologies or magazines
https://hubcityblues.com/about/thaddeus-howze/

50 stories completed on Medium.com (personal blog)
02 articles completed on Medium.com (personal blog)
10 stories were not completed on Medium.com. The stories may still be completed in the future.
https://medium.com/@ebonstorm

210 articles on Science Fiction and Fantasy Exchange (Q & A site)
(117 articles received the best answer flag or 200+ points)
http://scifi.stackexchange.com/users/2765/thaddeus

27 articles on A Matter of Scale (personal blog)
http://ebonstorm.wordpress.com

17 articles on Quora (Q & A site)
http://www.quora.com/content

10 stories on Hub City Blues (personal blog)
02 articles on Hub City Blues (personal blog)
http://hubcityblues.com

11 stories are posted on 30 Cubed.com (personal blog)
30 stories were successfully completed for the event.
http://30cubedsf.wordpress.com

11 flash speculative fiction stories: LinkedIn Scifi short stories

01 articles on Scifiideas.com (online magazine)
03 stories on Scifiideas.com (online magazine)
http://www.scifiideas.com/tag/thaddeus-howze/

05 articles on the Good Men Project (online magazine)
http://goodmenproject.com/search/?q=Thaddeus%20Howze

01 article on The Enemy (literature journal, USC)
http://theenemyreader.org/a-late-radicalization/

Collections Created:
A Millennium of Madness – in editing (11 short stories, 35,000 words)
Visiting Hours – in editing (16 short stories, 40,000 words)

DESIGN PROJECTS: Book Cover Designs

Author: DK Gaston
Taurus Moon Relic Hunter: Magic & Mayhem
Taurus Moon Relic Hunter: Scorched Earth

Author: Thaddeus Howze
Millennium of Madness
Visiting Hours
Broken Glass

Author: Sam Guthrie
Penny Wise, Pound Foolish

WEB ICONS
NerdEdge
ScifiIdeas.com
Comic Nerds of Color
Dammit I’m a Science Fiction Writer

This does not include the creation, maintenance, curation and promotional efforts using social media platforms such as Twitter, Pinterest and Tumblr. I have not found effective means of determining metrics for them as such.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Thaddeus Howze is a California-based technologist and author who has worked with computer technology since the 1980’s doing graphic design, computer science, programming, network administration and IT leadership.

His non-fiction work has appeared in numerous magazines: Black Enterprise, the Good Men Project, Examiner.com, and Astronaut.com. He maintains a diverse collection of non-fiction at his blog, A Matter of Scale. He is a contributor at The Enemy, a nonfiction literary publication out of Los Angeles.

He is a contributor to the Scifi.Stackexchange.com with over a thousand articles in a three year period. He is now an author and contributor at Scifiideas.com. His science fiction and fantasy has appeared in blogs such as Medium.com, the Magill Review, ScifiIdeas.com, and the Au Courant Press Journal. He has a wide collection of his work on his website, Hub City Blues. His recently published works can be found here.

His speculative fiction has appeared in numerous anthologies: Awesome Allshorts: Last Days and Lost Ways (Australia, 2014), The Future is Short (2014), Visions of Leaving Earth (2014), Mothership: Tales of Afrofuturism and Beyond (2014), Genesis Science Fiction (2013), Scraps (2012), and Possibilities (2012).

He has two books: a collection called Hayward’s Reach (2011) and an e-book novella called Broken Glass (2013).

If you have enjoyed this publication or any of the other writing he does, consider becoming a Patron. For what you spend on your daily cup of coffee one time in a month, you can assist him in creating new stories, new graphics, new articles and new novels. Creating the new takes a little support: http://patreon.com/ebonstorm

For the last couple of years, I have participated in a variety of writing challenges to spur my creativity (and quietly drive my wife to distraction). My favorite three were 30 Short Stories in 30 Days or NaShoStoMo, NaNoWriMo, and the 30 Character Challenge. Since I haven’t seen any announcements (and I have a backlog of stories to complete) I thought I would combine two of my favorites together and get 30 cubed. 30 stories, 30 days, and create 30 new characters in those stories. I am hoping to have other people see my banners and join in for the fun. If you are interested, please let me know and we can collaborate, talk about the process, and share stories.

This contest only has two rules: Any story you write has a minimum of 200 words. Yes, that would be flash fiction, but since it was allowed in the past, we will just run with it. The second challenge is to have 30 stories at the end of the month. Some days will be harder to fill than others and that is okay. This is not meant to stress you, but to challenge your creativity, your willingness to go out on a limb with a story and trust to your ability to create. As far as characters are concerned, you can include a profile (a paragraph will do) at the end of the story discussing the protagonist (or antagonist, if they are more interesting). There is no genre limit but I will be writing science fiction, fantasy and horror as my main genres. You write whatever is moving you, of course.

At the end of the month, if you are able to complete the challenge, we will have some badges for you to put on your site showing your participation in the event. Have fun!

If you are web savvy, you can place one of these markers at the end of your postings. I will make a few other themes when I get a moment.