Thoughts about short stories and publishing

So getting published is getting published. That thought/ said I am going to work on my short stories ideas for two reasons. One so that I can have a body of work that (hopefully) be published and two so that I can explore my worlds. I really only three worlds. I have a hard sci-fi one, a high fantasy one and I have an alternate earth one. The hard sci-fi one is a huge universe, I do not have just one galaxy but the whole universe in that one.
 I have different planets and different kinds of peoples but they all are dealing with the same threat of The Empire. Generic I know but why re-invent the wheel? When anyone talks about an Empire we all pretty much get the same images. Not good, controlling and kills anyone who tries to stand up to it. Now I do put my own spins on it but in general The Empire is just the villain and I am more interested in the heroes of my stories. Why they are fighting The Empire and what they hope to gain from getting it out of their little systems. That kind of thing. I have many different kinds of species living my universe but I like to more than just humans. I think that makes the story more interesting if you have more than just the human perspective in it.
Now on to my high fantasy world. Now this one I think I have something a little more unique maybe not terribly but maybe just a little. The pantheon of gods who are elemental based and have jobs. Like the main goddess in my first story is the Lady of Water and she is the protector of the seas, sailors and the marsh lands. Her main attribute is water. Not all my gods are like that but many are. I have different species in my fantasy world too. I do have the normal of humans, elves, dwarfs and the like but I have beings of pure elemental expression. They are the servants of the gods, their hands per say. I have a strong love for water so I have many water themes in all my writing. I like to have fire and water met, it seems to me to be the source of all life, where fire and water are there is life. But I have an unfortunate romantic steak in me.
 In my alternate earth I have a mixture of all my other worlds and I think that is because I started thinking about this one for about 20 years. It was my imaginary world. It was my play ground and I have all kinds of people in it. They are mostly human but not all them are from earth originally. I have human aliens, as in they are genetically human but they were born and raised on different planets. I have the elementals there but they are just called sprites. I have magic and superheroes and spies and watchers from lore. I have just about everything in my earth because I wanted to play in all those worlds when I was a kid. I still do but I have made some rules about it. Magic as rules, the sprites are just trying to help the earth stay in balance and the human aliens are just trying to just along.
The only ones who have been mostly immune to my changes into adulthood have been my superheroes. They are still mostly the same. I have refined their characters and the like but they are still superheroes and villains and in the middle of the two. I am very proud of my superheroes and their world within my world. Maybe I will finally(!) write them out but I have the most trouble writing them out. I can think up a new story for just about everyone else but they are very difficult to write out. It is not that I do not think that they do not want to be it probably just has to do with me. I am probably just not making them talk to me enough about whatever story I am thinking about with them. But there are my worlds. I love them and I have lived in them for too many years. Sometimes it makes me feel like I have missed out on other things in life but I really like my worlds in my head. Good thing because I want to write them out huh?

NaNoWriMo

So I'm going to do NaNoWriMo which means National Novel Writing Month. I'm going to try( I will1 I will do it!) a 50,000 word novel/rough draft. I'm going to do it on a 4 sentence 'story' that I wrote for a flash fiction class. I like the four lines, I think that I can do a ton of work from them. Here they are:

You cling to the steam powered bus as it goes faster and faster. The mask in the flickering light was holding the wheel and you know you must stop him. At least you think its a him but under all that steam armor makes it difficult if not impossible to tell gender. You take a deep breath, you prepare yourself to meet your maker if you must and you go. The words I was given to work with were steam-powered bus and mask. So I'm going to make this into an awesome novel. I hope...if not I'm going to try!

life still

So life is still kicking my booty. I haven't have time to write anything because of studying for tests and finishing projects for masters school. Very irritating but I hope to get some work done after I take my test for LS 500. Then I'll only have a month's reading to do for another class. /sigh. Why did I think that master's school was a good idea again?

Real life

So sadly and how it going real life attacked me this week. On the up note I'm mostly done with hw for my masters classes but I have not gotten anymore written. But I have thought about the plot and the characters. I have fleshed them out more in my mind. I don't think that I will have magic in this world just weird science but it's steampunk. Unlike other genres it's not hard and fast rules. I have also done research into the time that I'm going to be playing with. If I'm going to change things I may want to know what I'm changing. Fingers crossed for getting some writing done as well as RL stuff.

First Challenge word count

So far I'm 469 words into the first chapter of a 120,000 word story. Once again /sigh for not being more particular about word count. I guess that beggars can't be choosers. I have changed the main leads name to Claira Darkwater. I think that I'm about to introduce the main male lead Nikola Tesla. I have always been very interested in him and I'm very excited to have the chance to write about him in a fun way. Hopefully by this time tomorrow I will have another 500 words down. I need to find something that can tell me how many words that I have written per day not overall. Guess that's more research I'm going to be doing.

First Challenge

So I have had my first story challenge given to me. My other half told me to write about a lady of the night (and she hates the clockwork hookers who are the new thing(s) because they are taking all the clients from the poor working girls) in Chicago who gets on the wrong side of some mobsters and has to escape to Boston or New York (my choice in that thanks honey) on a airship. He also say it should be about 120,000 words.  I'm not too sure about that but I did give a shout-out for a challenge.  Be careful what you wish for huh? So I'm thinking that her name is Amelia Darkwater but I can change it if that's too out there. That's what I've got so far. I'm going to try and have the first chapter up in the next week. I'm shooting for about 7,500 or 10,000 for the first chapter. Aim high!

Steampunk

So I've been wanting to write something steampunky but I'm a little stuck on what. I mean I know what steampunk looks like but how do I write it? Clockwork hookers, eye wear and airships but what kind of plots work out there? So I'm asking my friends who read this and are willing to give me ideas. If you give me an idea, about how many words or something like that, I will write it. I will post it. And I will be very grateful for the help to my writers block (and I hate to say that because I agree with a professor that I had writers block is not real just in your mind). So help a lazy writer, challenge me to write steampunk and I hope that I'm not too bad it! I'll be watching for whoever is brave enough to tell me what to do!