Game Plan

I'm going to write my final blog post for Intro to Professional Writing now so that I won't have to double up during the week with an A-to-Z Challenge post.  I'd just like to give an overview of what I've decided to work on for my digital portfolio (for the time being).

Rather than trying to tackle ten pieces, I've decided to go down to six.  If an employer really wants to know a lot about me, he or she can read through my hundreds of blog posts.  Three nonfiction pieces and three fiction pieces should be enough for the portfolio.

Because I like novellas, novellas are in between short stories and novels for length, and the story I choose to review should probably be read again before I rewrite the review for it, I have decided to use my review of The Emperor's Soul by Brandon Sanderson in my portfolio.  I will consider my original review but rewrite the review based upon a second reading of the award-winning novella.

For my "On Writing" post I have decided on the second post of my "Quotes" posts.  Unlike some of my other Writing posts, it doesn't go into a writing concept, but I think the post clearly demonstrates my ability to analyze stories and recognize literary magic.

I will indeed include one fantasy story, one sci-fi story, and one horror story in my portfolio.  For fantasy, I'll be using "Lost Love and Nightprowlers."  It will need some large revisions, but it is a story that I have worked on for three years now and, despite posting it to my blog some time back, I think it can be made into a great story.  There are some romance elements in this story that should hint at my abilities in that genre as well.  In sci-fi, I have selected my Flash Frenzy submission "The Last Photo of Humanity."  The psychological element is great, I think, and there is a clear blend of sci-fi and horror.  For horror, I have just now decided upon my Flash Friday submission "Two For Hell."  I really like the style that I used, and I believe this story to be my most terrifying.

To exhibit my ability to work in a group, I have decided to include my proposal as my final portfolio piece (though the actual order I will present the pieces in may be different).  I can't guarantee everything in the proposal is 100% realistic, but I do think that the proposal demonstrates my current knowledge of the publishing industry and my ability to come up with an idea for a novel.

The first three of these pieces will take substantial work.  My latter two fiction pieces will likely stay fairly similar to their original forms, but will definitely get some clean-up.  I would like to preserve the group dynamic of my proposal by keeping the parts my partner wrote fairly close to their "handed-in" form.  The proposal will still need some revisions, I'm sure.  With these six pieces in polished form, I feel confident that my portfolio will be striking.