An Update on MoonPhaze Authors

 Okay, I don’t do this very often, so I hope you’ll bear with me. Things have been busy here, and I thought I would let you sneak a peek into the lives of a pair of authors.

In August, I saw a call for submissions to a themed anthology, with a 30-day deadline. I told my husband, who writes science fiction. I knew he was busy with some of  his hobbies, but I wanted to give him the chance to participate. The first thing I sold was a story to a themed anthology, so I have a bit of a soft spot in my heart for them.

Meanwhile, I tried to think up a plot for a suitable story. It only took me a couple days to realize I had 2 plots! So I wrote both of them. When I asked if they would accept multiple submissions, they said yes, so a few days before the deadline, I sent both of them in.

We are not sitting around, chewing our fingernails and climbing the walls waiting for word on whether or not we were accepted. The contributors do not, generally, make a lot of money from anthologies, but it’s nice to be able to put them on our ‘resume’, so to speak. And yes, we are competing with each other, but I am also competing with myself!

In other news, I recently took an on-line class on how to effectively use Goodreads to let people know about our books. So I have spent some time getting my husband’s books listed on Goodreads, including 2 that have not been published yet, but have been edited and are waiting for the cover to be done. I never imagined how much marketing in involved before the book is published! I had to make an entire new ‘To Do’ list for the Goodreads site, to keep me on track.

I also spent some time this week trying to upload the files for his next book, “De-Evolution” to our printer. They changed the way files are uploaded, so I had to re-learn the entire procedure again. And I’m not done, because somehow I managed to come up with 2 chapter titles for each chapter, so I’m exchanging emails with their support crew, trying to figure out how to eliminate one set of chapter titles, preferably the ones they added.

I should also upload the file for the e-book, but I figure, one problem at a time.

Upcoming books by John Lars Shoberg include “De-Evolution”, with a tentative release date of November 15, 2020 and “The Stone Ship”, with a tentative release date of May 15, 2021, and which is a sequel to his first book (The Stone Builders). Both of these books are currently having the covers done. I have a book, “Hank’s Widow”, tentatively scheduled for release on July 15, 2021. Actually, the author name will be Linda (NMI) Joy, which is my pen name for romances.

And there you have it. In among all the other things in our lives, I have accomplished this in the last couple of weeks, with other on-line seminars on Sunday and next Tuesday. In the meantime, it’s time to start editing yet another of John’s books, “And the Meek Shall Inherit”.

I need clocks that run slower.

Vampires!

Okay, I promised to tell you a bit about the stories I’ve sold (so far) this year. Today I’ll talk about the first one.

I saw a call for submissions for an anthology on vampires. They didn’t want the sparkly kind, they wanted more of the nitty-gritty kind. Now, I like vampires as much as the next person, but I haven’t written a lot of stories about them because I rather thought there wasn’t much more that could be said. Wasn’t it about time for their trendiness to peter out?

However, I did have this one story... so I sent it in, and it was accepted!

The rough draft for this story was written 10 years ago, while the family (including me) was on a week-long Caribbean cruise. Yes, even on vacation, I need to write, and I find time to write. If you see me at a convention - or any place, really - and I’m scribbling in a notebook, I’m probably writing a rough draft. [This can get irritating when I get home, because I know I wrote 5 scenes on this rough draft, but where did I put the notebook?]

There’s also a werewolf in this story. Vampires and werewolves are often paired together, but I don’t have the werewolf subservient to the vampire. In my universe, both of these creatures have been around a VERY long time. The vampire isn’t sure how she became a vampire, and the only werewolf either of them has seen is the one that attacked the current werewolf. Neither of them really fits in with ‘normal’ humans, although they can pass for human. Sometimes they go their separate ways, but more and more, they hang with each other, for decades or centuries at a time.

I’d like to write more stories about Wolfie and Vamps, maybe even a book or two, but so far, they haven’t been loudly demanding my attention. [So many stories, and only 24 hours in a day.]

I understand this 2-volume anthology is scheduled for an October release, maybe for Halloween? I’ve already gone through the editing phase for my story, and I’m anxious to actually see this in print, to hold it in my hands.

Stay tuned for future details on that!

An Author's Mistakes

Authors are people. (All of them I know are, anyway.) People who spend a deal of their time in some world other than 'reality'. So you shouldn't be surprised if they are sometimes confused when trying to deal with the real world. They are bound to make a mistake here or there. Following are some of the more humorous mistakes I have made.

A few years ago, I sent a short story to a magazine for consideration. It was rejected. At that time, I was trying to follow the adage, "When a story is rejected, shove it in a new envelope and send it to the next market." So I shoved it in a new envelope... and sent it right back to THAT magazine. I was so embarrassed a couple days later when I realized what I'd done and had to draft an apology letter to that editor for wasting his time. Oh! Color me blushing! (You know, I'm not sure I've ever sent another story to that magazine for consideration. Maybe I should. You don't think they have my name on some 'Never accept a story by this person' list, do you?)

Later, I saw a call for submissions and thought I had a story that would fit what they wanted, so I went online and got all ready to submit it. But I had to open the file, because I didn't remember how many words it was, and when I opened it, it was all set up for a rewrite! (Draft F, orange 16-pt Franklin Gothic font.) Did it really need a rewrite? I read through it, and only found one word I deleted, so no, probably not. So I changed it into proper manuscript form and sent it off. Can you imagine how embarrassed I'd be if I'd sent it off in a big orange strange font?

And then there was the time my dog ate-- No, wait. That wasn't me. Was it?

I get so confused out here in the big real world!

Excuse me. I'm going back inside one of my universes. If I get confused there, the characters always set me straight.

Intensity

This past week, I learned something about writing I hadn't known before: How intense it can be.

I've been writing a short story to submit for an anthology for the last several weeks. I thought the deadline for submissions was January 15, and I started the story around December 15, so... not a lot of time. But I already had the story and characters in my head, so how hard could it be? I'd just whip that baby out and get it sent.

Have I ever told you I tend to run off at the keyboard? Words can just roll out of my head, down my fingers and onto the screen. And they do like crowds. For instance, this anthology wanted a maximum of 6,000 words. My rough draft was just shy of 15,000 words.

But I wasn't worried, even though I was already into January. I couldn't send it off without at least one re-write, and I always find 'unnecessaries' during re-writes; unnecessary words, phrases, paragraphs, heck, even unnecessary scenes! So, even though I needed to eliminate 3 out of every 5 words, I didn't let myself worry.

During that first re-write, I eliminated 6,000 words, leaving me with just under 3,000 words that still had to come out before I got that story small enough. At this point, a piece of me began to fret. Where could I possibly find that many words to remove and still have a story?

Now that I'm done, I have a theory: Once you eliminate the first layer of 'unnecessaries' (or layer of dirt in your house), your eyes can then see any remaining 'unnecessaries' (or clutter, trash, dirt) that you missed during the first run-through. If you've followed me on facebook these last 2-3 weeks, you'll know that I did get that story trimmed down to just under 6,000 words, and got it submitted on January 15th. (In the meantime, the deadline was pushed to February 15, but that's another story.)

Where does the intensity come in? Actually, it made itself known on the 16th. I got up, had breakfast and went to my computer as usual. As I was considering what chores and projects to tackle, a piece of my brain said, "Pull up that story, I bet we can pull a word or three from-" and I responded with, "No, we're done with that story. It's time to move on." It turned into quite an argument inside my head. I didn't get any work done that day. When I mentioned this internal argument to a friend, she said, "That shows how intense you became with your work on that story.

Intense? Me? Not an adjective I usually apply to myself. Then again, I don't usually have projects with such a tight deadline, either.

It's nice to know that, yes, I've got it in me.

Resolutions vs Goals

Have you made New Year's resolutions yet? If you read my blog last week, you know I've got lots of writing to work on in 2014. I didn't frame them as 'resolutions', because - let's face it - my resolutions last about one week.

Nearly all the blogs I've been reading talked about 'plans for the new year'. Those blogs are not calling them 'resolutions'. I think one called them 'hopes', but that seems nebulous and a source of pressure, so I prefer the term I saw more often: goals.

Resolutions tend to be vague; I'm going to diet, exercise, lose weight and get in shape this year! How do you succeed at that? If next Christmas, you have a piece of pecan pie, have you failed to diet? If you really can't find time to consistently work out, have you failed to exercise? If you only lose 40 of the 100 pounds you wanted to lose, have you failed? If on Jan 1, you can hardly walk from the bedroom to the kitchen, but by Dec 31, you can get all the way to the end of the block and back - even though you're still overweight and you still can't run a marathon - have you failed?

Goals need to be specific AND something that you can control. I'm going to get my first book published! is a resolution. I will continue to send my first manuscript to agents and editors this year sounds more like a goal.

With that in mind, I have started to look at my 'plans' for 2014, and turning them into goals:

·      >  I will lose an average of 1 pound a week through diet and exercise.

·       > Each time a manuscript is rejected, I will immediately send it to another market. (If suggestions were made on how it could be improved, I will take a week to go through and consider those suggestions before sending it out.)

·     >   I will compose 1,000 words per day and edit 1,000 words per day an average of 5 days a week.

·       > I will find opportunities to make personal appearances as an author an average of once a month.

Those are all things I have some control over. They are specific, but flexible. (If I have to arrange 12 appearances next December because I've been lazy and haven't done any all year, that averages to one a month, and I've succeeded.)

Believe it or not, I can do the 3rd one. I am currently writing 3 different projects and editing another. This past couple of weeks (yes, even in the confused haziness of impending Christmas), have been aiming at 1,000 words a day on the project with a short deadline, and about 500 words a day for the other two, then editing 1,000 words in the evening. And I try to work 7 days a week, so if I don't have a great day, I can make up for it.

Are you going to make resolutions? Or set goals? Let me know, and - if you don't mind - tell me just one of yours.

Looking Ahead

Okay, last week I looked back at 2013, so this week I'll try to figure out what I'm going to do in 2014 to get me closer to my goal.

The first thing that comes to mind is I've got to overhaul / reinvent the website. (www.MoonPhazePub.wix.com/MoonPhaze) I can't afford to hire anybody, so it's up to me. I've been gathering notes on what makes a good website, and I have people I can consult for their opinion, so maybe it won't be too bad. Still, it's not my favorite activity, so it will be slow-going.

Hubby and I will be attending the World Science Fiction convention in London, and the European Science Fiction convention in Dublin the following weekend. That has been occupying a lot of my time, trying to figure out the travel arrangements and all that. That long a trip will suck up a lot of our resources, so as far as personal appearances, the 'usual' local conventions may be the only ones I can plan to get to. Still, that doesn't mean I can't schedule some appearances at book stores, libraries or corn fields in the region that I can drive to in a day, so I will be trying to organize some of those.

MoonPhaze Publishing has wanted to print its first hard-copy book. We'll be looking at means of doing it that will not require thousands of dollars up front, like going with POD. Of course, if we happen to find a few thousand dollars to go to a regular printer, we'll switch gears again. In any case, having a paper-back book on hand could make those appearances mentioned in the previous paragraph more enjoyable, both for me and for anybody who attends them.

I've signed up for some classes in leatherwork! In at least two of my universes, I have a segment of the population who work with leather, and this will help me 'identify' with them. Besides, I like to learn new things.

As far as writing, I've got 4 contests/anthologies to submit to during the first 2 months of 2014. It's time for my second novel (romance) to start looking for a home. My third novel needs some rewriting & polishing, the roughs of 2 other novels need to be finished, and I've started a sf novel rough. If I keep finding more contests and anthologies, I should be plenty busy!

Maybe I should get an early start on some of that, don't you think?

2013 Wrap-Up

2013 is not over yet, but this seems a good time to look back at what I have or have not accomplished, before I start making wild plans for next year. Of course, looking back might not keep me from making wild plans...

In 2013, I gave readings at Conquest and OSFest. This was kind of 'dipping my toe in' to see how the water was, and it was this kind of activity that prompted me to join Toastmasters for a couple years, to learn not to freeze up when 'in the spotlight'. Okay, I got some practice at readings.

At Conquest, I also participated in panels. They weren't on my best topics, and I struggled to participate fully. I am not great at 'thinking on my feet' when the thinking involves talking. Now I know to prepare better for panels and work harder to get my 2₵ into the conversation.

OSFest had author tables, and I took a couple stints sitting there. I was not mobbed by fans, but I did have pleasant face-to-face networking time with other authors in those time slots. I learned quite a lot.

In October, we went on a Dr Who cruise, and participated in a writer's workshop. There were 6 people in our group, and we were to write a scene for 2 characters who had never met on screen in Dr Who. Of course, every member of the group had their own idea how the scene should go. Unfortunately, the guidelines kept changing; first we were supposed to do it as a screenplay, up to 5 pages. This was confusing, as the actors were only going to do a reading; no movements, no foley personnel. Then it became prose, no more than 3 pages, which made more sense, but we needed to cut. On top of that, every day that we had to work on this project, there were shore excursions to enjoy! I learned that I don't like writing by committee, and other than this frustration, the cruise was enjoyable.

I accepted the position of editor/copy editor for Class Act Books. I have since edited 1 book for them, copy edited another. I don't mind editing and polishing my own work, but I've discovered it's even easier/more fun to edit somebody else's work ... as long as the material is enjoyable.

Tommee and I, as MoonPhaze Publishing, put out our first western e-story ("Wrangler Required for the Deadfall Saloon", by Michael McGlade, https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/343185, 99₵).

I took a non-credit class from the local community college on how to market your book. It was a 3-hour class, and I felt it needed 3 sessions, not just one. Lots of information, but I'm not sure I caught it all.

As for my own stuff...

Alban Lake is considering my first fantasy novel, which is set in my Atlan universe. At least, I haven't heard that they don't want it, so I'm still hopeful.

I submitted a short for a vampire anthology edited by Carol Hightshoe. She has informed me that she is hanging onto it for further consideration. (Happy Dance!) I've heard that she was holding on to about 53 of the stories that came in as soon as the anthology was announced, and the call for submissions doesn't close until March 2014. Her editor has approved her making it a 2-volumn anthology. So... let's all cross our fingers, okay?

Finding Shiney Bits

I read a lot of newsletters. I mean, a LOT of newsletters. Some are to help me write better, some are about the publishing field in general, some give me lists of potential markets, and some are about marketing.

Unfortunately, when I had my knee replaced this summer, I got behind in that reading. Since then, I have slowly been catching up.

The good thing about being behind is that I can get through them a little faster. Whenever I see a list of classes, I don't check the titles to see if I want to take them, I check the start date. If the classes have already started, I skip the entire list. When I see a contest listed as a potential market, I scan for the deadline. If it's passed, or only a few days in the future, I haven't got a chance of making it, so I skip reading the rules.

The bad thing about being behind is that I miss a lot of opportunities; that class that might have been perfect for me, a contest that was right up my alley. I also feel a bit rushed, because I'm trying to catch up. Is everything I'm reading out of date?

Nope. The information on writing better is still applicable. The insights into the publishing field are still there, can still teach me about How Things Work, rather than me being completely in the dark. These are the Shiney Bits, the reason why I read these newsletters. And I look forward to the day when I catch up and can find even more Shiney Bits in the form of a class to take, a new market to try, a contest I have time to enter.

How about you? Do you find the Shiney Bits in your life before you throw out the dregs you don't want or can't use?

To Format or Not?

There are basic formatting ‘rules’ for manuscripts that please almost all editors and publishers. When I first started writing, in the fourth grade, I paid no attention to them. I was a kid, writing for my own enjoyment.

Through the decades, as I thought about sending my work out, I learned those formatting rules. They’re not difficult to employ; 1 inch margins, double-spaced, 12-pt Times New Roman, with contact information in the top left corner of page 1.

I don’t start a project with those parameters. Rough draft requires imagination, which doesn’t like to be tethered. So my initial drafts have tiny margins, 20 pt font (whichever one I feel like using) in a different pale color for each day’s work, single spaced. To me, that lets the rough draft appear ethereal, not quite set firmly and easily changed.

As I go through 3 rewrites and a polish, the margins get wider, the font gets smaller, a different type & color. When I’ve got most of the knots out of the story, my contact information is put in place, and by the end of the polish, the project is in ‘standard manuscript format’. I can send the project out to find a new home knowing that it will be judged on its merits, not on my inability to follow these standard rules.

Over the years, I’ve wondered why so many market guidelines insist so vehemently that these rules be followed, to the point of spelling them out in their guidelines, possibly several times. Now that Tommee and I have opened our slush pile, I begin to understand.

Our guidelines are minimal; all we list is ‘standard manuscript format’ sent in a .doc or .rtf file. Although we want to find new authors, we thought they would know what we meant, if they had any real interest in becoming published authors. Perhaps we were giving them more credit than they deserved. Some of them, anyway.

The 3^rd or 4^th submission came as a docx file, which meant we had to dig out the laptop to open it. (We normally only use the laptop when we are traveling, because we don’t like the keyboard.) We let that slide, and gave the submission due consideration.

Since then, we’ve had submissions that don’t have any contact information in the file, that are only partially double-spaced, the paragraphs are not consistently indented…. But we want to encourage new authors, so we considered them and included the comments ‘Not in standard format’ and ‘Please include contact information within manuscript file, in case your email gets lost.’ We hope they will learn, otherwise, we are wasting our time making comments.

But some of them are not interested in learning. One responded to our comments, breaking another guideline for new writers; “Do not respond to rejections to argue they made a mistake.” S/he did state that s/he didn’t care a fig about formatting, the fact we responded showed that her/his submitting email had not gotten lost, and that so-and-so liked her/his work.

We are not so-and-so. But we may need to follow the example of so many other publishers and summarily dismiss any submissions that cannot follow our guidelines. We are pondering that idea now.

The Many Hats of a Writer

I’ve been writing stories since the fourth grade, maybe even before that. I read a bunch even as a kid, so I knew that spelling and punctuation were important. It did take me a few years to figure out that rewriting what I first put on the paper was a good idea. All in all, it was fairly easy for me to include the ideas of editor, copy editor and proofreader under the hat of writer.

Then I started trying to get my stuff published, and that brought new hats. I had to research agents and markets. Research and submitting wasn’t a difficult job – portions were similar to my day job – but it did take time away from actually writing, and I had to periodically squash the resentment that cropped up. Still, it needed to be done, so I did it.

Then MoonPhaze started publishing my stories, and I suddenly needed to add a new hat to my wardrobe – marketer.

They tell me there was a time when writers didn’t need to market their own stuff. It’s just another hat for authors to wear these days, and I think a new writer’s success depends a great deal on how good a marketer they are, not how good a writer they are.

I have no background in marketing. I don’t have any idea how to get started in this field. I have read books and blogs by other authors, watched youtube videos on marketing. The youtube videos I’ve watched so far all seem to be ads for companies who want to sell you their services. The books seem to be out of date. The blogs seem to be internet-centric, and want me to spend all my time doing internet things; tweaking my blog site, my website, my pinterest boards, doing the social network thing, tweeting … a whole long list.

Be on my social networks several times a day? I’m not great at small talk, so what do you suggest I say? Especially since this is supposed to be part of my marketing plan. I can’t go on Facebook 3 times a day and just say, “Have you read my latest story yet?” People would quickly unfriend me, and I wouldn’t blame them.

Also, the more time I spend trying to get my name in front of potential readers by tweaking my presence on the internet, the less time I have to write. It seems a vicious circle; if I don’t write, I have nothing to market. If I follow this advice on marketing, I have no time to write, and soon would have nothing to market.

Marketing may be just one more hat for authors to wear these days, but it’s not a hat I care for. Maybe I’ll get used to it, in time.

Over and Over and Over Again

Every time I go to a science fiction convention, I try to attend some panels on writing. It might concern a new idea on how to write a rough draft, or tips on writing a query letter … There are lots of subjects dealing with writing that can be explored.

I have noticed, over the years, that some things get repeated and repeated, like submission guidelines. The speaker(s) start with the basics; the manuscript should be on normal white paper, double-spaced, normal paragraph indentations, the font should be 12 point, probably in a serif-type font like Times New Roman, and your manuscript should be absolutely error-free. Well, as close to error-free as you can possibly get it.

That was pretty much the gist of it 40 years ago, when I first started looking at the possibility of submitting something. Things were done on typewriters back then, so an occasional typo neatly corrected by pen was acceptable.

These days, the editors assume you are working on a computer, and they expect that between your rewrites, spell-checker and self-editing, there won’t be any typos. Many editors also expect you will send your manuscript via email.

For that reason, today’s speakers on how to make submissions go on to say that you should always consult that market’s submissions guidelines, and look for their particular desires in a submission’s formatting. Maybe this editor prefers Helvatica rather than Times New Roman, or wants the entire manuscript submitted in the body of your email, rather than as an attachment.

For many years, I wondered why they kept repeating the same stuff all the time. I had heard it all before, I followed their suggestions, and I always followed the instructions of the market’s guidelines. Why were they pounding on me like this?

Now that I’ve been helping Tommee work through her slush pile, I understand that those speakers were not necessarily speaking to me. The MoonPhaze Publishing submission guidelines (www.MoonPhazePub.wix.com/MoonPhaze) state that manuscripts should be sent as a .doc file (NOT .docx) attached to their email. One day, she got 2 submissions, and neither one was sent as a .doc file! One came as a pdf, the other as a .docx. So much for following the guidelines!

I’ve seen one ‘submission’ that didn’t even follow the basic guidelines for formatting. Instead, it was sent as if it were already a book; single-spaced lines, no contact info, title page and dedication.

So, I’ll still go to these ‘basic submission’ panels, in case changes are introduced. But I will no longer feel they are nagging at me. They harp on these things for the benefit of newer writers, or those writers who think they don’t need to follow a few simple guidelines.

A Writer's Work is Never Done

I’ve talked about my To Do list before. Yeah, yeah, it’s pages long, in part because I have things on it that won’t come due until 2016, when I have a reminder that that’s about as long as we can expect the ‘new’ dishwasher to last. No, it’s not 9-11 pages of things for me to do today. I try to keep the chores for any one day down to a page.

I was looking at some of the chores that had somehow all cropped up on today’s date. Not the housework, not the personal chores, but the ones related (however slightly) to writing. Things like writing this blog, checking out several websites in search of tidbits to improve my writing, reading other people’s blogs about writing and leaving comments, looking for writing seminars, checking out some softwares that others have suggested I try, researching markets, sending out short stories, researching agents and composing queries .… It doesn’t even count actually writing.

Some of those chores I actually did tackle today. Some I put off for another day. I had enough of them all land on today that I could have kept busy for a full 24 hours, if I’d wanted. But I wouldn’t have gotten any actual writing done. And the best part of writing is the writing.

Working at home – and particularly writing – is a delicate balancing act. If you spend all your time writing, there’s no way to know if you are actually any good. If you spend all your time doing the other stuff, you never get anything written. Either way, nobody gets to read your stories.

Also, as a writer, you are supposed to be reading whatever you can get your hands on. This gives your imagination ideas to work with, introduces you to new styles and voices. Lots of reading, in fact, taught me quite a bit about sentence structure, punctuation and other facets of writing. Alas, ‘reading’ is not on my To Do list.

I think I need to fix that.

Best Use of Time

I always run out of time before I reach the end of my daily to do list. Part of the problem is because I don’t really estimate how long it will take to do any particular chore. So if you look at my to do list, it seems like I’m supposed to spend 5 minutes on any one chore. Who can get anything done in 5 minutes?

I don’t estimate because I know from past experience that I have no idea how long it will take to get anything done. Cleaning out my mailbox? Anywhere from 10 minutes to 2 hours or more. Write a blog? It might take me half an hour just to figure out what to write about. And if I’m trying to do something that I haven’t really done before – like figure out how to record and edit a short video, or how to use a new software to create a website – that might take days, or even weeks.

So every evening, before I go to bed, I take a quick look at what’s on the agenda for the next day. If the list is more than a page long, then I try to pare it down. Can some of those items be put off for a day or two, a week? Well, eventually I’ll get to them.

Unfortunately, there are some things that I really should not put off, like feeding the family and doing a bit of housework, taking care of myself. Writing. Submitting. Marketing. I try to get a little of all of that done each day, but it isn’t easy. I just have to figure out how to best make use of my time.

Up, Down and Moving On

The last couple weeks have been like a roller coaster.

First, Tor asked for the full manuscript of my first fantasy novel. Wow, happy dance on the rooftop! /\

Second, a spot check revealed that sections of that manuscript had some weird formatting. Bummer. So I spent a couple days correcting it and wondering what had made portions to go all wonky. It wouldn’t have happened if I’d used a typewriter! Of course, a typewriter wouldn’t have spell-check or text wrap…. I suppose the occasional wonkiness that’s fairly easy to fix is better than all the draw-backs of a typewriter. Sent the manuscript off. -~_~

Third, we received word that my mother-in-law was in the hospital. Always a downer. \/

Fourth – or somewhere in there – the cover for my next e-story was finished and delivered! /\ Thank you, Mason!

Fifth, Tor decided my novel wasn’t quite right for them. \/ (Sniff.) But they did have nice things to say about my writing. ~

Sixth, MoonPhaze Publishing informed me they had uploaded my next e-story, The Cave, to smashwords.com. Hot Diggity! /\

Of course, this leaves me with plenty of ‘stuff to do’. Marketing, marketing, marketing leads the list, but I still have to deal with #5. Where do I submit this fantasy now? For the record, that makes Baen, Daw, and Tor who have passed on it, and I don’t know of any other ‘big’ publishers who still have an open slush pile. Before that, I spent 3-4 years looking for an agent, but nobody I was interested in working with fell in love with my concept. Do I go back to looking for an agent? No, probably not, because now I’ve made their job harder by submitting it myself.

Do I ask MoonPhaze Publishing to take it on? I could, and if they had more experience, I would definitely consider it. But they aren’t quite ready for a novel, and I’d like to work with a larger press. If not one of the big guys, then a company somewhat smaller. Anybody got any suggestions? In case you’re wondering, my fantasy novel is set on the Atlan world, the same world I’ve used for the stories that MoonPhaze Publishing has put out, but it doesn’t have the same characters.

Oh, yes. Seventh, I have been scheduled for a reading at 4 PM on Saturday, April 14, at Constellation in Lincoln NE. /\ Woohoo! Come and hear about the Atlans!

How Fast Can You Write?

First, everybody cross your fingers! I sent my romantic fantasy adventure manuscript to DAW on Friday, right before we headed for DemiCon in Des Moines!

At one of the writing panels I attended at Demicon, one author admitted that she had completed her latest manuscript (her 7th) in about 7, or maybe 8, weeks. She had to; she had a deadline to meet. Her first manuscript had taken her a year to complete. Later comments centered on how many books one had to have published each year in order to ‘make a living’ at writing. There were a lot of variables in there to be considered, but I found myself wondering about my speed of writing.

Gay Haldeman often advises aspiring writers to write ‘a page a day’, and that way, by the end of a year, they would have 365 pages written. Good advice for those just getting started, but I am a little bit beyond that stage. Once I’ve written the first version, I will rewrite and polish, so that I wind up with about 5 drafts of the same story. And I also let the story ‘rest’ for a time between rewrites, which is why I have more than one project in the works at a time. But basically, I wondered, how quickly could I finish one book?

I decided to set my sights on 1,000 words per day, which is actually about 2 pages (single-spaced). In one year, I could write 365,000 words. Would that produce a book a year? I considered my first manuscript’s statistics:
Outline = 1,000 words = 1 day
Rough Draft = 120,000 words = 120 days
Draft A = 150,000 words = 150 days
Draft B = 130,000 words = 130 days
Draft C = 110,000 words = 110 days
Final Draft = 100,000 words = 100 days

Which comes to a grand total of 611 days. Uh, oh, that’s definitely more than one year. Now, theoretically, rewriting will go faster than composing the rough draft, because you aren’t dreaming up new stuff, you are looking for ways to say things better than you originally said it. But at first glance, I need to step up my efforts, if I ever want to reach the point where my work is frequently placed in front of potential readers.

With that in mind, I’d better get back to work. See ya next week. Trudy

Where to Submit Your Efforts

I just got back from Constellation, an sf convention in Lincoln NE. This was its first year, and it was a small and intimate convention. There was one editor there, Tyree Campbell of Sam’s Dot Publishing. I’ve talked to Tyree many times, at many conventions over the years. This time, he turned to me and asked, “How come you’ve never submitted anything to me?”

Caught off guard, I decided truth was the best policy, so I smiled and said, “I haven’t worked my way down to you.” Then I explained that I start by sending my stories to ‘the Big Boys’, and work my way down to the smaller markets. He agreed that in general, that was a good idea.

As we continued our conversation, I lamented that I had written a novella two years ago and submitted it to an anthology. I had come ‘that close’ to being accepted, but in the end, they had declined my piece. In two years, I had not found another market where I could submit that novella. “Send it to me!” Tyree declared.

Yes, he was full of surprises this weekend. I wasn’t surprised by the idea that Sam’s Dot might use a novella. But it’s a rather unusual genre, one I didn’t think much of anybody published.

Anyway, I’m excited. And hopeful. And a little stunned. I certainly had never thought I’d find an opportunity like that at a small local convention. But I’m not going to ignore it. And if you find yourself face-to-face with a similar opportunity, I hope you won’t ignore it.

See ya next week. Trudy

Peek a Boo

I've been doing some critiquing for an on-line critique group I belong to, and this story is about to make me pull out my hair. It looks like a rough draft; incorrect punctuation, strange sentence construction, incorrect use of pronouns, wandering verb tense ... The list goes on and on. To my mind, this story isn't ready for a critique.
I understand that sometimes people want to get someone's opinion about whether a story idea is viable. Fine. Get a friend to read it for a general impression. But don't waste the time of a critiquer on a rough draft.
In my mind, a critique will point out blunders you haven't noticed as you've tried to craft this story, and some of those blunders might be huge, while others are really tiny. But when you send out something with lots and lots of grammatical errors that you couldn't be bothered to fix, you are wasting their time, as they attempt to find a tactful way to tell you to clean up your manuscript. You have to clean up all those punctuation and verb tense problems anyway, so why not look like you are at least trying to do a professional job?
Like all those other writers who are taking the time to critique your work for you, I would really rather spend that extra 5 or 10 minutes working on my own story. I don't mind helping a fellow writer, if that writer seems willing to do a re-write by hunting down and correcting what mistakes he/she can find without my help. Think of it as a quest to turn out a perfect manuscript. If you can do that much for a critiquer, you are that much closer to having a manuscript that's ready to be seen by an editor.
My husband has joined me on vacation, so now it's two of us cramming blog posts into our occasional visits to the local bookstore with free wifi. Still, it wasn't bad this time. See ya next week.
Trudy

What Day is This?

I used to go the library to do my research. Now I use the internet, like most everybody. It makes life a little more complicated, because you have to be careful of your source. Previously, if your information came from a book, you could be fairly certain the information was accurate. These days, anybody can put something on the internet and claim it's a fact. There's nobody checking to be sure of that.

There's something else missing from too many websites: a timestamp. For instance:

Yesterday, I caught a glimpse of a smartcar on the streets of Omaha. I came home to look them up – okay, I'm looking for a new car, but I didn't say all my research was for my stories. Anyway, the first website I came to was somebody's blog, where I learned that smartcars are made by Mercedes, but they aren't available in the US because they don't fit Mercedes' image of luxury here. Huh? I kind of figure Omaha is a few years behind the rest of the US, not ahead. I looked all over that page, looking for some clue when that page was published, but couldn't find anything.

Since then, I've discovered that smartcars have been sold in the US for 2 years. There's even a dealership in Omaha, so I guess maybe we aren't far behind the rest of the US. But if I hadn't actually SEEN a smartcar on the street, that first webpage would have misled me.

Webpages have misled me before. I submitted to a publisher based on their submissions guidelines. There was no date on those guidelines, but it's pretty normal, so I didn't let that dissuade me. I waited for a response. And I waited. And waited. Well past what they said their turn around time was, I queried to see if they'd ever received my submission. Then I waited. And waited. Still no answer. I don't know if this publisher is still in business or not. Nothing ever changed on their website that I noticed. Based on this, I really feel that even agents and publishing houses need to put a timestamp on their webpages, even if nothing changes. How hard can it be to add the line, "This information good as of {date}"? And then – if nothing changes before then – have the webmaster change the date every January?

Writing is full of enough frustration without adding that we never hear back from people we had no clue had gone out of business.

See ya next week. Trudy

Move Along

One of the pieces of advice given to (new) writers is to not stop writing just because you got a piece done. As you look for a home for that short, or novel, or whatever, you start a new one. And then another. You keep working.

It can be frustrating. In my case, I have 5 shorts out looking for a home, another 11 ready to go out into the world, 9 in various stages of rewrite, and some 2 dozen waiting to be drafted. Of course, some stories never sell, or don't sell right away. One of the shorts that's in the 'waiting' stack has already visited all the obvious markets. Maybe it will find a home someday. Maybe I will have to chalk that one up as a learning experience, part of me 'paying my dues', and give it a home in the back of a drawer.

It's the same with novels, I suppose. My first novel has been trying to find a home for a couple years. My second is in the polish stage, so now as I look for an agent for the first, I'm also starting to consider the possibility of sending a query for my second book.

Meanwhile, I keep drafting, re-writing and polishing. I can't just stop. Maybe I'm still learning, and that's why things haven't started to sell yet. If I gave up, I'd never get there.

I can't be a quitter. See you next week. Trudy

Only the Best

I was reading newsletters this morning, sorting through contests, calls for submissions, market listings and so on. As I looked for the ones that might interest me, I was struck by how many of these listings flatly stated, "Send us your best work."

Okay, if I were going to follow those instructions literally, each of these places would only get one piece of work from me, they would all get the same piece, and they wouldn't get it until after I died … or at least gave up writing completely. 'Best' by definition can only be applied to one.

Surely that isn't what they meant. I think what they probably mean is that whatever piece of work I send them should be the best piece of work I can make it.

That's almost insulting. I work hard at writing. I review grammar rules, study the craft, carefully consider my options when I'm rewriting a piece. Any time I send in a submission, the piece IS the best I can make it at that time.

Of course, I'm not the only one sending submissions. Maybe others aren't as careful as I am. Maybe they haven't learned as much about the craft as I have, and they are still making mistakes I have learned not to make. And, maybe I'm still making mistakes that I haven't yet learned not to make.

One thing I have learned is to be careful which word I use and how I phrase what I want to say. It is so easy to have a sentence or phrase say something that isn't exactly what I wanted. I know better than to say that I have two pieces of work, each of which is my 'best'. Each of them are the best I can make them at the time.

So make your best effort with each of your stories. Be careful what you say. I'll be back next week. Trudy