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.

Practice What You Preach

I read several newsletters and blogs to learn how to write better; how to open a novel and grab the reader, how to involve all the senses, ... that sort of thing. One of the first things I was taught was that your first draft is not your last draft. (Took me a lo-o-ong time to learn that lesson.)

Your first draft is where you get the basic ideas out of your head and onto paper - or computer file, or whatever. Then you spend time going through that project a few times to add descriptions, select a more precise verb, make sure the reader understands what you intended to say.

And then, you polish it.

Remember back in school, when you learned about subjects, verbs, direct objects, punctuation, and all of that? That's the stuff a writer worries about in the final polish. Because as a writer, you want others to see your work in its best condition. If your work is full of misspelled words, incorrect choice of pronouns, and 'sentences' that don't make sense because you forgot your punctuation, the readers won't be able to understand what your are trying to say.

I understand that bloggers and newsletter editors have a limited amount of time, but this is a very important part of writing. Unfortunately, not every writer remembers that before they post their blog or article. And I have found some that I am thinking of not following anymore because I have to work so hard to figure out what they are trying to say. Repeated words. Extra pronouns from when they rewrote the sentence, but didn't get it completely cleaned up. Missing commas that - if they were there - would tell the reader 'I've finished that thought, now I'm moving on.'

It's sad when a group of people manage to forget the lingual necessities that they continually remind each other are so important. I hope I never get that sloppy with my blogs. If you catch me at it, feel free to call me out about it.

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.

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.

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

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

Submission Guesses

I was doing some research yesterday on the internet. Everybody talks about how easy that is, but sometimes it isn't. Either the exact information you're looking for isn't where you think it should be, or you get distracted by other interesting information you weren't actually looking for. Both happened to me yesterday.

It can be a good thing, to get distracted. You learn things you didn't know, have your mind set or imagination challenged. Yesterday, I wound up on the SFWA website, and – unable to find the statistics I wanted – I got distracted by some blogs, including one by Elizabeth Moon.

Moon described a common transition many authors go through, starting with the desire to be an author, moving through the dream of being an author until they actually knuckle down and start doing the work necessary to become a published author. It's a transition I'm familiar with; I'm still going through it myself.

I've made a lot of progress over the years, but there are times when uncertainty gets the better of me. Even at that time, I keep writing, re-writing and polishing, but I get stuck at sending out submissions. I'm not even sure it's fear of rejection; I just figure that story didn't fit their needs at that moment and keep going. It's more an uncertainty that I'm not 'shooting myself in the foot'. Is this story a good fit for that market? If this agent or editor says s/he likes fantasy, does that mean dragons and elves or something more like Conan? Or something else entirely?

Submission guidelines help. At least I don't send my fantasy novel to an agent who has no interest in fantasy. But guidelines have no choice but to be rather open. If an agent doesn't like fantasy, s/he don't want everybody sending stories about elves and dragons. However, dragons in space, or a western where the cattle rustlers turn out to be a dragon just might grab their enthusiasm. So, as an author, I have to balance what they say they want/don't want against what I've got to offer. And there's always the chance I've guessed wrong. Since I don't personally know that editor or agent, there's a really good chance I've guess wrong.

So, every once in a while I start floundering, wondering if all my guesses are wrong. I don't know what I could do differently, and so – for a time – I wind up doing nothing, so far as submissions are concerned. But that doesn't get me anywhere, so eventually, I have to push my uncertainties way down inside and send out submissions again. All I can do is give it my best guess.

See ya next week. Trudy

The Uncertainty of Submitting

I was going to discuss commas again today, but I sent off two queries last night, and I'm filled with worry. Did I follow the instructions well enough? Hard to tell.

Some markets have definite expectations of your submission, and they spell them out in great detail: double-spaced, 1-inch margins, font should be 12-point Times New Roman, scene divider should be…

And other market guidelines are less clear. Like I said, I submitted to two last night, but the guidelines were not the clearest.

The first was for an anthology I had heard about from one of my newsletters. The description in that newsletter was so 'complete', I started to write the story without checking out the original call for submissions. Silly me. I do find, in my notes, comments from the editors that I added later, so I must have checked out the website, right? Strangely, when I went to submit that story last night, the website I had in my notes took me to a sign-in page for a blog. I had to go to Ralan's List, find the listing for the anthology, get the e-address for the editors, and send my submission that way. So, I'm not filled with confidence that I've fulfilled their expectations for submitting a story.

The second was a novelette I've been looking to place for some time. It had made it to the 'finals' for another anthology, but otherwise, it's difficult to find a home for this length of work. I had begun to look at e-book publishers, since they don't always need as many words as hard-copy publishers. Somehow, I found my way to the website of a small hard-copy publisher, who had several anthologies in the works. That looked promising, so I began to look for submission guidelines. All their guidelines were for books. There were no guidelines for submitting to one of the anthologies. So, once again, I took a wild guess what would do the trick, and I sent it in. Lack of confidence overwhelmed me.

Editors keep telling us writers we should 'follow the guidelines.' I want to. I try to. I want to do whatever will help them find my work worthy of their time. I just wish they'd meet me half way and not leave me guessing what their guidelines are. If they have 3 or 4 screen-lengths of information on how to submit a novel, but they also have anthologies they are trying to fill, couldn't they at least include 2 lines on how to query or submit for those anthologies?

Well, I did what I could. All I can do now – for those 2 pieces – is to sit tight and hope I came close enough to what the editors wanted that they will at least consider my work. Time to move on to a new short. Have to keep busy!

See you next week. Trudy