December 2016 and year end wrap up

Well, 2016, I hope you're happy with yourself. What a year. Everybody knows what I mean so we won't get into that because I don't want to and you can't make me.

So let's talk about writing! On January 1 of this year, I talked about my goals for 2016. I did not do the Book Riot Read Harder challenge, and actually only read 14 books this year. Lots of short stories, though. So I've got a goal related to that for 2017 that I'll squeeze another blog post out of.

March 2016 goals roundup

As of this writing, I'm up to 6 completed first drafts in 2016. I finished two more stories in March (one on the very last day of March), and have submitted one of  my January stories. There's at least one other I think may be close to ready for its first foray into the world. Or I should let it sit longer, read it again, work on it a little more. I think I'm in the habit of jumping the gun.

I've received a query rejection and two short story rejections last month. I have a number of short stories out (11? I think it's 11) and the wait is starting to really grind on me. It does that; I agree with Tom Petty, waiting is the hardest part. Same with queries. I haven't sent out any new ones in awhile, and I'll  probably work on revision pretty soon. Not now, though.

I've completed all my edits (I think) for the Mosaics 2 anthology. I've written my author bio and my story blurb, and even got an author photo I don't hate with my lovely coworker's help. 

I've begun my "Untitled April 2016" #CampNaNoWriMo project. It's something to do with the Westward Expansion in America, sequoia trees, mysticism, and dragons. I'm aiming for novella-ish length, 25k words, and from there I can either pare down to acceptable lengths for magazines, or expand into a more substantial novel length. I've actually  made a gesture at outlining, which really was more of a list of "this happens. Why?" "this character. What do they want?" Which is a kind of goal-oriented focus I don't always have when writing a story.

I will probably also be working on at least one short story this month, because it seems like I always need at least one alternate project to give my "main" project breathing room. The writing workshop at the library tends to give me a lot of story stubs which can be polished and expanded, and it will likely be one of those that I complete. Or maybe not. I've got some ideas floating, some with a few sentences written. Overall, I feel like my writing is in a pretty good place. I'm glad I've set this "at least one story a month" goal.

February 2016 goals roundup

Well, it's March already. How'd that happen?

In February, I wrote not 1 but 2 first drafts. And already wrote March's story. So I'm up to having written 4 new stories this year, one story ahead of goal. Plus, the writing workshop I run at the library has started again, and I wrote what might be the beginning of a longer piece, or might be a "finished" flash piece. So we'll see how I feel about that. When I look it over after it has some time to cure.

I've read 4 more books, with the 5th drawing to a close. I of course have more in the "To Be Read" pile. I always have more in the To Be Read pile.

I have not worked more on any of my novels. I had an irritating setback where Open Office decided the document was "locked" at one point, and so a full day's worth of edits were lost.

I have not sent out more queries for The Last Song. My other full request came back as a Revise and Resubmit, so I'm going to let that mull over while I wait to hear back on the other queries. The comments were good and make sense, but I don't want to plunge hastily into anything.

Spacing Out

I discussed my latest science fiction inspiration last week. Untitled as yet, though I do have a main character in mind. I haven't started writing yet, not really. I've got a file of collected sentence fragments; world building, I suppose. Of course, this is research for two space/scifi/moon novels at once. There's a lot of moons, did you know that? Ours, obviously. But

Much like how I intend all of my urban fantasy books to take place "in the same world", whether they're cognizant of if or not, I also intend for my space scifi to take place in its own world. I'm not entirely sure I want these two worlds to be the same. Werewolves in space may not be my thing, savvy? Or, it might be just what we need. Hrm. But I digress. I have to build the culture, and the history, of how my humanity has become spacefaring. I need to decide what's run of the mill for them, and what's out of the ordinary. So I need to build a timeline, and to build a timeline, I need to know what the "real" one is, from V2 rockets on up.

 

(the Apollo 17 Lunar Roving Vehicle)

Something to aspire to

So Janet Reid, from whom much literary wisdom flows, posted about Michael Seese. He's a writer who just spent all of October submitting a story or poem or something each day. Which is awesome.

See, if you want to get published, it isn't enough just to write. This is a grave disappointment that each of us reaches at some point in our, er, "development". As I commented on Ms. Reid's post, nobody's going to do this for me. It isn't like Emily of New Moon by L.M. Montgomery where her Uncle Jimsy finds her trunked manuscript, thinks it's good, and sends it off to a publisher who accepts it right off and BAM Emily is successfully published. She's one of my favorite L.M. Montgomery characters and, unlike the Anne books, the Emily books are only a trilogy.

So. We write but it isn't enough. We much write and spit shine and sand edges and shellack and polish. Then, we must write the Dreaded Query Letter™, which must be hooky and snappy and explanatory and not clichè unless it's just the right kind, and which must be a distilled 250 word form of mind control to make somebody want to read your pages. And request your full. Then talk contract. Then sign. Then send it around to publishers. The Dreaded Synopsis™ is in there somewhere too (and I need to write one for Learn to Howl come December, if I'm going to make the Angry Robot Books open submissions deadline).

So it's important to get your work out there. Get eyes on it (or ears on it, as I did last week with the help of my friend Jacob Burgess). Write, write, edit, write, and submit. Since I just received a rejection from Glimmer Train, I looked the story over again, edited it a bit more, and sent it off to Agni. I sent another one to Lakeside Circus, which is published by Dagan Books (I actually almost sent this one to Strange Horizons, then realized I'd already received that particular rejection from them. It pays to keep a spreadsheet for your submissions and rejections, kiddies!).

I don't have 31 spit-shined works of fiction to sub so I can do 1 a day for a month, but I've been poking around in my "Writing" folders, looking at what I thought was finished, what I know isn't finished, and all of those irritating files I have which are only a couple of sentences and were clearly meant to go in a direction at one time. I have stuff I can work with, and stuff I need to "bring up to code", as it were (removing 'that' whenever possible, that kind of thing). It's funny how organic a process writing is, how things change shape even as you're doing them.