abracanabra | Entries tagged with submissions

Circus of Brass and Bone Writing Log

New words: 437
Total words: 28,290
Overused word: money
Gratuitous reference: Sears catalog
Type of scene: Fiscally fun.
Challenge(s): Keeping up with the bits and pieces filtering into my brain.
Which line is it anyways?"Food?" the old man squawked. "How do I know what a potato's worth? How much 'change' do I give back for a chicken? Half an egg!?"
Researched: Sears catalog.
Notes: I love the thing that sometimes happens when writing, when you're just watching a movie in your brain and trying to describe it properly.
Other writingy stuff:
* Belatedly responded to acceptance of "The Perfect Costume" by Best New Vampire Tales. Bad email inbox, eating emails! Feel pretty bad about that.
* Processed "The Perfect Costume" acceptance and posted updates in various places.
* Did the publicity work for "The Radiator Burped" in Northern Lights. Important to do for every story!
* Recorded intro for the MinnSpec podcast.
* Processed Flash Me's release of "Gone Huntin'" (magazine on indefinite hiatus).
* Submitted "Alien/Whore/Mother" to the Baen's Universe Annex. Woot!
* Checked Escape Pod response times and 3+ months are not uncommon. Shouldn't query quite yet. ::drums fingers::
* Checked status of Dead Bells anthology, and it looks like there's an editing schedule, so that project is still in the works.

11/30/2009 - Monday, full day at job
* How to respond to a manuscript critique/editorial letter: http://blog.nathanbransford.com/2009/11/how-to-respond-to-manuscript.html

11/29/2009 - Sunday
* Read Duotrope and Critters newsletters and updated market list from them.
* Filled out questionnaire for Spec the Halls listing at Ralan.
* Updated bibliography document to add recent sales "Salvaging Scottwell" and "Missing You In Pieces," processed submission and document tracking spreadsheets, and updated Critters bio, LJ profiles,

penthius freewriting entries, Facebook profile, website bio and bibliography sections. Every writer should keep a list of where to update when stories get accepted/published.
* Processed "Haunts of Hill Crossing" form letter rejection from Way of the Wizard Anthology (and by extension F&SF Magazine).
* Updated submission order for "Haunts of Hill Crossing" and submitted to Fantasy Magazine. Marveled at their submission process and stated turnaround time.
* Updated submission order for "A Phoenix By Any Other Name" and submitted to Short-Story.me!
* Emailed market that hadn't yet responded to a March submission, withdrawing "Demons of Disease" from consideration. Updated submission order and sent to the Timelines Anthology. Hope that cryogenic freezing counts as time-travel. Processed receipt acknowledgment.
* Updated status of "They'll Seal Any Leak, Guaranteed!" I'm so bad at processing ones that are "we'll tell you by X if we want it--otherwise you won't hear from us" but I was worried I'd have to start submitting out my literary stories. Shudder.
* Posted writing log.
* Did NanoWriMo--and I'm not too happy with how that experiment is working out. Will have to do massive rewrite and am not even done with the story yet.

09:48 Had a long, involved dream about the difficulty of getting fried chicken from a dollar store/deli. Also, visited a gansta woot.com shirt ... #
14:50 My fluorescent lightbulb is flickering. That can't be good. #
14:51 Woo, it just moved on to strobing. Turning it off now. #
15:42 Submitting "Serenade of Blood & Silver" out again scares me. Therefor, that is what I should do next. #
16:30 Midtown Global Market sells pocky FOR MEN. Manly men. That's why it's bittersweet chocolate. #
16:32 Someday I should make a gift basket that is all "FOR MEN" products. Pocky, deodorant, lover's tea, aftershave, etc. #
20:44 Watched Timberwolves game. Was fun. Learned valuable lesson: don't eat the hamburgers or the Itsy-bits. Ugh. #

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23:58 Note to self: Don't read horrible news before bed. Especially not if somebody else linked to it by saying it was the most terrible thing ... #
10:32 Good Lord. Phil claims to still be drunk from last night, & I believe him. #
11:55 French toast for brunch, coconut chai for working on writing stuff. Not usually a fan of coconut, but it's not bad. #
12:27 Updating my SF/F market listings spreadsheet. #
13:58 Looks like they're finally cleaning out the abandoned house next door. Neighbors soon? #
14:24 Just submitted a story to a furry publication. Ah, the strange places writers go to sell a story. #
16:39 Dear editors, Only responding if you want something, not if you don't? Not cool. <3 Me & all other writers. #
16:52 Now the unfun of figuring out where to submit a literary short story. I'm grounded in spec-fic markets--got no clue otherwise. #
18:42 Whew! All ready-for-submission short stories are now OUT. #
19:04 Writing work done, now for knee exercises while watching Deadwood. #

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Ngh. It's been a "productive" (for maintenance-type writing chores) yet frustrating writing day. My mind starts going elliptical after staring at writer's guidelines for a certain amount of time.

Particularly for certain stories, in whose direction I'm ready to throw my hands up and shout, "Fine! Everybody I know who read you, liked you and thought you were funny. But you are such a peculiar mess that no editor is willing to love you. And I cannot bring myself to make another revision that wouldn't change anything anyway. I release you into the ether!"

But I can't do that. Because I will scrape and scrape and scratch until I find a place for all my stories, even the ill-fitting ones. This may be a mistake, but I just can't let them go. I have a half-written story that just didn't work the way I wanted to, and it still haunts me. I hear it rustling in the filing cabinet late at night when I can't sleep.

Also, I'm busy pondering iron dragons, pneumatic knights, and mechanic princesses. I think I'll be writing a story to submit to the Magic & Mechanica anthology. I'm not at all sure it's a good story idea, but I was browsing around to figure out what to write next, and I usually start with checking the anthology listings to see if I have a story idea that would fit one. Well, the idea I was thinking of didn't, not really, but the guidelines got me thinking. That's always dangerous. Now it will nag at me until I write it. Deadline's not that far off, either, to make it all worse.

In more good news/bad news, the ongoing project at Job #1 is over, which means no current time demands from them. And Job #2 has not seen fit to mention whether they'll be needing/wanting more hours from me, so I'm torn as to how much I should try and get whatever's there at Job #1, because that can lead to unpleasant things.

Well, I think the Mad Scientist bought a lottery ticket recently....

Talking about Serenade of Blood & Silver, I just wrote:

"The Western flavor of the novel can be compared in some respects to Stephen King's Dark Tower series, while the tribal African influences are similar to those in Octavia Butler's body of work."

*looks around for lightning waiting to strike her*

They're fair comparisons, and I can't think of any lesser ones--the fantasy/sci-fi market isn't exactly teeming with Old West/tribal African stories...but it feels terribly presumptuous.

Still, everybody advises using comparisons to sell your book, if you can figure out accurate ones.

Things I had to google in order to complete my short story submission:
1. the name of the fiction editor, in order to determine the gender-appropriate salutation (as one who is still occasionally addressed in correspondence as "Mr. Staffin Wiebe," I take pains to get this right).
2. the date of solstices and equinoxes, in order to determine when I should query to find out the status of my story submission.

That seems to be all that people are telling me about my writing lately. They want more. They want it bigger and more expanded. They want to spend more time in my worlds. They want to ride beside my characters a little longer. In some ways, this is a good thing. They liked it! In some ways, it is a pain in my ass.

You see, there are two kinds of writers in this world. There are the taker-outers and the putter-inners. I am a taker-outer. When I'm editing a story I wrote, I'm not adding things. I'm getting rid of crap that didn't need to be there. I'm yanking out the fluff. I'm ruthlessly killing extraneous characters.

I'm not good at putting more back into the story (I flatter myself that I've become pretty whiz-bang at rewriting beginnings, though). I will stare stupidly at the story for hours, stammering, "But...but...what can I add?"

I had so many damn critiquers saying that they wanted to read more about the characters in "The Unkindness of Ravens." Many of them said I should expand it into a novel (at which suggestion I screamed and cowered in the corner).

My face-to-face writing group (just starting up, looking for members in the Minneapolis area) workshopped a non-genre short story of mine called "Out of Focus." One of the main comments? They wanted to be able to savor things unfolding a bit more. Their suggestions would have it expanding another fifty percent.

Then, today, I got a sort-of rejection that read as follows:
We really enjoyed your story, X. However, it was a little too short. If you have a longer, more developed version of the story, or would like to add a little to it, we would encourage you to resubmit it!

Narf.

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