One of the things I’ve come up against, as a writer who wants to be a part of the writing community, is sharing manuscripts — electronically.
I don’t like doing it. I even feel weird doing it. I’ve only been willing to do it with my writing group and a select group of friends so far… but strangers on the internet?
NaNoWriMo is going to be a new frontier in this internal debate that’s taking place in my brain. As part of NaNoWriMo, a lot of people like to share ideas and review each others’ work. I love sharing work and being part of communities — I just don’t like the electronic aspect of it, especially when it comes to complete strangers.
One side of my brain is saying they’re my peeps, fellow aspiring authors, and that I need to trust them and share… and the other half of my brain is saying, “they’re strangers on the internet!”
Don’t get me wrong — I don’t think I’m the next JK Rowling or Steven King, but when you spend a lot of time writing something, it becomes your baby.
And we all get overprotective of our babies, at least at first.
We all hear all kinds of different plagiarism horror stories throughout our life, and I’ve always taken these issues very seriously. But those are all anecdotes, and not grounded in don’t-share-your-manuscript-electronically studies.
I’d love to figure out how to reconcile these competing thoughts in my brain — my love for community, but fear of electronic sharing. My first thought is to do some writing in local libraries that host NaNoWriMo events, meeting people personally — and take it from there.
So, what do people think? Am I right to not want to share electronic copies, or do I have to stop being a helicopter parent over my manuscripts — and let those babies fly away, so more people can read them?
I think I’m going to try to take on NaNoWriMo this year — the National Novel Writing Month.
It’s a challenge for writers to write a 50,000+ word first draft of a novel over the course of November.
50,000 words is about 150 pages in 30 days, which amounts to about 5 pages a day, which is about what I’ll generally write in an evening.
Have I written at that pace for 30+ days before? Yes, definitely. I wrote my first novel over 2-3 month-long spurts over the course of a year or so, and that was 115,000 words.
That said, part of NaNoWriMo is having a complete first draft — not just 50,000 words. Most novels are considerably longer than that, especially those aimed at adult audiences or young adult. If I write Adult or YA Sci Fi/Fantasy, that’s closer to 300 pages in 30 days, or 10 pages a day — YA a little less, adult a little more.
I’m not sure I like my chances of sustaining 10 pages a day over 30 days, so I’m leaning toward writing something for a younger audience.
NaNoWriMo will create another big challenge, though — getting ready for it.
I have 4 submission deadlines I’ve written drafts for, that I need to finish up and send out between the end of October and the end of the year. Some of these will be more work than others, but most will require at least a few evenings.
I have another story with I’ve started a draft for that isn’t finished yet. That one’s not due until the end of the year, but I don’t want to go into December exhausted from NaNoWriMo without a finished first draft.
Then, after all that’s done, I’ll have to invest serious and quick effort into getting ready for NaNoWriMo, creating my characters and at least some kind of outline for the plot. Writing 50,000+ words is one thing, but writing it without having at least some basic understanding of my characters and plots is another, and potentially a big waste of time.
So, there’s a lot to do and a lot to think about, but I’m excited about the challenge. If I can get a firm idea down, I think I can get it done without real life getting in the way.
If you’re taking on NaNoWriMo, feel free to say hello and add me as a buddy.
It’s from a snapshot I took at The Submission Grinder, a site where writers keep track of their short story submissions.
Usually rejections come out in a trickle, with a wide assortment listed on The Submission Grinder’s main page at any given time. Yet, today Interfictions really unleashed the kraken, gobbling up almost all the space on The Grinder’s front-page while they were at it.
It’s no shock that they rejected many, many stories for their upcoming issue — it’s a great venue, only open a couple times a year.
It was only a surprise, to me, that so many came out all at once.
And since I can sometimes have a dark sense of humor, I got a huge kick out of it.
One of the things you quickly learn about the submission process is that you need a way to deal with rejections — and humor can be a great approach.
Maybe I’m weird, but it’s one of my ways. Being able to laugh at yet another rejection is better than getting upset or frustrated by it, since being upset and frustrated isn’t conducive to writing — but laughing is a wonderful fuel.
For anyone who can’t find the humor, though, just remember: Sending out submissions isn’t a rejection process. It’s an acceptance process. Having your story rejected doesn’t mean you, personally, failed. It just means some other people had a story that, for any number of reasons, was a better fit.
I hope people out there will, like me, keep at it. Keep writing the very best stories you can, and improving your craft along the way. You are my competitors, but I want my story to get accepted because it’s the best — not because people felt frustrated and gave up.
Rejection is only a failure if you stop writing, and the only story that can never get accepted is the one that’s never submitted.
So, thank you, Interfictions, for allowing me to be a part of your Bloody Friday. I look forward to your next submission period.
Here’s what I imagine is a common, painful dilemma for any short story writer.
I have a story I started a while ago, then got stuck at for a long time. It was one of the more action-packed, plot-focused shorts I’ve written. Most of my stories are more character-driven thinking pieces, so the fact that I wrote this story, with this world, was a pleasant surprise.
But I couldn’t finish it — and sat on it for way longer than I’d care to admit, even if I was about 75% done. I tried to finish it on numerous occasions, but kept getting tripped up. I just couldn’t bridge the scene I was stuck on to the ending.
I recently came back to it and skipped the scene I was having trouble with. I decided my real problem was the ending, so I wrote that, hoping the bridge would come to me.
It did, but now I have a new problem.
Word count.
The ending I wrote was more intricate and way longer than I thought it would be. It’s in a good way, giving the story some of the pieces it was really missing before — missing pieces I didn’t see.
It made my story better, but now I’m at that nearly-a-novelette bubble that’s difficult to publish, without a whole ton I could cut (and I can be a merciless cutter when I want to be).
Part of me thinks I should flesh it out a little more and turn it into a novelette. It would be no easier to publish, but maybe worth it if I’m on the cusp of a novelette anyway.
But then I had an even crazier idea…. is this secretly a novella or a novel?
I have to figure that out. I love the world and the characters, and there’s a lot more that they could do and explore…. so it’s a difficult choice.
I didn’t expect that this would be the story to do this to me… but it did, and I love that it did, even if it’s causing me problems and sucking up way more time than I’d like.
I think it’s worth it. Ultimately, this is a good problem to have.
We’ll see where it goes. I’m going to polish it as a short story first, then reassess.
For my tenth post, I thought I’d do something different and list all my current submissions, along with why I sent them to the particular magazine in the first place. Hopefully this should give a little insight into the thought process behind where people should send their stories (and why) – and where readers can find stories they’re not reading, but should.
I have a 1200 word dark, speculative fantasy piece at Beneath Ceaseless Skies. They only publish second world fantasy settings, which is a particular favorite of mine as a writer. I sent a previous story here that was rejected, but I got praise for the world building I did and was asked to send more. I sent another piece where I thought I did a really good job with the world building, with a story that I think is stronger and tighter than the first.
I have a 2700 word piece with my take on a new kind of supernatural creature at Urban Fantasy Magazine. Their guidelines say they liked stories with creatures like vampires or werewolves, but that since they get a lot of them, the competition for those stories were fierce. That’s advice for writers to consider different creatures or themes. The story I sent I think does a great job at creating my own urban supernatural creature, that I think does a really good job at being unique, with its own mythos, and yet feels ‘real.’ It also has a real-world setting that the magazine requires, and I spent a lot of time trying to make my characters feel like they come from Small Town, USA.
I have another (different) 2700 word uber-dark fantasy piece at Fantasy and Science Fiction. Their guidelines don’t offer much suggestion for stories they’re looking for, just that they liked character-based stories and I know from the magazine that rich, other-worlds are a good place for it. Those are the two things I think this story does best.
I have a difficult-to-classify dark fantasy poem at Interfictions, that’s bordering on a prose poem. Interfictions is a magazine that’s looking for difficult-to-classify or genre-bending poems and stories, so I thought this was a good fit. I don’t write much poetry (just the occasional dabbler), but I really liked this piece, so I figured “what the hell.” One piece of advice I’ve taken from a number of other writers, including here, was to not be afraid of sending things out. I put a lot of work in it, especially for its ~200 words, so I wanted to give it a shot.
I have another difficult-to-classify 5000 word piece at Interfictions. Is it an urban fantasy? Dark fiction? Horror? Coming of age tale, with deep autobiographical inspirations? I couldn’t exactly pin it, and Interfictions is all about blurring the lines, so I thought it would be a good fit. I also did something almost no short stories do and gave it two different character perspectives, a serious no-no from one of the writing blogs I linked to yesterday. I’m hoping that Interfictions is one of the few places where the editors may look past that, and given that I’ve spent a lot of time on it trying to get it right (because it’s so personal to me), I was glad I got it in their window.
I have a 3400 word sci fi piece at Crossed Genres, for their pronouns and gender themed issue (they have a different theme every month). I love the concept of themed issues, and the opportunity that gives authors to compete against just that one theme, instead of all the themes in the cosmos and fantasy realms. I really liked this theme in particular, and had an idea I had been kicking around for a while that this theme gave me an opportunity to explore — so it was worth the effort of crafting something particularly for this issue.
I have a 600 word dark fantasy at Daily Science Fiction. I sent DSF one of my strongest stories that I’ve written before, but unfortunately while it fit within their maximum word count range, it was longer than what they typically publish by a hefty amount. I didn’t want to make that mistake again, and so I sent something much shorter. This was the story I wrote while listening to Hozier, when the idea popped in my head.
Hopefully, this will give a sense to other aspiring writers the level of commitment it takes to just have a shot at getting published in short story markets. You need to write a huge swath of the absolute best stories you can, and then you need to find places where they could fit, and keep sending them because no matter how good you are, your stories are going to get rejected a lot before you find success. More good stories gives you more good shots.
The submission process is a huge time sink, but unfortunately you can’t get published without it — at least not professionally. So hopefully a peak into where I’ve sent things, and why I sent them there, will be helpful to some.
I’ve been reading some tweets and blog posts from short story writers, talking about how they challenged themselves to write a story a day for runs of a week or even a month at a time.
I’m not so sure I’d ever want to do that, but thought it would be fun to take on the challenge today.
I have a long list of files, digital and otherwise, filled with story ideas… but, like more often than not, couldn’t pick one I wanted from the bin.
However, I was listening to a Hozier album when I felt a little inspired to start fooling around, jotting down a few sentences of nothingness. It was one of his dark songs, where hell and sin mixed with beauty and temptation, and as I wrote, the story came to me. The story isn’t anything like the plot of the song, but the places my story went, touched with a dash of hope, ended up being helped a lot by the song’s dark tone.
It’s just 600 words, but I finished the whole draft in a day, and it’s a solid draft, too. I made it very plot centric, and yet I managed to actually create a character who grew along with the story, and it already feels pretty polished. It’s always easier to get something clean and polished when you’re working with flash fiction, but I’m still really, really happy with it.
I’m going to sit on it for a few days and then see what I think, but I actually like it enough at this point that my guess is it’s just about ready to go. We’ll see.
You may not be able to have it all, but don’t miss out because you screwed up.
One of the frustrating things about writing — and trying to get published — is that it’s not just about writing. It would be great if all you had to do was create some interesting characters, stick them in a compelling plot, then polish everything up and PRESTO! You’re published.
Unfortunately, there’s much more to it than that — and, unfortunately, very little is spelled out for any of us. No matter how much reading about writing we do along the way, a lot of the times we have to learn the hard way.
Case in point: While I’ve written my share of stinkers, I have a couple stories I’ve written this year that have made it past slush piles at sci-fi/fantasy literary magazines that are high up on my list of goals. One, in particular, has done very well insofar as it’s been held for lengthy periods of time nearly everywhere it’s been sent and I’ve received actual, personal emails about it from editors, with real-live feedback.
So when there was a submission call for a great magazine releasing a themed issue that really fit my story to a T, I got really excited. It should have been one of the best chances I had at being published thus far, but I screwed it up.
What did I do? After I sent it, I realized I misread a key submission guideline. I thought there was a 1000 word minimum when there was really a 1500 word minimum — and my story was just over a hundred words short.
I could have easily made my story comply, adding some description to my characters or adding an extra few lines of dialog. I could have taken it as an opportunity to step back for a few days and see if I could make my story even better.
Instead, it was rejected the next day — probably not even read. That stung, a lot — but especially since it was my fault.
Sadly, there’s going to be a lot of things that sting along the way, when trying to be a writer. Every writer says that. There’s going to be rejection after rejection after rejection, even if your story is good.
But you don’t want to be rejected because you screwed something up — something that could have been fixed.
Thankfully, when I decided to take writing seriously over the past year, I did so promising myself that I’d deal with rejection proactively. I created my own little rule, what I call my Rejection Day Ritual. Any day I get a rejection letter, instead of getting down about it, I write, no matter what — for at least an hour.
It’s been an awesome ritual, keeping me positive and focused on my goals and tasks.
I decided to be proactive about this mistake, too — thinking of how I could come up with a way to make sure I never repeated the same mistake again.
So, I created a checklist. I tried to design it to cover every aspect of the submission process, from format guidelines to word counts to cover letters to making sure I attach everything and send it in the right format.
And I never click send on a submission before I’ve checked everything off.
It’s been a huge help for me so far — I’ve caught submission errors twice since using the list, which means my stories have probably been given a fair shake two more times than they would have been.
If anyone’s curious what my checklist looks like, I copy and pasted it below. Feel free to take it for your own benefit — maybe you’ll spare yourself from sending something with errors in it that could prevent your story from getting the serious reading it deserves.
1. Story Title
2. Submission Magazine Name:
3. Allowed Genres at Magazine (sci fi, fantasy, etc.):
Submission Genre Type:
Does your submission comply?
4. Allowed Formats at Magazine (short stories, poems, etc.):
Submission Format Type:
Does your submission comply?
5. Word Count/Line Magazine Range:
Your Submission:
Does your submission comply?
6. Special Content Magazine Rules (no nudity, violence, violence and character ages, etc.):
Your Submission:
Does your submission comply?
7. Allowed File Formats:
Your File Format:
Is it attached to your email?
8. Any Specific Cover Letter rules (do they want an exact word count? Email heading format? Etc.):
Does your submission comply?
9. Any non-standard manuscript rules (ie if they want it single-spaced, special fonts, don’t want author’s name to appear on manuscript, etc.):
Does your submission comply?
10. Are there any other special rules or requests you can find in the submission guidelines?
Does your submission comply?
It’s nothing fancy, and I’m sure it’s not perfect, but it’s kept me from making further mistakes. If anyone has any other suggestions or improvements, I’d love to hear them in the comments.
For those of us crazy enough to try to get published in a professional market, we’re going to have to fail a lot before we succeed. Most of us will have to write a critical mass of really good stories before one of them sneaks through and gets published. Given how hard it is to do that, we have to do everything we can to make sure we don’t make it any harder on ourselves than it the competition already makes it.
As the Jay Brannan song says at the top of my post, we can’t have it all — but let’s make sure we take what we can get.
And the things that inspire me, usually to do one of the two things above.
When Frank Herbert’s megalomaniacal (and yet perversely entertaining) Baron Vladimir Harkonnen says the words that gave this, my first post, its title, he wasn’t saying anything that House Atreides, the heroes of “Dune,” didn’t know.
It was the thing that made the universe work, and it was also the thing that was almost impossible to grasp — and hang onto. Trying to control it was to invite danger, and it almost caused the downfall of the venerable House with all the protagonists, Atreides.
In this universe I belong to, “sci fi/fantasy,” one I’ve always been in since I was old enough to pick up a pen and a book, I’ve come to understand what that spice is — and it’s you, dear readers.
So here I am, holding out my hands in this desert of Arrakis we call the internet, hoping to grasp onto some of it — as I attempt to cross that most difficult and dangerous of thresholds that we writers call “trying to get published.”
I’ve always loved to write, be it for the causes I care about or for the stories in my head, but when it comes to stories, I’ve always been afraid of that part of myself — until the past year or so, when I’ve been able to work up the courage to go from occasional dabbler to serious practitioner.
I still haven’t crossed the threshold yet, of being published in a professional market, but have had some near misses with my short fiction. And I know… if I keep at it, keep plugging away, keep scratching like Paul Atreides in becoming Muad’Dib… that it will happen, and the internet spice will all be mine!
But, in the meantime, I’lI invite you to pull up a chair, grab a cup of java, and enjoy yourself with my occasional posts on writing, what I’ve learned or am learning about the publishing process, the stories I’m reading or that have inspired me, and no doubt some cat videos and the occasional expression of anguish at yet another rejection.
I’ll try to mix short and funny posts with more serious, thoughtful ones, and hopefully build something worthy of some people’s time — perhaps yours, if I’m lucky.
Thanks for reading — and careful for the sandworms.
ryan p adams 