So The Avengers was amazingly entertaining, and now I am extremely pessimistic about my own skills. Joss Whedon probably sneezes, and the droplets form hilarious snarky one-liners on whatever nearby glass surfaces there are, which he probably has a lot of in his fancy Hollywood Hills home because he's a famous talented millionaire.
So I'm not bitter or anything; really, I'm not, because why would I be? Joss was writing much earlier in his life than I started, and he came from a long line of screenwriters. It's just a whole big-ass family of creative professionals. I keep reminding myself that I just have to keep doing it, and eventually I'll succeed. Or I won't. I can't succeed if I don't try; I don't want to be on my deathbed regretting that I never tried, even if I don't succeed.
I just finished the third draft. I need to rewrite the epilogue, and then there's still work to do; I've identified a number of things about the novel that need to be fixed. Mostly it's cosmetic clean-up; some characters need to be more sharply defined, some backstory needs to be elaborated upon (only slightly, I promise), certain things need to be amped up to make them more fantastical.
I'm also changing the title of the novel, back to the original title, which I alas am not going to share yet. Mindfire is neat and all but there's been a couple of fantasy novels released on Amazon lately using it, and I don't want to cause confusion. I already searched; virtually nothing is using the new (old) title. Mindfire will be the subtitle, or rather, the series name. The novel is book 1 of Mindfire.
Okay, here's a hint: the title is The _____ of ______. Can you guess? If so, please send me stock picks and lottery numbers.
Showing posts with label mindfire. Show all posts
Showing posts with label mindfire. Show all posts
08 May, 2012
15 April, 2012
Interference
Life interferes. Months ago I was almost done with the second draft of Mindfire, and hoping to get most of my planned revisions done in a couple of weeks.
"Oh ho ho," said life, adjusting its monocle and stroking its white Persian cat. And then it pressed a red button on its desk, and the floor opened up, dropping me into a pit of badly-coded PHP scripts.
But I battled my way through, and I'm making progress again. I'm almost done with the third draft, and unless my faithful beta readers manage to point out major problems, it'll be off to be published.
On another exciting note, I got feedback from a short story market, letting me know that one of my stories is in the running for publication; they'll let me know in, hopefully, a week or two. I'm fully going into this expecting to be rejected—less pain that way—but it is a validation that twice out of about a dozen attempts, I've gotten this far into the process. I honestly expected to get rejected dozens of times before getting any kind of traction at all.
So even if this latest attempt does fall through, I know that I'm at least capable of writing stories that are good enough to be seriously considered for publication by SFWA-membership-qualifying markets. It only takes a little faith that if I keep it up, eventually I'll write something that will strike a chord with the right editor at the right time... and then, I'll be the one wearing the monocle.
"Oh ho ho," said life, adjusting its monocle and stroking its white Persian cat. And then it pressed a red button on its desk, and the floor opened up, dropping me into a pit of badly-coded PHP scripts.
But I battled my way through, and I'm making progress again. I'm almost done with the third draft, and unless my faithful beta readers manage to point out major problems, it'll be off to be published.
On another exciting note, I got feedback from a short story market, letting me know that one of my stories is in the running for publication; they'll let me know in, hopefully, a week or two. I'm fully going into this expecting to be rejected—less pain that way—but it is a validation that twice out of about a dozen attempts, I've gotten this far into the process. I honestly expected to get rejected dozens of times before getting any kind of traction at all.
So even if this latest attempt does fall through, I know that I'm at least capable of writing stories that are good enough to be seriously considered for publication by SFWA-membership-qualifying markets. It only takes a little faith that if I keep it up, eventually I'll write something that will strike a chord with the right editor at the right time... and then, I'll be the one wearing the monocle.
11 February, 2012
Rejection
Two short story rejections and counting. Three more pending. Stephen King lost count of how many rejections he got before he finally sold a short story, but it was at least a hundred.
Although my primary concern is finishing my novel, Mindfire, it's difficult for me to monomaniacally focus on it when I have other unrelated ideas floating about in me 'ead. So I've been writing a number of short stories lately, in the 1k-3k word range—flash fiction seems to be quite popular these days, and a lot of paying markets are seeking stories in that length range (or even shorter!).
So I alternate between writing the novel and writing short stories. Some of these I'll post for free on the blog (such as The Destiny of Kajiyama Shen), some of these I'll self-publish (such as The Demons of Lashtë and Chalice and Knives), and others I will put through the rigors of submitting to paying markets.
It's this last that is the simplest approach, and yet the most difficult. For an unknown author, the editors of these markets (short fiction magazines and so on) have to really like the submission in order to publish it. Even if you do a lot of research—reading all the back issues to find out what kinds of things they publish, and tailoring stories for the individual market—a story that most folks would enjoy reading, if they had a chance to, might get rejected because that particular editor just didn't happen to get grabbed by it.
That doesn't mean it's not good enough to get published anywhere; maybe the twentieth market you submit the story to will accept it, and you'll never know unless you keep trying. Since the list of (e.g.) SWFA paying markets is both finite and relatively short (about 30 markets currently), it would be reasonable and feasible to submit a given story to every market on the list (or at least the appropriate ones; some only accept SF or fantasy, not both).
From a probability standpoint, having a lot of stories to submit helps, because prose fiction markets don't tolerate simultaneous submissions. Each story can only be submitted to one market at a time, and it might be weeks before you hear back. In the meantime, that story can't be submitted to anyone else. So if you write another one, you can be shopping that one around as well. Each story in the pipeline increases your chance of selling one.
Do the math: If each story has a (let's be generous) 1% chance of being accepted on each submission, and there's 30 paying markets, then a given story will have a (1 - 0.9930) ~= 26% chance of being sold, if you were to submit it to all the markets. (For a given story, this might take a year or two, if each market takes a couple of weeks to respond.) Shop enough stories around to all the markets, and one of them might get sold.
You could get lucky and sell a story on your third or fourth submission. Or it might take hundreds, like Stephen King. The only thing you can do is not let yourself get discouraged, and keep at it: "Never give up. Never surrender."
Although my primary concern is finishing my novel, Mindfire, it's difficult for me to monomaniacally focus on it when I have other unrelated ideas floating about in me 'ead. So I've been writing a number of short stories lately, in the 1k-3k word range—flash fiction seems to be quite popular these days, and a lot of paying markets are seeking stories in that length range (or even shorter!).
So I alternate between writing the novel and writing short stories. Some of these I'll post for free on the blog (such as The Destiny of Kajiyama Shen), some of these I'll self-publish (such as The Demons of Lashtë and Chalice and Knives), and others I will put through the rigors of submitting to paying markets.
It's this last that is the simplest approach, and yet the most difficult. For an unknown author, the editors of these markets (short fiction magazines and so on) have to really like the submission in order to publish it. Even if you do a lot of research—reading all the back issues to find out what kinds of things they publish, and tailoring stories for the individual market—a story that most folks would enjoy reading, if they had a chance to, might get rejected because that particular editor just didn't happen to get grabbed by it.
That doesn't mean it's not good enough to get published anywhere; maybe the twentieth market you submit the story to will accept it, and you'll never know unless you keep trying. Since the list of (e.g.) SWFA paying markets is both finite and relatively short (about 30 markets currently), it would be reasonable and feasible to submit a given story to every market on the list (or at least the appropriate ones; some only accept SF or fantasy, not both).
From a probability standpoint, having a lot of stories to submit helps, because prose fiction markets don't tolerate simultaneous submissions. Each story can only be submitted to one market at a time, and it might be weeks before you hear back. In the meantime, that story can't be submitted to anyone else. So if you write another one, you can be shopping that one around as well. Each story in the pipeline increases your chance of selling one.
Do the math: If each story has a (let's be generous) 1% chance of being accepted on each submission, and there's 30 paying markets, then a given story will have a (1 - 0.9930) ~= 26% chance of being sold, if you were to submit it to all the markets. (For a given story, this might take a year or two, if each market takes a couple of weeks to respond.) Shop enough stories around to all the markets, and one of them might get sold.
You could get lucky and sell a story on your third or fourth submission. Or it might take hundreds, like Stephen King. The only thing you can do is not let yourself get discouraged, and keep at it: "Never give up. Never surrender."
14 January, 2012
Elation
I did not expect instant success from publishing The Demons of Lashtë on Amazon. I know I'm a new author; it's going to take time, and a lot of relentless marketing, to get people exposed to my work. I'm confident that a lot of people will like it once they read it, but it's still a massive hurdle for me to get to the point where people are reading it.
Nonetheless, I had a very strong sense of elation and glee once I published the story. It was now a Real Thing that had Really Happened. And, unlike previous efforts in my life, I did not immediately decide that, having done this Real Thing, I was done. That was a good feeling. It let me know that I am really committed to the whole endeavor of writing as a career.
I've felt that I was, for a while; Mindfire, which is still in progress, I started last July, and I'm still working on it to this day, with no significant breaks (not counting Demons, which took a few days to write, edit, design the cover for, and publish). I've convinced myself I'm going to finish, and the end is in fact in sight; but the terrain between here and there is bumpy, and it's still going to be painful getting over it.
Building a career as a writer is hard no matter what. The traditional route involves a great deal of rejection, and not necessarily the promise of success; self-e-publishing means you can circumvent the gatekeepers, but then you get to do everything yourself—everything, including editing, design, publishing, marketing, and so on. It's a lot of work in either case. And I keep telling myself I'm going to succeed, because what other choice do I have?
Nonetheless, I had a very strong sense of elation and glee once I published the story. It was now a Real Thing that had Really Happened. And, unlike previous efforts in my life, I did not immediately decide that, having done this Real Thing, I was done. That was a good feeling. It let me know that I am really committed to the whole endeavor of writing as a career.
I've felt that I was, for a while; Mindfire, which is still in progress, I started last July, and I'm still working on it to this day, with no significant breaks (not counting Demons, which took a few days to write, edit, design the cover for, and publish). I've convinced myself I'm going to finish, and the end is in fact in sight; but the terrain between here and there is bumpy, and it's still going to be painful getting over it.
Building a career as a writer is hard no matter what. The traditional route involves a great deal of rejection, and not necessarily the promise of success; self-e-publishing means you can circumvent the gatekeepers, but then you get to do everything yourself—everything, including editing, design, publishing, marketing, and so on. It's a lot of work in either case. And I keep telling myself I'm going to succeed, because what other choice do I have?
24 December, 2011
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