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.
Showing posts with label short stories. Show all posts
Showing posts with label short stories. Show all posts
15 April, 2012
04 April, 2012
Rejection X
X as in 10. Ten rejections and counting. The last one was the best yet: It made it to the final editorial round, only losing out by a hair. The editor returned a selection of comments about the story, giving me some insight into why it was passed up.
So the question is, do I try to modify the story to fix those issues before continuing to submit it? Or do I submit it as is, hoping that another editor will not find the same flaws? I have to agree with one of the comments, although it's a minor thing by any measure; but the other comment was clearly one of personal taste, and so there's no need for me to change it.
I'm only a tenth of the way to the point of reassessing my game plan; still a long way to go.
So the question is, do I try to modify the story to fix those issues before continuing to submit it? Or do I submit it as is, hoping that another editor will not find the same flaws? I have to agree with one of the comments, although it's a minor thing by any measure; but the other comment was clearly one of personal taste, and so there's no need for me to change it.
I'm only a tenth of the way to the point of reassessing my game plan; still a long way to go.
05 March, 2012
Evolution
Four short story rejections and counting.
Nine months ago, when I started writing seriously, I had this vision that I would write my novel straight through, and then self-publish it. I figured I'd be done by the end of the year.
I was wrong. But I did learn a great many things along the way, including a lot about the worlds of e-publishing and self-publishing, and I ended up becoming motivated to start self-(e-)publishing short stories as a way to begin building a name for myself. It wasn't something I could have predicted, but it turns out to be an approach that, I think, works well for me.
It is, in fact, I think an ideal example of the four stages of competence. At first, I thought, "I'll write a novel! And it'll be great!" Not realizing, of course, that I had never written a novel before, and that there are a number of skills involved in it beyond the simple ability to put one word after another. This was the unconscious incompetence phase: I didn't recognize that I didn't know what I was doing.
I think now I'm in the conscious incompetence phase. I know that I don't know what I'm doing. And I'm doing my best to keep at it, hoping that some day I'll actually be reasonably good at this. That'll be the conscious competence phase, of course, followed, some day (I hope!) by the unconscious competence phase, where I am a master author and the world is my oyster. (Actually, I hate oysters. Why can't the world be my shrimp tempura roll?)
Nine months ago, when I started writing seriously, I had this vision that I would write my novel straight through, and then self-publish it. I figured I'd be done by the end of the year.
I was wrong. But I did learn a great many things along the way, including a lot about the worlds of e-publishing and self-publishing, and I ended up becoming motivated to start self-(e-)publishing short stories as a way to begin building a name for myself. It wasn't something I could have predicted, but it turns out to be an approach that, I think, works well for me.
It is, in fact, I think an ideal example of the four stages of competence. At first, I thought, "I'll write a novel! And it'll be great!" Not realizing, of course, that I had never written a novel before, and that there are a number of skills involved in it beyond the simple ability to put one word after another. This was the unconscious incompetence phase: I didn't recognize that I didn't know what I was doing.
I think now I'm in the conscious incompetence phase. I know that I don't know what I'm doing. And I'm doing my best to keep at it, hoping that some day I'll actually be reasonably good at this. That'll be the conscious competence phase, of course, followed, some day (I hope!) by the unconscious competence phase, where I am a master author and the world is my oyster. (Actually, I hate oysters. Why can't the world be my shrimp tempura roll?)
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."
25 January, 2012
Short story sample: Chalice and Knives
Here's the first section of my next short story: Chalice and Knives, concerning the deeds of a thief in a desert city.
The fat man, whose name was Jerez, did not return the smile. He spat into the dust of the tavern. “That for your word,” he said. “I am interested only in the clinking of gold, not the sound made by the flapping of gums. I get you into the palace, and you bring me the Magister’s golden chalice. The gold I get for it, we split, seventy-thirty.”
Sendi would have thrown her cup in his face if there wasn’t so much gold at stake. Instead she swigged what was left of the wine and rapped the empty cup on the edge of the table to get a serving wench’s attention. “It should be seventy-thirty my way if I’m the one breaking into the palace. You get to sit in here and twiddle your thumbs. Nobody’s going to be trying to put a sword in your gut.”
“Other thieves I can find,” Jerez said, leaning forward as far as his chins would let him. “But without my help, no thief will find entry into the palace.” He twiddled an odd little coin in his fingers. It reflected light bright as day, which could only be the work of magic, in this dank tavern in the middle of the night. It could just be a cantrip, a little enchantment to make it glow brightly... or it could be something more arcane. Sendi itched to stab the fat scoundrel and take it, but if it was some kind of ward...
“Fine. Sixty-forty. And that’s my final offer. You won’t find better, not from anyone who has a chance of pulling this off.” She held her cup out as a sullen serving wench sloshed wine into it, and flipped a copper up at the girl for her trouble.
“You are a scoundrel and would beggar me!” Jerez wailed. “I would accept sixty-forty, my way. It is quite generous.”
“My tight little arse it’s generous,” Sendi said. She jabbed a finger at Jerez, making the man jerk back. His sweat-stained silks seemed ready to burst. Maybe he’d stolen them from a smaller man. “Fifty-fifty. Final, final offer. Take it or we’ll see whether you bleed pork fat.” One of her daggers appeared in her palm, and she twirled it with a flourish, then stabbed it into the table. She held out the hand to Jerez. “I always keep my word.”
Jerez let his thick fingers brush hers lightly. “Fine, then. You have your deal, though may Ahman curse you unto all the generations of your children for your impudence and insolence.” He heaved himself to his feet. “You will find the lower riverside door of the palace unlocked for exactly one minute, as the twilight bell tolls tomorrow night. And you will need this.” He flipped the coin to her. Sendi caught it and was startled by its warmth. It felt as if it had been sitting in the sun for several minutes.
She looked up to send him off with one final insult, but the fat man had disappeared through a curtain already. Sendi pocketed the coin and took some time finishing her wine. It would not do to be seen leaving this dive too soon after Jerez. Many eyes watched in the night, here in Talsalam.
———
Sendi
flashed her teeth at the fat old swindler. “I gave you my word,
didn’t I?”
The fat man, whose name was Jerez, did not return the smile. He spat into the dust of the tavern. “That for your word,” he said. “I am interested only in the clinking of gold, not the sound made by the flapping of gums. I get you into the palace, and you bring me the Magister’s golden chalice. The gold I get for it, we split, seventy-thirty.”
Sendi would have thrown her cup in his face if there wasn’t so much gold at stake. Instead she swigged what was left of the wine and rapped the empty cup on the edge of the table to get a serving wench’s attention. “It should be seventy-thirty my way if I’m the one breaking into the palace. You get to sit in here and twiddle your thumbs. Nobody’s going to be trying to put a sword in your gut.”
“Other thieves I can find,” Jerez said, leaning forward as far as his chins would let him. “But without my help, no thief will find entry into the palace.” He twiddled an odd little coin in his fingers. It reflected light bright as day, which could only be the work of magic, in this dank tavern in the middle of the night. It could just be a cantrip, a little enchantment to make it glow brightly... or it could be something more arcane. Sendi itched to stab the fat scoundrel and take it, but if it was some kind of ward...
“Fine. Sixty-forty. And that’s my final offer. You won’t find better, not from anyone who has a chance of pulling this off.” She held her cup out as a sullen serving wench sloshed wine into it, and flipped a copper up at the girl for her trouble.
“You are a scoundrel and would beggar me!” Jerez wailed. “I would accept sixty-forty, my way. It is quite generous.”
“My tight little arse it’s generous,” Sendi said. She jabbed a finger at Jerez, making the man jerk back. His sweat-stained silks seemed ready to burst. Maybe he’d stolen them from a smaller man. “Fifty-fifty. Final, final offer. Take it or we’ll see whether you bleed pork fat.” One of her daggers appeared in her palm, and she twirled it with a flourish, then stabbed it into the table. She held out the hand to Jerez. “I always keep my word.”
Jerez let his thick fingers brush hers lightly. “Fine, then. You have your deal, though may Ahman curse you unto all the generations of your children for your impudence and insolence.” He heaved himself to his feet. “You will find the lower riverside door of the palace unlocked for exactly one minute, as the twilight bell tolls tomorrow night. And you will need this.” He flipped the coin to her. Sendi caught it and was startled by its warmth. It felt as if it had been sitting in the sun for several minutes.
She looked up to send him off with one final insult, but the fat man had disappeared through a curtain already. Sendi pocketed the coin and took some time finishing her wine. It would not do to be seen leaving this dive too soon after Jerez. Many eyes watched in the night, here in Talsalam.
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?
06 January, 2012
Shorts, and a sample
While my novel-in-progress, Mindfire, is still my primary focus, something I'm going to start doing is producing short stories on a regular basis (scroll down for a sample), and making them available for sale on Amazon (for Kindle). There's three primary reasons for this:
Exposure
Getting my work out there in a professional format is going to be helpful in building up an audience. I'm really starting from square one, here; aside from a few people who've followed this blog, or followed me on Twitter (hi guys!), or are friends on Mythic Scribes, I haven't exactly got what you'd call an audience. The novel will be several more weeks until it's finished at least; but I can take a little time out here and there to produce polished short stories that, I think, people will like.
Practice writing
One thing strongly recommended by a lot of "new-to-writing" guides and articles is to write short stories on a regular basis. There's a few reasons for this: they're easier to finish than a novel; they give experience with constructing a complete story without getting bogged down in all the elaborate developments that occur in a longer story; they don't lock you in to a particular fictional world and make you spend a lot of time on world-building.
I will be immodest here and claim that I don't need practice writing prose; you can judge that for yourself below, where I've included a sample of the first story I'm going to publish, The Demons of Lashtë. I'm confident that I'm already good at that part. (Not that there's no room for improvement, but...) It's really the process that's important: completing something, publishing it, getting feedback.
Practice publishing
I've experimented with the Kindle Direct Publishing platform before. It's missing a lot of functionality I wish it had, and I hope that Amazon will improve that in the future; but there's more to publishing a short story than just throwing it onto Amazon.
Exposure
Getting my work out there in a professional format is going to be helpful in building up an audience. I'm really starting from square one, here; aside from a few people who've followed this blog, or followed me on Twitter (hi guys!), or are friends on Mythic Scribes, I haven't exactly got what you'd call an audience. The novel will be several more weeks until it's finished at least; but I can take a little time out here and there to produce polished short stories that, I think, people will like.
Practice writing
One thing strongly recommended by a lot of "new-to-writing" guides and articles is to write short stories on a regular basis. There's a few reasons for this: they're easier to finish than a novel; they give experience with constructing a complete story without getting bogged down in all the elaborate developments that occur in a longer story; they don't lock you in to a particular fictional world and make you spend a lot of time on world-building.
I will be immodest here and claim that I don't need practice writing prose; you can judge that for yourself below, where I've included a sample of the first story I'm going to publish, The Demons of Lashtë. I'm confident that I'm already good at that part. (Not that there's no room for improvement, but...) It's really the process that's important: completing something, publishing it, getting feedback.
Practice publishing
I've experimented with the Kindle Direct Publishing platform before. It's missing a lot of functionality I wish it had, and I hope that Amazon will improve that in the future; but there's more to publishing a short story than just throwing it onto Amazon.
- Creating cover art. I've been directed to a few good stock photo sites, where I can get good pics cheap, modify them and put title/author's name on them, and use those. They just need to look professional enough that people aren't turned off, and ideally are enticed by the cover.
- Formatting the doc. I use Linux, and I've already got a suite of tools I use for converting OpenOffice documents to Amazon's .mobi format. There's still a lot of little gotchas to watch out for, and I haven't done this enough to be completely confident in getting the files exactly right, but it seems to work so far.
- Marketing. That's right, the dreaded m-word. I have an instinctive aversion to marketing, as I majored in Computer Science and have been, professionally, a web programmer for the last twelve years. I always feel like that pimping my work will make people recoil and say, "How arrogant!" But I'm slowly learning that this is (mostly, I hope) not the case. So I just need to get over it.
So, without (much) further ado, here's a sample of the first few paragraphs of the first story I'll be publishing: The Demons of Lashtë. I will definitely be posting here when the full story is available on Amazon. :-)
Sample of The Demons of Lashtë
The demon struck, and Anders Vasik let the blade flash through him, cleaving armor, flesh, bone, sinew. The pain was staggering. But the demon-sword emerged out the other side, cleansed of blood, as the two sides of the wound melded together, trailing the blade’s passage. Anders’s spell left a bitter tang of sulphur in the air.
The strike left the demon unbalanced, and in that moment Anders held out his palm. A blinding pinprick of white fire tore through the demon’s gray hide, making a fist-sized hole ringed in char. The carbonized flesh swirled away on the wind, and the demon’s face twisted with every ounce of the minimal emotion it was capable of displaying. It fell back, tumbling into the jagged canyon, to be devoured by the enormous shale lizards that lurked below.
Anders collapsed onto all fours. The blade’s passage had taken more out of him than he’d expected, but he’d survived. That was all that mattered. He’d recover, he’d live to fight the next demon, and the next.
He looked up, and across the canyon, to where the city of Lashtë loomed, silent behind its walls of blackened stone. They’d shone, those walls, golden in the morning, silver at noon, ochre in the setting sun. But no longer. The erupting wrath of countless demons thrashing wildly to climb, to break through, blasted down by the city’s mages, had stained the walls permanently black. Only by a sacrifice of half their number had the mages created the chasm, buying the city some breathing room. Anders didn’t know if it had been worth it.
The horde was unending. This was no time for introspection. Anders whispered silent words to Umwë, and felt a warmth spread from his heart. Energized by golden fire, he stood again, and waited for the next demon to come.
A stone’s throw along the edge of the canyon, his friend Dródi stood, waiting as well. They’d gotten a respite, by whatever luck. “How are you feeling?” Dródi called. Beyond him was another shield-mage, and another, spaced along the canyon, disappearing beyond sight.
Anders shrugged. “Bored,” he called back. He estimated that it was another two turns before his shift would end. Then someone would relieve him, and he’d retreat to Lashtë, to rest and recreate. He looked forward most of all to seeing Gunnvar. They were as good as betrothed, although her father had not made the offer yet. But he knew it was coming.
A flicker of motion caught his eye. Another demon was coming. Anders brought up his hands, and began to summon fire.
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