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Tag: publishing process

Midyear writing goals rehash

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Way back in January, I set some goals for myself for the year:

  1. Get an agent (which means stop picking at my novel and just send it out already).
  2. Finish my already-started novel, A Handful of Wishes.
  3. Have at least fifteen stories out on submission at any given time.
  4. Get in shape, and then stay in shape.
  5. Learn how to neatly and nicely-looking lattice a pie.
  6. Date a rockstar (doesn’t matter who).

I briefly followed up on them in April.  The year is now roughly half over, so I’m back to take another look.

  1. Get an agent – I’ve sent out a bunch of queries, and I need to send out more.  I’m considering the small press route instead, and I need to look into that more closely and send out queries.
  2. Finish A Handful of Wishes – August is Camp NaNoWriMo, and I’m going to try to make a good-sized dent in this story once and for all, then maybe hammer the rest out for the real NaNoWriMo in November.
  3. Have at least fifteen stories out for submission – currently I’m at two.  But in my defense, I’ve had five stories accepted so far this year, almost one a month (“Bardo Bureaucracy,” “The Futility of Loving a Soldier,” “Hope for Change,” “Riding the Rails,” and “Of Gods and Floods“).  I have quite a few I’m polishing or finishing up, and a couple more sitting around to be sent out.  I should be able to get this number up to at least ten without too much effort.
  4. Get in shape – Towards the end of the school year I was chasing students all over the damn school (my classroom was in the basement and I routinely made 5-8 trips to the top floors, which is .2 miles round trip), so I’m not doing too bad with this.
  5. Pies – I can’t even remember the last time I made a pie.  Oops.
  6. Date a rockstar – I know a guy who plays the guitar.  Does that count as progress?

Overall, I’m not doing too bad, at least for the writing stuff.   I’m making progress and staying mostly focused, which I think is the most important part of having year-long goals.

If you’re a writer, what are your goals for the next few months?  If you set goals for yourself at the beginning of the year, how are you doing with them?

StoryADay update No. 4 #storyaday

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Here’s my report on this week’s progress for the May StoryADay Challenge.

So, I might’ve cheated a bit this week to make my goal.

  • I wrote five microfiction stories (50 words each) for a writing competition.  Three of them have already been submitted to various publications.
  • I’m also 1300 words into a short story, but I lost my mood for it.  I know where I want it to go, and hopefully I can finish it this weekend.
  • I wrote half a flash piece one day during my lunchtime monitoring duty, but haven’t had a chance to come back to it.

The official count: eight stories written and subbable.  Another eight are in various stages of being written. 

I’m officially done with the school year on Friday, and then all summer I’ll have projects and lesson planning but it’ll be more laid back, with time for writing so I can pull out fifteen finished stories. Hopefully.

If you’re doing the StoryADay challenge, how’s it going?

How to publish short stories

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I belong to an online writing site, and every so often someone asks how to publish short stories.  Today I received my tenth acceptance for short stories, so in honor of being an “expert” I’d like to share what I posted to the writing site.

If it’s short stories, poems, or flash you’re interested in publishing:

  1. Go to Duotrope.com and make an account. 
  2. Search for publications – flash, electronic submission, whatever the genre is. 
  3. Look at the listings for those. Major things to check: 
    1. Do they take more than 2-3 months to get back to you? 
    2. Do they get back to at least 95% of the submissions (don’t hold withdrawals against them, just nonresponses)? 
    3.  Do they pay (doesn’t matter to me but matters to some)? 
    4. What’s the acceptance rate (might not be worth it to submit to one that only takes 5%, at least not at first)? 
    5. Do they accept simultaneous submissions (send to multiple publications at the same time)? 
  4. If you like what you see, go to the publication’s website. Does it look professional (and does that even matter to you)? 
  5. Read some of their published stuff, if available. How does your story compare? Is it a good fit subject- and prose-wise? 
  6. Now, finally, click on a link somewhere on the site that says “Submissions” and FOLLOW THE DIRECTIONS EXACTLY. 
  7. Go back to Duotrope and report your submission. 
  8. When you get a response, report that too. The more reports Duoptrope gets, the more accurate and helpful it becomes.

Assuming your stories aren’t crap, and you pick publications that are a good match, you could soon be a published author.  Good luck!

W is for Writing Goals #atozchallenge

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Day 23 of the Blogging from A to Z April challenge. Today’s topic: writing goals (topic kindly stolen from Jessica Loftus).

At the beginning of the year, I set myself some resolutional goals (making up words was not one of them).

One-third of the way through the year, and with summer break fast approaching, it’s time to reevaluate and revise.

  • Get an agent (which means stop picking at my novel and just send it out already).

I’ve sent out queries, and this weekend I’ll send out more.

Ain’t happened.  I’m on chapter 10 and got sidetracked.  But I’m focusing on this novel with a writing group on Scribophile, so hopefully that’ll be the impetus I need to get going.

  • Have at least fifteen stories out on submission at any given time – currently I’m at nine. 

I was lucky enough to have a string of publications recently, so right now I’m at five out.  I have six half-written stories I’d like to finish, as well as several that need some tweaking.  If I can get them out soon, I’ll be able to meet this goal as well.

If you’re a writer, what are your goals for the next few months?

O is for Overload #atozchallenge

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Day 15 of the Blogging from A to Z April challenge. Today’s topic: overload.

(Note:  I think this might be cheating.)

There are about five weeks left in the school year, and my students are having those “Holy crapola, I’m failing my classes and I’m going to need summer school” moments.  Which means they’re in my classroom all day.  Not that I mind – I’m tutoring kids right now in economics and contemporary American history and welding – but that leaves me about 10 minutes all day to myself.  Throw in paperwork for my program and grading papers, and preparing for a huge culminating competition for the kids next week, and a field trip I’m chaperoning next Tuesday, and tracking down skipping kids, and talking to teachers about missing work, and fixing schedules for next year, and I’m easily putting in 10-12 hour days.

And then there’s my family; I don’t work on school stuff while my kid is around and awake.

And writing.  I’ve set myself the goal of sending out queries in a couple days, so after I’ve done all my school stuff (or enough of it), I spend a couple hours editing my novel.

But not tonight.  Tonight I’m going to bed before midnight.  Undone stuff be damned.

F is for Flash Fiction #atozchallenge

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Day 6 of the Blogging from A to Z April challenge. Today’s topic: flash fiction.

I’ve been submitting flash pieces and short stories for just over a year now.  I’ve had nine pieces accepted for publication, which averages one every six weeks or so.

I’ve also broken into the double digits with earnings.  Averaged out (and including tax), with each story I’ve made enough to buy myself a large unsweetened iced tea at McDonald’s.

Back on today’s topic, you can read some of my flash stories here.

Writing encouragement

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As I get closer to querying my novel, I’m of course getting cold feet, which I voiced to a writing group.  This was a response:

In her most recent message, ED wrote about being hesitant to send out a novel because “it’s not as good as it could be.” She quotes a character in a story of L M [Montgomery]’s as saying to a would-be writer, “‘You’ll never write anything that really satisfies you though it may satisfy other people.'”

This reminds me of comments made to me by David Foster, then head of the Fine Arts Department at the University of Oregon. He said that when an artist works, the work is for the artist first, and for anyone else second. He said that Art is a process of discovery conducted by the artist, and that any discoveries made in the course of producing one piece only lead to the need for further exploration in the next. No artist is ever satisfied with his or her work, because that work is only one step on a road that will never end — the road to understanding. So artists churn out works, and as each one is produced it teaches the artist something; as the lesson is absorbed, the work that provided it loses value — it has been exhausted. If these works can help others — readers, viewers, listeners — to improve their understanding, then the works have continued value for them, but the artist is on to new explorations.

Foster went on to say that trying to make any work of art “perfect” is a mistake, because it simply distracts the artist from the true course of his or her explorations. It’s like Crick and Watson refusing to divulge their findings on DNA until they’d figured out how to do gene splicing and cloning. An art work is not a final product. It is an experiment, and it may be more or less successful in the artist’s estimation. Whether the artist regards it as a success or as a failure, it may or may not be of value to others. Everybody’s exploratory path is different. For the artist to try to make something perfect is simply to expend further effort on an experiment that has already served its primary purpose….

So, ED, don’t worry about getting it absolutely right. Don’t go after those diminishing returns. Don’t be overly concerned with which piece of parsley to use as the garnish. You’ve cooked the meal, it smells wonderful, the flavors complement each other deliciously, and your guests will agree with you that it is wonderfully nourishing. Your guests that aren’t lactose intolerant, that is. Or gluten-aversive. Or vegan. But there are other cooks cooking for them.

I know it’s time to throw the baby from the nest.  I know changing a couple words here and there won’t change anything overall.  But damn is it still daunting.

Almost done?

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Last night I finished the third round of edits to my novel.  I’ve been working on editing The Lone Wolf for just about a year now, and with all the wonderful feedback I’ve gotten from my beta readers and critiquers, I’m feeling cautiously optimistic that it just needs one more polish and then I’ll send out a query to agents.  And I’ve found one writing buddy in particular who’s awesome at digging deeper into various parts, at giving me honest feedback when I bounce ideas off her.  Even though it means more rewriting.  Which makes me think of the Metallica song, “No Leaf Clover:”

Then it comes to be that the soothing light
At the end of your tunnel
It’s just a freight train comin’ your way

So, am I really that close to being done, or will I need a lot more polishing?  At the end of the month I’m putting the whole thing aside to focus on NaNoWriMo and the novel I tried to write last year, A Handful of Wishes.  At least, that’s the plan right now.  But who really knows?

Mo’ money, mo’ problems (or, Why economic renumeration doesn’t matter to me)

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One of the reasons I moved back to my hometown last month was, of course, so I could raise my kid around his grandparents.  But another reason was because I had a great job opportunity – teaching students with multiple economic, social, and academic barriers holding them back from graduation.  It’s the same students I taught before, and I’m really excited about the potential impact of this position.

Part of our training this summer involved learning the ins and outs of a career inventory program we’ll use in the classroom.  According to my results (athletic trainer, farm management, zoologist, writer) my ideal job would be writing about the goats I train for a traveling circus. Now, why did I get those results?  The program matches you in three categories:  skills, interests, and values.  Values is what influenced my results the most, because I scored a 3 out of 100 on prestige, 10 out of 100 on job security, and 15 out of 100 on salary.

Perfect qualities for a writer (or a public school teacher; despite what certain politicians and talking heads want you to think, teachers are not underworked and overpaid).  Many nonwriters ask me why I write, or how much I’ve made off my published stories, and are incredulous of my responses.  There are several things you need to keep in mind if you want to be a writer:

  • Unless you’re hitting that bestseller’s list, most people (especially family and friends) aren’t going to see your writing as more than just a hobby.  They’re going to question why you stay up all night editing if you aren’t even going to get paid for your work.  And don’t even bring up how many rejections you’ve had.  It’s a lot of work for not a lot of return.  And as all your nonwriter acquaintances will tell you, writing is like driving a car; anyone can do it.
  • And because everyone can do it, there’s a lot of people self-publishing that you’ll have to compete with.  The editor’s slush pile is neverending. Unless you’re able to come up with the next big thing, there’s always someone there to take your place.
  • You’re never going to be able to quit your day job.  According to an article I read at Bubble Cow, chances are you’re not going to make much money off your writing.  The median in the UK in 2008 was about $8000, meaning that 50% of writers earned less than that.  I recently talked to a fellow writer about this.  He said he’s sold exactly four copies of his book, and he knows three of those buyers.

So, if writing is about lots of work for little recognition and even littler financial gain, why do it?  Because you enjoy it.  Because you love it.  Because it calms you.  Because it gives you purpose.  Because you have to.  Because, like teaching, if you can reach just one person and make them think, make them laugh, make them cry (okay, maybe not just like teaching), it’ll all be worth it in the end.

It’s all about what matters to you.

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