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Posts Tagged ‘submitting writing’

A Little Ray Of Sunshine

Well, after the tiny flood of rejection last week (and another one this morning), I’ve got a tiny ray of hope.  A couple months ago I sent out five submission packages of my first novel.  Today, I got the first response to one of those packages.  An editor has requested the full.  It isn’t a sale, but at least it means that my query package isn’t sinking me in the slush pile.  And it means my race score goes up to 33.

I probably won’t hear another peep about this submission for anywhere from 6 months to a year, but that’s okay.  The process is working.  Last week was tough, I started spiraling into the feeling that I’ll never be any better than I am now, that all of this was going to just be rejection after rejection.  So this little injection of hope came at just the right time and is a great reminder to me of the rules I just need to keep following.

Write. Finish. Submit.  It works!

Another Tiny Update

Rejection number 10 (form letter) came in yesterday.  Time to send that story out somewhere else.

On the “dancing, not quite from rooftops” level of awesome, I queried about another story that had been in the ether fora  couple months and found that they’re holding it for consideration/second opinions.  I’m going to interpret this is a win, even if they don’t take the story.  It means I’m getting past the first glance, which is a mark of improvement.  Go me.

I have an edit of that story also, so I responded thanking them for letting me know where I stood and offered up the edit if they’d like to see it.  I like both versions (one is cleaner since more eyes went over it) but who knows what they’ll want? Anyway, I’m psyched that I’m at least being considered.

Meanwhile, I’m working on the novella which will never sell.  Seriously, who buys fantasy novellas?  I’m going to try to keep it under 17k words so I can at least enter it in the ‘Writers of the Future’ contest.  I just finished Ken Rand’s (may he RIP) “Ten Percent Solution” and intend to put his ideas into practice to reduce the draft of the novella to as short as I can get it without hurting the story.

Then I need to type up Sparks and finish it.  I know where the story is going now, and the logistics of the fort.  All that I need to do is add some kick ass fighting and I’ll have story.  I really like the concept, but I’m not too sure I can write good fights.  I think I’ll enlist my husband to help me keep things realistic while still awesome.  There’s always a balance in fight scenes between cinematic kick-ass and “he did what with that sword?”

After Sparks and A Prince Called Courage are finished, I swear I’m going back to Chwedl.  I haven’t added a single new word to the novel in months (though I did do a bit of editing of the first 60k words).  Time to finish that baby so I can move on to finishing my Albetross (ie Casimir Hypogean).

All right.  Back to work on Novella that Won’t Sell.

In Life, There is no Partial Credit

I *almost* sold a story.  Sometimes I wonder if there isn’t a nice balance between rejections with comments and form letters.

On the one hand, I’m glad to know what kept the mag from buying my story.  On the other hand, it’s tough to know that one small thing (ok, a central premise of the tale which I’m not sure will ever be to that reader’s taste…) kept my story from selling.

With a little help from my friends, however, I should be able to edit and clear that up at least a bit (already started on that part, so we’ll see).

But darnit. Almost. There.

Edit to add:  I wrote and asked if they’d look at a rewrite, and they will!  So there might be hope yet.  Go go go little story.

Meanwhile, back to edits on things and stuff.  And maybe some fricken writing.  I really want to be done with this novel draft already.

But first, back to ‘research’.  Also known as reading 17 Drizzt books.  Every one of those books made the NY best seller’s list, so I’m picking them apart to see what worked.  (Or you know, devouring the silly DnD heroics like candy, which is almost the same thing).

I think my stories need more kick-ass heroes.

498 To Go

Another rejection, this time with comments. Which is helpful and painful both.  Apparently the reader didn’t get through the first two pages (ouch) and thought the story had no hook and that I was “trying too hard”.  Not entirely sure what to do about the trying too hard bit, but I guess I can revisit the beginning paragraphs and see if the action can’t move a little more quickly.

So, another round of editing and then I’ll figure out the next place to send this one.

Still waiting for Space Bones, Delilah, and to hear about Clarion.

I hate wait.