It’s about time…

Yesterday I sent out my first short story submission in seven years!!!!!

It was much harder to do than I’d expected. 🙂 One of my goals is to start trying to sell my short stories. That seems like a simple concept, and having just sold three at the anthology workshop definitely helped me feel that the quality of my writing is at the right level. But it took a lot of willpower – and far more time than it should have – to make the last few changes to my story. Then when I was just about done I realized this particular market calls for longer submissions (3,000 words minimum) and my story was about 2,400 words. Ack!!!!!

I took a look at what I’d written, but there was no way I could add 600 words without changing the story into something different, and I didn’t want to do that. I checked the magazine’s website and they have a note saying a little under 3k is acceptable. I don’t know if 600 words under is too short, but I decided to give it a shot. The worst they can do is say no, right? And so … I made my first submission since 2009!

This did cut into my novel-writing time, but it was important to me to achieve this goal. I have another story I’d like to submit to a different market, but it will have to wait until I make a little more progress on the novel. Right now I’m going through the comments from my writing group on the last six or so chapters. I’m about two-thirds of the way through.

Rosie is keeping an eye on me so she can coerce me into playing ball if I take a break.
Rosie is keeping an eye on me so she can coerce me into playing ball if I take a break.

I love my writing group. They’re great at pointing out things in a constructive, positive way. With this particular story, I also get the benefit of having feedback from one writer who knows a lot about Celtic mythology, and one who knows very little. This is a big help since the main characters are a faery and a selkie. 🙂

The book cover is just about done. I’m itching to post it here, but I’ll wait until I have the absolutely final version … even though I don’t want to wait!!!

And last … I’m going to start putting a free short story up on a password-protected page on my website. I’ll send the password out in my newsletter, so if you’re interested please sign up! 🙂 Don’t worry, I don’t send the newsletter out very often – just when there’s something to announce. But I’d like to have something special for people who are interested in my writing, and this seems like a good way to do that. I am planning on making this live at the beginning of April, and will post a different story every season, so that would be four times/year.

Now I’d better get some work done before the dogs wake up from their nap!

2016-03-19 Dakota Ridge

Happy pajamas

I’m back at work on the novel, and have clean laundry for the first time in two weeks! Laugh if you will, but I’ll be wearing my favorite flannel pajamas tonight. 🙂

A few weeks before the anthology workshop I realized that part of the reason I’d signed up was for validation. I like to think I’m a good writer, but writing is a pretty solitary endeavor, and I don’t get much feedback on my unpublished projects. Selling three out of six short stories at the workshop, especially given the quality of the manuscripts submitted, made me feel that my writing is indeed at the level I had hoped it was.

Many years ago I read a book on writing by Orson Scott Card in which he said something that has stuck in my head ever since:

Writers have to simultaneously believe the following two things:

  1. The story I am now working on is the greatest work of genius ever written in English.
  2. The story I am now working on is worthless drivel.

(From How to Write Science Fiction and Fantasy by Orson Scott Card.)

If you don’t have confidence in your writing, you’re probably not going to attempt to sell any of it, so no one will ever read it. And if you think everything you write is perfect, you’re probably missing ways in which you can learn and grow and improve your craft.

Over the years I’ve gotten better at knowing when something I’ve written is good and when it needs work. I’ve had many times where I wrote something that I thought was fantastic, then the next time I looked at it I was appalled. Not always, fortunately – sometimes something is good from the start. 🙂 This is part of why I cycle through my manuscripts. I know the mistakes I tend to make, and I know what I usually don’t put in on the first pass and have to add in later.

For example, I have a tendency to write paragraphs and sentences that are too long, and I usually catch these on the second pass. And while I sometimes add sensory details and description in a first draft, I don’t add in as many as I’d like, so I add them when I go over the manuscript again.

This process wouldn’t fit everyone, but it works well for me. When I write a first draft quickly the story usually flows better, whereas if I slow down and fill in things like setting details I’ll often lose my momentum. Not always, but often. So I usually make notes in my manuscript about things I want to correct, details I want to fill in, etc. Here’s what the manuscript for Entangled by Midsummer looks like right now:

Manuscript screenshot

The yellow objects are comment balloons (I use Word), and there’s a chunk of purple text where I have a scene that’s way too long and needs to be cut, possibly as much as 50%.

It’s great to be working on the novel again. It felt intimidating when I looked at it yesterday. Novels are big! My head wasn’t in it because the anthology workshop took up so much time over the past few months. But having written one novel, I now know I can do this, so I made myself get to work. It was like riding a bicycle. 🙂 I have a guess as to how much time it will take me to wrap everything up, but after the past 6 months I’ve learned that my time estimates tend to be optimistic, so until I’m a little further along I’m going to try not to think about when I’ll be done.

Speaking of being done, the cover is very, very close. We’re trying out different font colors and background treatments, but the imagery and font faces have been finalized. I love it, and can’t wait to share!

Jasper and Rosie, who are not at all clean.
Jasper and Rosie, who are not at all clean.

Hooray!!!

I sold three out of six short stories at WMG Publishing’s anthology workshop!!! Yay!!!!!

They’ll be published in three different issues of the Fiction River anthology series. The publication schedule has not yet been finalized, but I do know that the earliest any of my stories will come out is May 2017.

The stories I sold were:

“The Next Dance” for the Tavern Tales issue. Editor: Kerrie L. Hughes
“Twin Wishes” for the Wishes issue. Editor: Rebecca Moesta
“Haunted” for the Hard Choices issue. Editor: Dean Wesley Smith

I went to the workshop hoping to sell one story, and was tremendously surprised to sell three. The writers in this workshop are all very talented, and the quality of the stories submitted was quite high. I’m very, very, very happy!!!!!

All three of my stories were in different genres. “The Next Dance” is a western set in a saloon, “Twin Wishes” is a young adult fantasy with a mermaid protagonist, and “Haunted” is – surprise! – a ghost story.

The sale of “Haunted” was the most exciting by far. It was the last day, and Dean had room for one more story. He wanted both my story and “The Devil’s Muse” by Laura Ware, but could not decide which one to take. The other authors whose stories had been selected for that issue generously offered to shave words out of their own stories so that he could buy both my story and Laura’s. What a wonderful thing to do! Laura and I gave each other a big hug afterward.

And now it’s time to finish the novel. 🙂

Rosie and Jasper were with me at the workshop :)
Rosie and Jasper were with me at the workshop 🙂