Tag Archives: writers

4Q19 Update

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The start of the new year is the time to look back and see how I did in 2020 (like every other writer, am I right?).  But first I want to review how the fourth quarter went.

  • Words written = 9263
  • Submissions = 29
  • Rejections = 27
  • Acceptances = 0
  • Holds = 0
  • Publications = 0
  • Awards = 0
  • Withdrawals = 1

The word count is almost exactly my quarterly average for 2019, which is much lower than my 2018 average.  The submissions and rejections were slightly down from my 2Q19 and 3Q19 numbers but in line with 1Q19.  The lone withdrawal was an odd one.  The market withdrew my submission stating it was closing its doors.  It’s the second time I’ve had a submission turned away because the market went belly up.  That’s more disheartening than a straight up rejection.

Once gain I didn’t have any acceptances, which is starting to weigh on me.  I’ll get to whether I achieved my acceptances goal in the next post, but (spoiler alert) I didn’t.

Most of the words this quarter went to the work-in-progress novel and were written during NaNoWriMo.  Actually, all but 50 words went to that.  The last 50 went to a dribble I wrote and submitted to a contest on a whim.  It was fun and may look to do more of those.  I already had the idea for a longer story and simply reduced it to 50 words.  I’m not a fan of writing anything lengthy on my phone, but there I was one night in bed furiously tapping with my thumbs and counting words over and over.  I still hope to expand the story to a longer form.

Next week, I’ll recap how all of 2019 went and set those goals for 2020.  How’d you finish off 2019?

 

3Q19 Update

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Another quarter is down the drain (or up in smoke or has passed us by or insert your favorite saying here). Let’s see how I did.

  • Words written = 7383
  • Submissions = 32
  • Rejections = 44
  • Acceptances = 1
  • Holds = 1
  • Publications = 1
  • Awards = 0
  • Withdrawals = 0

You’ll see I added the new “Holds” category, since I receive my first of those this quarter. The words are down again (for the third straight quarter). The submissions are down slightly, but the rejections are up. I did finally have my first acceptance and publication of the year.

If you’ve read my (infrequent) posts this year, you know I’ve struggled to find the time to write. I’ve struggled to blog this year too. I find the two related. The more I wrote last year the more ideas that writing generated for blog posts.

After beating my 2018 words goal, I am no where near the pace needed to finish with that amount again with a fourth of the year left. I’ve gone from 1100 to 9300 to 7400 over the last three quarters. The numbers show that whatever I was doing before no longer worked, so I’m trying something new.

I’m attempting to steal 15 minutes a day to get 100-200 words down. I realize that’s not even a page a day, but it’s something. And I’ve made progress.

To get motivated, I reread the novel I started during last year’s NaNoWriMo. First, I had the disheartening discovery that I lost about 1600 words due to an errant backing up procedure. Once I cried a little, I set out to give the manuscript a once over. It needed it just to be readable. Due to the speed required to attempt NaNoWriMo, I had left numerous character and place name blanks simply because I couldn’t remember what I’d used before and I didn’t want to spend the few seconds to go back and look.

That initial polish also served as a reminder of what I’d written, which had mostly escaped me. It got me excited about the story again as well.

I’m happy to report the 15 minutes/100-200 words a day has worked pretty well. I still haven’t managed it every day, but I’ve managed to add about 5000 words already. I even managed to rewrite the lost 1600.

My goal is to sustain the 100-200 words at a time up to this year’s NaNoWriMo, and then see if I can do another 15,000-20,000 during NaNoWriMo like last year. I know some people write that in a week or two, and I say more power to them. I’d love to have time and motivation for that. I lack both currently, but I’m alright taking the tortoise approach. I’m only racing myself.

How have your goals gone with 3/4 of the year behind us? Let me know in the comments.

Netherlands-Belgium-Luxembourg Writing Adventure

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Last year, I blogged here and here about writing while on vacation in France. Both the cultural experiences, mostly art museums, and the setting in Paris and the French Riviera were inspiring. Though my writing had nothing to do with either, I hammered out a good many words and better yet, felt productive.

This year, the family toured the Benelux countries. There was plenty of culture to soak up, but it felt different. The Van Gogh museum in Amsterdam was impressive and should be inspiring to any artists out there. My oldest daughter enjoys attempting to recreate the works of famous artists and had brought along her own self portrait to compare to Van Gogh’s numerous ones. But I didn’t feel the inspiration, like the year before.

I still managed to get some words on the screen. Most of the trip I worked on a new short story. I’m continuing to work on that one now that we’re home. It needs one more scene, which just happens to be the climax, so not difficult at all! I also wrote a flash story that’s a little political satire.

One of the last days in Luxembourg, the kids got these chocolate eggs that had a toy inside each. My wife tells me it’s a thing. Well, one of the little toys was a miniature dolphin. Like any toy these days, it came with instructions and a chocking hazard warning—in 30+ languages. This thing is like Pit Bull, worldwide.

And darned if that set of instructions wasn’t inspirational. A flash story idea popped into my head, and I got it on the screen that night with a few tweaks the next day.

Before these vacations, I hadn’t thought much about locations being inspirational, especially since I don’t write stories set in these locals. Now I know the location itself can feed the creative drive even if your story is set out in the solar system. Going forward, I need to make sure our vacations are set in the appropriate locales, and we visit the necessary sights, to get the creative energy going. I also need to read more toy instructions.

Let me know in the comments if you derive inspiration from your writing locations—or toy instructions.

The First Sentence

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How important is the first sentence? A Writers Path had a recent post on the importance of the first sentence setting the tone for the entire story. That blog also had a similar post on The Importance of a Great Literary First Impression.

Aeryn Rudel of Rejectomancy had a post as well where he analyzed the first lines from his stories that were published last year. And The Write, Already! blog recently had a series of posts promoting John Brueckner’s “892 Opening Lines” book. There’s even a publication dedicated to the first sentence called, not so coincidentally, The First Line. I’ve posted previously about that publication.

I also recall an editor of Asimov’s or Analog year’s ago discussing how important the first sentence was. What I recall, whether I remember correctly or not, essentially was if the first sentence didn’t grip him, it had little chance of being purchased.

Clearly, this is on a lot of people’s minds. So have I practiced this philosophy? I’ve certainly tried with varying amounts of success. I’ve also tried to vary my approach. Sometimes the first line is dialogue. Other times it’s the narrator speaking.

To date my favorite is from a story I’m still shopping around. Indeed, I hope to use it as the lead story in my short story collection submitted to the C. Michael Curtis Short Story Book Prize. (I wrote about this contest here.) The line is: “The naked man ran screaming from the room.” Don’t you want to read on to know why he is both naked and screaming? I thought so; I haven’t gotten an editor to bite yet though.

Do you try to nail that first line before proceeding with a story, or do you not worry about it? Do you have any first lines you’re especially proud of? Let me know in the comments.

 

1Q19 Update

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The first quarter of the new year is done, so it’s time to check on the ole productivity.

  • Words written = 11,070
  • Submissions = 26
  • Rejections = 32
  • Acceptances = 0
  • Publications = 1
  • Awards = 0

Not terrible, but not great. A fourth of my 2019 word goal of 60,000 would be 15,000. I fell short of that one, but I did better than I thought. I found it difficult to write this quarter.  Free time was not abundant, and when I had it, I felt unmotivated to write. I even had two business trips–my favorite writing opportunities–and still got very little writing done.

So what did get done? About 4000 of those words were the result of flash fiction stories. I finished three of roughly 1000 words and then another four that were some amount less than that. In addition, I added a little to the WIP novel (1600 words) and about 450 words to various existing stories I edited before sending out again. I also wrote the first 600 words in a story I’m collaborating on with a fellow novice speculative fiction writer.  I hope to have the opportunity to keep adding to the word total in that work.

The largest chunk of writing went toward finishing my long suffering novella. That was another 4200 words. I am pleased to report that project is now done! Well, the first draft is done. This was a weird one. Most of the novella is in final form already having finished it last summer. However, the consistent critique from my beta readers was it lacked a proper ending. So that’s what I’ve worked on adding intermittently for the last six months. I’ll have to see what my beta readers think now.

My goal was to finish the novella and then break it up into its three component short stories. That way I could include all three stories in the short story collection contest I plan on submitting to by the April 15th deadline. The rules for that contest limit any one story to 15,000 words. The problem is, even with breaking the novella into three stories, the third story now clocks in at 16,200 words. Whoops! Don’t worry, I have plenty of other stories to include in the collection. Besides, the newly written part needs editing anyway before it’s ready for submission.

I also was disappointed not to have an acceptance this quarter. Admittedly, I didn’t maximize my chances, having taken several stories out of circulation, so they’d be available to include in the contest collection. Still, I’d really like to get to where I’m receiving at least one acceptance a quarter. Those are huge motivators.

I did have one publication in Issue 8 of Broadswords and Blasters. Buy the issue here!  It’s a noir detective story with a sci-fi twist.

So that’s it. How’d your first quarter go? Let me know if the comments if you had any triumphs or failures.