Back of the Envelope

Kevin Lucia, blogging at Relief, has some recommendations on how to find time to write:

As a preface, I’d like to touch on two things, both of which relate to my previous entry and set up this one. First, I’d like to point out a recent blog entry by horror novelist Brian Keene, whom I referenced in my last entry. He recently re-posted an old blog entitled “Time, and How to Make It,” in regards to finding time to write. It’s relation to the tone of this series is uncanny (Warning: Contains ‘R’ rated language in spots, mostly in regards to how aspiring writers should just sit their BLEEPs down in front of the computer and BLEEPing write).

Second, I’d be remiss if I didn’t also point out rising Christian Suspense Novelist, Eric Wilson. Recently, Eric had the joyous occasion of announcing to family, friends, and colleagues that he was finally able to quit that dreaded “day job” and write full-time. How was he able to do it? Well…hopefully he won’t be offended by this, but please reference Brian Keene’s blog; Eric happens to write his BLEEPing BLEEP off. After plugging along through four novels that boasted rave critical reviews but only average sales, Eric persevered – trusted God as well – and hit the mother load: a whole slew of movie novelization and tie-in deals, as well his much anticipated new series: Jerusalem’s Undead.

It occurred to me as I sat down to write this blog that I might very well be the victim of my own hyperbole. As I thought about all the things an aspiring writer should consider giving up, I realized maybe these things aren’t that big of a secret and everyone already knows them. However, even if they aren’t elements of rocket science, sharing them is by no means a bad thing.

He goes through a number of things a writer should consider giving up or cutting back on, as well as things he should never do so. To no one's surprise, television is number one.

Considering that I just started a job specifically chosen because I believed it would give me more time to write, you'd think I'd have this down. Not so much, as it turns out. I've found time to write the last few days, but that was before the new job really picked up, and it remains to be seen whether I'll be able to figure out a routine that will let me spend as much time as I'd like with the writing.

Of course, I have my own distractions, the number one of which is not listed by Kevin Lucia, but should be: the internet. I'm going to have to cut back on it, I think, to make as much progress as I'd like.

So yesterday I quit my job to become a writer.

All right, that might need a little clarification. While Lincoln Laboratory's been good for me, it was time to move on from my current position. At first I was looking for other positions within the Laboratory, but I eventually decided to cast a wider net and look at jobs outside. I was offered one with Cardinal Intellectual Property, doing patent searches under contract from the US Patent Office. At first it struck me as a very interesting job that offered a lot of flexibility, even if it wasn't exactly what I was looking for. When I realized how I could benefit from the flexibility it gave me, I discovered that I was asking the wrong question. The real question was "How serious am I about my writing?"

I've always wanted to be a writer "someday," but lots of people say that. The difference is that while before I was planning on writing a book at some point, I have now written two books, and the question isn't "How do I write a book?", but rather "How do I publish one?" This will take time and effort, and a flexible job is a great benefit to accomplishing it. I am taking some risks to do so, but if ever there was a time in my life to take risks, this is it, and I think it's worthwhile.

Well, "The Office of Second Chances" is, according to an e-mail I received today, on the short list. My guess as to what this means is that they looked at it, saw that it was in English, had most words spelled correctly, and wasn't written in crayon, so they didn't peremptorily discard it with a contemptuous laugh.

In other news, I've been offered a book deal for The Eyes of the Shadow. It is not, however, a really good book deal. It's a co-publishing arrangement.

We use the term “co-publishing” to describe a hybrid between conventional royalty publishing and self-publishing (or subsidy publishing), utilizing the best of both worlds. ... We print the book for our own inventory, market it, distribute it, and pay the author a royalty on every copy we sell...

Our company has an outstanding team of editors, graphic designers and production personnel to produce books with the highest quality. Also, our company’s system of marketing would help to position the book to be widely distributed both in the Christian marketplace and general book trade. That system includes trade catalogs and fliers, sales presentations to independent retailers, chain stores, and distributors, representation at the Christian Booksellers Association (CBA), press releases, Internet listings and advertising in Christian Retailing, our premier trade magazine.

So where's the catch, you ask? What does the author provide to make this a 'co' process?

[I]t is made possible by the author’s willingness to purchase--at a deep discount--at least [a very large number] copies of the book from the first press run. For authors who have a means of selling copies of their own books, co-publishing works very well.

To be honest, it sounds like I'd probably lose money on this, unless my book is a runaway success and/or I'm willing to put in a lot of effort doing my own publicity, selling off the copies I've purchased via book signings, talking to bookstores, selling over the Internet, and all sorts of unusual distribution schemes. Probably both. I'm not even sure where I would put that many books.

I'm at least going to figure out what the actual sum would be, and do some research on the process. I'd certainly appreciate input. Does anyone know anything about co-publishing? Any experience with it?

Back of the Envelope was down this weekend. I doubt that many people noticed, but it was rather infuriating to me. The reason for it can be found over at the Powerblogs development blog website:

Yesterday, our service provider sent out this message:

This evening at 4:55 in our H1 data center, electrical gear shorted, creating an explosion and fire that knocked down three walls surrounding our electrical equipment room Thankfully, no one was injured. In addition, no customer servers were damaged or lost.

We have just been allowed into the building to physically inspect the damage. Early indications are that the short was in a high-volume wire conduit. We were not allowed to activate our backup generator plan based on instructions from the fire department.

Aside from other Powerblogs sites, such as Dean's World and The Volokh Conspiracy, some other prominent sites suffered from this service interruption, such as Blank Label Comics, which supports Schlock Mercenary and Shortpacked. The main effect of this on my blogging is that it's set me behind on getting the Storyblogging Carnival put together. Hopefully, I'll be able to get that done tonight.

In other news, I submitted "The Office of Second Chances" to Coach's Midnight Diner on Saturday. I'm glad to have it done, although I'm not completely confident of what I submitted. I didn't think "Aha, this is the perfect version of this story," so much as "It's due today, I better send in what I have." Not that the version that I sent in was a bad version. I'm just not sure that it was the best version. I wrote four separate versions of Second Chances. Not revisions, mind you, which is merely where I take a story and edit it, changing the details but keeping the same basic plot. Versions are different enough that they don't tell the same story, and this one has had four. The first two were boring, and I don't miss them. The third, I thought, was pretty good, but a friend of mine thought it read too much like a Young Adult story (I didn't entirely agree), so I changed it. I wasn't certain that this fourth version was better than the third version, but it is the version I sent in. What I really needed was time away from this story, so I could come back to it with fresh eyes and then judge it for myself. Unfortunately, the compressed timeline for writing this story, and the decision to discard the second verison and write a third with just a week to go, didn't give me any time to do that. If the story gets rejected, I'll come back to it after some time away and see if I can produce the perfect version of the story.

The deadline for story submissions to Coach's Midnight Diner have been extended to May 31. If you have a story that can reasonably be called Christian-themed genre fiction, you may want to submit it. They aren't looking for sword-and-sorcery fantasy or hardcore sci-fi, but they are looking for horror (including Cthulhu and monster stories), crime, adventure, twilight zone, conspiracy, aliens, and more. Now that the deadline's been extended, I may be able to get my Office of Second Chances story ready in time.

I've been meaning to write up a report on this for a little while, but I've just now gotten to it. As I said earlier, two weeks ago I went to a Christian writing conference. Aside from attending a number of talks by writers, editors, and publishers, I talked to several publishers and convinced two to take a look at my book proposal. I haven't heard anything back yet, but I'd be surprised if I had. I won't go into all the advice I heard about writing and publishing--some of it was good, some of it was okay, and much of it was contradictory. Writers are always telling you how to write, yet no two seem to write the same way. I met Dave Long of Faith*in*Fiction there (and convinced him to look at my proposal), and talked to an old high school friend.

It was fun, but what I think may be useful to you is to talk about some of the publishers who are looking for submissions. If you have a story or book you want to get published, then these aren't bad places to start:

• Creative Byline - This isn't a publisher so much as an intermediary between publishers and writers. For a modest fee ($19), you can submit manuscripts, get feedback from first readers, and submit it to editors who are interested in your type of work. Now, I don't know how well this works, and they are fairly new, but what caught my eye was that among the publishers who signed on are Tor and Forge, who publish science fiction and fantasy. As they aren't very expensive (about what it would cost to send a manuscript via snail mail), they may be worth taking a chance on.
• theotherjournal.com - a Christian online quarterly for the discussion of faith and culture.
• Coach's Midnight Journal - A yearly journal of Christina genre fiction, including horror, crime, mystery, and paranormal.
• Relief - A quarterly journal of Christian literary fiction. Coach's Midnight Journal grew out of it. Cause great genre fiction needs to go somewhere.

There are some others, but those are the ones for the fiction I write. I may put up something for some of the others later.

Update (5/4/2008) Messed up the link for Relief (actually put a copy of the previous entry where the link should have been). Fixed now.

I've decided to attend a writer's conference, specifically the "Festival of Faith and Writing" at Calvin College in April. If nothing else, it's a good chance to network, and as there will be publishers there looking for new authors, there is a chance I could find someone interested in one of my novels. To that end, I've been working on preparing both The Eyes of the Shadow and Fire and Water for this. I considered bringing paper manuscripts, but at 600 pages, it's probably a bit much to burden someone with. So I've been working on preparing a CD which both manuscripts and some introductory material on me. I don't know if anything will come of it, but it should be fun.

Andrew Ian Dodge, a regular contributor to the Storyblogging Carnival, has a new book out. Available on Amazon, The Gathering Dark and other tales: A Sage of Wales Collection, has more of Andrew's Sage of Wales stories, which he's frequently graced us with. Here's the blurb:

The Sage of Wales' adventures continue in this exciting new collection by Andrew Ian Dodge .

In a short novel, The Sage must help his friend, Reginald Wiggenbottom, discover strength out of legend in order to save his unborn son from a nasty conspiracy .

Followed by three additional short tales . First, the Sage must help a man come to grips with a dangerous family legacy.

In the second, he must stop an overly detailed writer from accidentally freeing the Elder God, Cthulhu, from his watery cave and so bringing about the end of mankind.

And finally, he must devise a way to keep an evil offshoot of Islam from raising a bloodthirsty pharaoh.

Congratulations to Andrew, and I encourage you to support him by buying his book.

I've been sitting on this story for a year and a half now. But... New Year's Eve of 2006, I said that my goal was to publish a short story. I even had a seven step plan. What I didn't say, when it happened in May of 2006, is that I succeeded. (In the meantime, I've had an e-zine anthology publication first.) It turns out that publishing a story takes a really long time, and the story that was accepted back in mid 2006 has finally come out, this month, in Aoife's Kiss. I even got my name on the cover. Heck, they actually paid me--though not enough to pay any bills.

I am now, ladies and gentlemen, a Published Author.

On January 1st, 2006, I said that my goal that year was to be published. One of the things you have to realize is that the pace of the publishing industry is slow... so I didn't have anything in print last year. However, I do have something in print now.

Lyn Perry has published a short story anthology on Lulu, with 24 speculative fiction stories with a spiritual theme. This, of course, is part of the Residential Aliens project, a speculative fiction e-zine which is humming along nicely. Lulu is, of course, a self publishing press, but as Dave Gudeman says:

It's in a self-published book, but I didn't publish it myself; Lyn Perry at Residential Aliens did. So technically, Lyn published me meaning that I've been published rather than I published myself. The difference is critical.

And yes, Dave has his own story in the book, the brilliant "Transcendence." Also included is Curtis Schweitzer's "Colossus." All three of these stories have appeared in the Storyblogging Carnival. So if you'd like to own an anthology with a lot of stories with spiritual significance, be sure to buy a copy. You can go straight to Lyn's Storefront.

Blogger and Storyblogging Carnival participant, Lyn Perry, has started a new e-zine for Christian speculative fiction, called Residential Aliens. I contributed one of my own stories, one which I've never published anywhere else, including this blog, so you may want to check it out there. It's called "The Hunter of Shades."

Mad Kane has posted the results for her limerick contest on her blog.

Madeleine Kane is having a limerick contest. If you have, or think you can write, a limerick about spring, and you're interested in cash prizes, why don't you have a look? The deadline's the first day of spring, so you don't have much time.

I wrote a memo the other day. That in itself isn't something to blog about, but it was an interesting experience, as the purpose of writing the memo was to inform my employer that they had no claim on any of the fiction I've written. You'd think this would be obvious, but I wanted to be careful. Since my company is a Federally Funded Research Lab, they own everything I do with one exception:

IP which a) is outside the professional field for which the employee is hired, b) is outside any sponsored research carried out at [the company] in the broad scope of its technical research and development programs, and c) made no significant use of [company] administered facilities and/or funds in its creation, will be owned by the creating employee(s), with the concurrence of the Director’s Office and the TLO.

My favorite part is that it has to be outside the professional field for which I was hired and outside the scope of the research anyone at my company is doing. My understanding is that this is a federal requirement, since my company is federally funded. Fortunately, my fiction qualifies on all counts (with caveats), but according to the policy, I needed to run it by the Director's Office first, and they suggested I write the memo, which would assert that these stories were 1) written on my own time, 2) in the genre of fantasy and horror, which doesn't seem important but is, 3) without using company equipment or materials, and 4) outside my professional field.

Which is fine for the things I think may be published in the near future, but this does lead me to some questions. First, what if I'm on a business trip and decide to write a story using my company supplied laptop while on the plane or in my hotel room? Do they then own that story? What if I'm at home and I'm using a company pen to mark some changes on a draft I printed out from my own computer and printer? I suppose I really shouldn't be taking company pens home in the first place, but I don't empty my pockets of writing instruments before I go home. Besides, I'm just as likely to bring my pens into work as to take theirs home, so I figure it evens out. Now, I'm pretty sure using a company pen doesn't count as significant use of company resources, but looking through the administrative note on the policy, typing on the laptop might.

And what if I decide to write a science fiction story? I've written those in the past, though not recently. Is that considered in my professional field? What is my professional field? I do radar stuff now, but I was a superconducting quantum computation guy when they hired me. Even if I avoid talking about anything I've ever worked on personally, it's bound to include elements relating to what someone here is doing. Now I don't intend to be technical in my stories, or reveal any proprietary information, but I think I'd need a new memo.

Fortunately, I have a pretty good relationship with my company (at least until they see this blog entry), and I'm hoping they won't be unreasonable, but it's enough to make me a bit nervous.

I've been having trouble writing recently. The big thing on my plate is Eyes, but the problem is that it's been the big thing on my plate for the past year, and I'm tired of it. I want to get it done, but I'm stuck. There are problems with the version I currently have, but I really need the opinions of other people in order to see those problems clearly, and I'm having trouble getting feedback. Does anyone out there feel like they can give it a look and give me some advice? I'm not just looking for someone to read it and say whether it's good or bad, mind. I'm looking for detailed comments delivered on a timely basis (a couple of weeks). Anyone feel like giving it a shot?

David Long of Faith*in*Fiction gives Richard Powers some love. I've never read Richard Powers, but I'll always remember him since he beat me to a story idea with his novel Galatea 2.2. Well, technically, that's not true. I wrote my short story, Galatea, a straightforward retelling of the myth in modern terms, using a neural network computer to create the perfect woman, in 1990, and submitted it to the county-wide Write Now! contest in Chesterfield county, Virginia. The story won the contest, and I've since rewritten it a couple of times, looking for an opportunity to publish it properly. Unfortunately, in 1995, Richard Powers published Galatea 2.2, which forever ruined the novelty of my story, making the odds of getting it published much longer. My mother remains convinced that Mr. Powers stole the concept from me, and although I suppose it's possible he might have read my story, I don't think the odds are all that high. Besides, merging neural networks with the myth of Galatea is just too obvious an idea for anyone to claim ownership of it, and I think that the stories which we derived from the idea were very different.

Dave at Faith*in*Fiction is worried over the double standard between sex and violence in fiction, and particularly when it comes to Christian fiction. As I am not at all shy about violence in my fiction (see, especially, Fire, but Eyes isn't exactly pacifistic either), this is something I've thought about. I have a theory about the reason for this double-standard, and it's probably not what you think.

As a society, we have a much greater consensus on what constitutes acceptable violence than acceptable sexuality. Americans are as divided as ever on extramarital sex, homosexuality, and a host of other sexual practices. Sex in fiction is almost bound to offend someone, and whether the writer makes it clear the act is right or wrong, or just presents it without judgement, someone's going to protest. Violence is another matter. We have clear ideas on when violence is just and when it is not. It is, in general, not right to harm people, except in self-defense or to stop those who use unjust violence. Thus, when we read about a violent act in fiction, we immediately categorize it as right or wrong, and rarely worry that it will send the wrong message to impressionable young people, as that categorization is clear in the fiction as well. Of course, good fiction can blur the lines, and edgy movies do it as a matter of course, but none of them really attempt to shift the general consensus. Thus the violence is "safe," even when it is very ugly.

I've been writing a lot this past week, expanding on the story in Eyes to try to explain more about Ryan's father, the mysteries surrounding his disappearance, and what that means for Ryan. It does play into why Red-eyes is after him and Emily in the first place, but I'm being deliberately coy with that, although I'm thinking I'm saying enough that readers ought to be able to make some educated guesses. So far I've written about 4,000 words this week, on top of another 14,000 words I've written previously, for a total of 18,000 words added to Eyes, about 36% more than the original. I expect to write an additional 4,000 words by the end of the weekend, and there may be some more scenes to write after that. Not all of this is completely new material or new scenes. Some of it is just scenes getting longer from the rewrite. In all, I'd estimate about 12,000 words, or 67% are new scenes, the rest is from expansion on old scenes.

Of course, not all of it is going to be quite as fun as a new encounter with Red-eyes. What I wrote today ended up being more of an infodump than anything else. Lots and lots of facts and information, but not all that much storytelling. I find it fascinating, but I'm not sure my readers will. I'd hate to just tell you flat out what I'm writing, but here are a few of my online sources. I have offline sources as well.

My writing group at Park Street has decided we should do something a little different, or maybe a lot different. We think it's time we try to think outside the box by writing outside our genres. This means that those of us who write realistic fiction will write sci-fi, those who do only non-fiction will write fiction, and I, who writes a variety of fiction, will write poetry. It should be fun. But not necessarily any good.

When I seriously set out to get published this year, I knew it wasn't going to be easy. Oh, sure, in my daydreams, this was the year I made it and made it big. Every story I submitted was published on the first try. The more cynical part of me knew I'd be rejected. A lot. Boy, was it right! I have four stories in circulation right now, which I'm actively submitting to print magazines. Three of them have already been rejected, two of them three times. The fourth is a long shot. I don't plan to give up, but I'll admit the rejection gets to me. When I get another rejection, especially one which is a standard form letter without any indication that the story had any redeeming qualities, I wonder whether I'm good enough. I know I'm a decent writer. I don't think I'm a great writer, but I think I might be a good one. That doesn't mean that I'm good enough to get published, though. I'm hoping I am, but every time I get a rejection, I wonder.

Sometimes a rejection is encouraging, with a handwritten note by the editor saying he really liked the story but it wasn't a good fit for his magazine. He could be lying through his teeth just to be nice, but when I receive one of those, I'm encouraged enough to send the story elsewhere, and if I have another story that might work for that magazine, it's the first place I'll send it to.

Sometimes the rejection letter will contain specific criticism which leaves me wondering whether the editor read the story right. Like the one I received Monday, saying that the story feels like part of something much larger, and that the character was an archetype and not a fully-realized character. To the first part, I said, well, yes. When the genre is fantasy, I can't just write a story without creating a whole world, with history and societies and larger conflicts of which I'm only showing a piece. The story itself is just a snapshot of that--there's always more going on, issues that aren't going to be resolved in those six thousand words. I just hoped what I did write was self-contained, stating a conflict and resolving it even if there were some tantalizing bits left open. As for the second, let's just say I didn't see it. True, my character is not morally complex, and I made no attempt to make him sympathetic, but I thought the only reason the editor called him an archetype was because I refused to name him, only giving him a title. Then, once my indignation cools, I remind myself that writing is about communicating. There will always be someone who doesn't get it, but when that someone is the editor of a magazine which publishes hundreds of stories of that genre, I have to wonder if I might have failed to communicate. Maybe I don't need to have those unresolved tantalizing bits in there at all, and maybe I could at least name that unsympathetic character. Then again, maybe not. I'm pretty sure I'll submit that story elsewhere with no changes.

And then there are the most promising and infuriating rejections of all, the ones that invite me to rework and resubmit the piece. I've only ever received one of these, two weeks ago, which said that the story was good but just not ready, and that it needed about 500-800 words cut. Which is frustrating for a story which I consider my most polished work, and which I struggled to find words I could cut just to get it under a wordcount of 6,000. But there was some specific advice included on what to cut, and even if it's stuff I would prefer to keep, I'll do my best to do what the editor wants. Of course, even after I do all that, there's no guarantee the editor will accept the revised piece, but given how rare second chances are, I intend to do my best.

So, after all this, am I discouraged? Sure I am. Maybe I'm not good enough. But, for some reason, I'm still confident. I believe I will get published this year. I don't yet know what story will succeed, or who will accept it, but I think it will happen.

David over at Faith in Fiction has been blogging about what it takes to establish a career as a writer. So far, he's mentioned three steps:

1. Complete a book.
2. Figure out what kind of writer you are.
3. Study the market.

Some people do these things in exact opposite order. Some only reverse one and two. I think David makes a good argument that this is the correct order. You won't really know what type of writer you are until you finish a book, and you can't figure out where your work fits in the market until you've done that.

I'm still not sure where I fit, but then, I'm not sure I've finished a book. I've completed a couple of novellas, and I'm in the process of expanding one of them, Eyes in the Shadow, into a novel, hopefully without filling it with fluff. Fire, meanwhile, is only part one of a book, and while I have part two written, it's still a rough draft. Even when part two is as highly polished as Fire, and Fire gets an additional polish in the process, they'll still only form the first book of a trilogy, not a complete story in themselves. Which is a roundabout way of saying that I've sort of written two books, but I'm still not sure what type of author I am. I don't write Romance, that's for certain. Fire is straightforward epic fantasy, while Eyes is Christian horror. What links the two of them is my faith, which shows through even when it's not central, and a taste for the supernatural. I'm not sure I need the supernatural, though, and I have a couple of ideas for some straightforward historical fiction stories, only one of which involves demons. Okay, so maybe that one isn't straightforward historical fiction.

Remember yesterday when I said that I had finished the second revision of part one of Eyes and it had only gained 150 words? Well, it looks like I spoke too soon. I've been going through my writing group's comments on the story, and working in those corrections and suggestions which I feel work well, and after going through just one person's suggestions, it's gotten a thousand words longer. That took an hour, and I have four more to go through. Now the one I just finished had some of the most extensive comment, so I don't expect the rest to have quite the same impact, but it's going to take longer to go through them than I expected. I think for part two I'll work in my writing group's suggestions before I do the second revision. Which is what I had hoped to accomplish this weekend, but it looks like I'll still be busy getting through the part one suggestions. I'm not sure when I'm going to find time to work on that revision for the story I'd like to submit to another publication by next week.

I've finished the second revision of the first quarter of Eyes. (If you're wondering where I've been, that's where.) I expected, as I was working on it, that it would grow some, as I filled in gaps and made things clearer, maybe going from 14,000 words to 15,000 or more. Instead, it only gained about 150 words. On the one hand, that means I'm gettting better at telling stories without using a lot of words. The down side is that I need Eyes to get longer if I'm going to do what I want with it. A lot longer, at least 60%. I was hoping that the revision process itself would naturally add 10% or more, with the remaining 50% being things which I had previously just skimmed over being expanded into full-fledged scenes. It's beginnning to look like I'm not going to get that 10% from the revision. The thing is, I really want to be done with the revised Eyes by June so I can get Water done by the end of the year, and I'm beginning to doubt my ability to do that. I'll try, though, I really will.

Doc Rampage has an interesting post where he criticizes a list of The 100 Best First Lines of Novels, pointing out that many of the selections are the first lines of great novels, but not really great first lines.

One of my favorite first lines is "The black-robed alien stalked through the Library, leaving the quiet chaos of frightened scholars in his wake." Okay, so it's the first line of a short story, not a novel, and I wrote it, so I'm a bit biased, but, in the narrow field of my favorite first lines of short stories which I've written, that's my favorite. But short stories, as a rule, make a point of grabbing the reader's attention quickly, so they try to pack a lot in the first sentence. Novels figure they have at least the entire first chapter to get the reader's attention, and novel readers much more likely to pick up the book due to the picture on the book's jacket or the blurb written on it than anything on the inside. In most places where you find short stories, such as anthologies and literary magazines, they have just their titles and that first sentence to grab the reader. Thus, as a whole, I think short stories have better first lines than novels.

To demonstrate, here are some of the first lines I've used, in order not of how good, but from the shortest story to the longest. While there's not an exact one-to-one correspondence--I think the first one is particularly dull--I think you'll find that the better lines tend to be near the top:

1. "War was a bad thing." -- "Max's War," Short Story


2. "The Hunter moved through the forest with both care and grace, his footfalls gliding over root and brush to find firm footing without cracking either leaf or twig." -- "The Hunter of Shades," Short Story


3. "The black-robed alien stalked through the Library, leaving the quiet chaos of frightened scholars in his wake." -- "A Stranger in the Library," Short Story


4. "Quian’s serf village spilled out of the city’s grim walls like rotten apples from an overturned basket." -- A Phoenix in Darkness, Novella


5. "Ryan was at the mall, having braved Boston's cold and snow to get to the shops at the Prudential Center." -- Eyes in the Shadow, Novella


6. "He sat on his throne, a great chair shaped, not carved, from wood." -- Fire, Novel


7. "Victor watched the passing traffic with a mixture of horror and fascination." -- Water, Novel

Let me know what you think.

In other writing news, I received my second rejection on Monday. This one wasn't as encouraging as the last one, but a quick rejection lets me quickly submit it to somewhere else.

I also got stuck on the chapter I was revising for Eyes in the Shadow. I decided to completely reorder everything that happened in that chapter, which made it hard for me to do my read it aloud and see if it sounds stupid test until I had moved everything around and printed it again. It puts me behind where I had hoped to be, but I'm slowly making progress.

It didn't help that I was feeling sick yesterday.

I spend a lot of time browsing my Sitemeter referral logs. I know, it's narcissistic, but I like to know where people are coming from. The most interesting ones, in my opinion, are the unknown ones. The google searches, which make up at least half the visitors, are interesting, and I do like to see who's linking to me, but the visitors with the unknown referrals most likely came directly to my website in order to read it, not because they followed some link to it. Thus, when I see that, I check out the details: especially the entry page, the Referring URL (if it says blocked, rather than leaving it blank, then they just have very good spyware protection and probably came from Google or something). Usually, the entry page is my main page--these are my regulars, and I've come to recognize some of them by their ISPs or locations. Often, the entry page is a carnival I'm hosting, which means they probably followed the link in an e-mail announcement. Occasionally, it's an odd one, and I wind up wondering why. Oddly, though, every couple of days I notice one or two people coming directly to Eyes in the Shadow.

Judging by the diverse locations and ISPs of the visitors, they aren't the same one or two people, but I don't keep close enough tabs on my visitors to say how many there are. Maybe it's only five or so, coming by repeatedly in order to finish the story. On the other hand, maybe it's an expanding number of people... it's possible that the story's getting attention via word of mouth. E-mail doesn't usually show up in my referral logs.

While I'd love for Eyes to be an underground hit, I think that's probably unlikely. While I had fun writing the story, and I generally like how it turned out, I've been revising it recently, so I am very aware of its glaring flaws. I know that some people liked it, and I think it has potential, but it's going to be a little while before I get it to live up to that. Still, I am curious about who's still reading it. If any of you guys read my front page, feel free to let me know what you think.

Good news! I received my first rejection today. Yes, I did say "good news" and "rejection," and yes, those two do go together. I expect to be getting a lot of rejections, and of course I'd rather get an acceptance, but a quick rejection means that I can quickly get the story submitted elsewhere. What's more, it was an encouraging rejection, with a personal note from the editor with some comments both praising the work and explaining why it didn't make the cut. Vaguely, in both cases, I admit, but such comments are not only helpful, they do a lot to set the response apart from all those dull form letters I usually get. Because of that, I'm likely to submit more stories to that publication, including things I probably wouldn't have considered submitting anywhere. In fact, because of his cordiality in the past (this isn't the first work of mine he's rejected), I dared to ask him if he'd look at another story of mine, even though it's longer than the usual length of stories his magazine accepts. He's agreed, and after some polishing and reformatting, I should have it ready to send via snail mail this weekend. At the least, I should get another polite rejection.

And yes, I am being vague, since these were private e-mail conversations and I don't want to post them for the world to see.

All in all, I've made three submissions thus far, and I intend to make two more by the end of the week, for a total of five this month. Once those go out, that's all the material I have that's submittable, at least until I get my next rejection, and it's time to start revising Eyes.

Not for me, or for my blog, but I'm considering changing the names of one of my stories. I've always been a little uncertain about Eyes in the Shadow (read it here), and I've been thinking that Eyes of the Shadow might work better. For one, it's a more accurate name, as the focus of the story is on the red eyes of the shadow-thing. For another, it gets me away from the "Something in the Something" naming scheme that I've found myself using way too often. What do you think?

On New Year's Day, I said that my resolution for this year was to get published. You may be wondering how I intend to do that. After all, I can submit all the stories I like to all the magazines I want, but there's no guarantee any of them will publish me, no matter how good I think I am. Yes, I realize that, but I do mean to aggressively seek publication this year, and to that end, I have a plan.

So here it is, Donald's twelve seven step plan to publish a story:

1. Get as many stories as possible into a publishable state. I have three stories which I think are in such a state right now, two of which you've seen and one which you haven't. I also plan to get Eyes in the Shadow into a publishable state, along with Fire and its sequel, by the end of the year. That in itself is pretty ambitious, and I'm not entirely certain that I'll succeed, much less have time for blogging and participating in the Storyblogging Carnival, but I intend to try.


2. Buy the Writer's Market. This volume lists magazine after magazine which accepts fiction submissions. I bought a copy on Monday.


3. Buy lots of 9x12 envelopes. I bought a hundred of them on Tuesday. I really only intended to buy, like, twenty, but the next size down from a hundred was about ten, which cost $2, and 100 cost $5, so I went with the hundred.


4. Prepare stories for submission ASAP. Preparing a story first involves checking out the magazine's website, reading some of its stories if possible, and making sure that the story I want to submit meets its submission guidelines. Then I have to write a cover letter and format the story to fit its requirements. This can take a while, but there's also a bit of re-use, first for submitting a story to multiple magazines, and then for submitting multiple stories to the same magazine. I plan on preparing three stories just this month, one each week--which gives me a week to spare.


5. Mail stories using those 9x12 envelopes as soon as they're prepared. I may wait until all three stories are ready, minimizing my trips to the post office.


6. Have as fast a turnaround on rejected stories as possible. It typically takes two or three months to find out if a magazine accepts a story, although one can be rejected within two weeks. The idea here is that when I receive a rejection--and I imagine all three stories will be rejected more than once--to have the story ready to submit to the next magazine and get it submitted within the week I get the rejection. Of course, if the previous magazine gives me useful feedback I may want to improve the story first, but useful feedback is pretty rare.


7. As more stories reach a publishable state, make inquiries/submit them as soon as possible. Both Eyes and Fire are novel length, so directly submitting them is not the correct process. For some smaller publishers which I think might be interested (Dark Cloud Press for Eyes), I may make direct inquiries. Otherwise, I need to find an agent.

So given that I have five stories to submit over the next year, how many submissions do I think I'll be able to make, i.e. how many chances to win? Well, there are a number of factors slowing me down. A two month reply time, the fact that most mags don't accept simultaneous submissions, and some magazines which only accept submissions during certain time periods, severely limits me. But then, there are a limited number of magazines which might be interested in my work anyway. For one of my stories, I've only found four magazines which might be appropriate, two of which I've already tried. For another one, I figure it might be appropriate for somewhere between five or seven magazines. The third one is more general, and I might be able to find dozens it'd work for, but I intend to enter it in a contest with a four month response time first. While I don't know whether I'll be able to get them published, I figure I can at least exhaust the possibilities for two of the stories.

Yesterday, I said that I couldn't get into Battlestar Galactica because I didn't care for the characters. That got me to thinking about what kind of characters I like and don't like. That's not an easy question to answer. A lot depends on how the character is written, what his personality is, and how he shows his mettle by his deeds, so that it can't be easily translated into certain types. That said, there are some archetypes which appeal to me, and I have an easier time getting attached to them, so I'll talk a bit about them. As they're archetypes, I'll just use the masculine pronoun, but most of these archetypes work just as well for male and female characters. Also, as these are generic character types, it is possible, in fact common, for characters to fall under more than one archetype during the course of their role in a story, sometimes more than one at a time.

Character archetypes I like

The Good Guys

The Rogue Hero — My favorite, probably. This person usually has a criminal or mercenary past, but he always has a rebellious streak, a low regard for the rules, and a cynical attitude. He has, nevertheless, joined the right side, usually because he finds that he cares for the people, rather than because of the cause.

The Defector — Originally on the wrong side, his reasons for changing allegiances can vary from true repentance to a desire for revenge against his former employer. He brings with him a dark and suspicious attitude as well as an intricate knowledge of the enemy's inner workings.

The Underdog — Apparently weaker and less intelligent than his enemies and his protectors, he proves to have hidden reserves of strength. In fantasy, this often involves magical power or hidden ancestry, but I think this character type works best if it is "merely" strength of character and an innate goodness.

The Bad Guys

The Honorable Antagonist — Not really a bad guy, the honorable antagonist generally believes he is doing the right thing. Even if he knows his side is in the wrong, he believes that the higher calling of loyalty or honor requires him to continue down his path, even though it puts him at odds with the good guys. Because of his high principles, he can be won over.

The Mastermind — This type is truly evil, but more importantly, he is truly brilliant. A master manipulator, he is always one step ahead of the heroes, often using their supposed successes to further his own goals. He occasionally makes mistakes, but he is quick to learn and recover from them.

Others

The Outsider — He does what he does for his own purposes, and in order to do so, he'll make common cause with either the good guys or the bad guys. But because he does not share their allegiance, he's likely to turn against either if it's to his advantage.

The Conflicted — This type finds himself torn between two paths, with conflicting desires and circumstances driving him. Unlike the outsider, he does serve a side, but he finds himself drawn to the other.



Character archetypes I don't like

The Good Guys

The Superhero — It's reasonable, even expected, for the hero to be a little bit stronger, a little bit faster, and a little bit smarter than average... that's how he survives long enough to be the hero. However, when the hero is so overpowering in his abilities that he dwarfs mortal men and tramples over the common opponents, the only way to challenge him is to create stronger and stronger enemies for him until the story becomes a contest of gods.

The Bumbler — Often nothing more than comic relief, the bumbler is a sidekick who never accomplishes anything on his own. He is often in the company of a superhero, who will constantly need to rescue him. Occasionally a bumbler will turn out to be an underdog in disguise, but often not.

The Questgiver — This is a very old archetype, the wise old man or woman who explains to the hero what he must do, he often acts as a guardian to the hero early on. Of course, if he's so wise and powerful, shouldn't he be performing his own darn quest? He's always removed by a convenient plot twist in the fourth act.

The Bad Guys

The Incompetent — Less intelligent than he believes, often cowardly, this bad guy is never as much of a threat as he seems.

The Traitor — One can change sides for honorable reasons, but to change sides out of greed or cowardice is merely patheric.

Others

The Victim — The victim never accomplishes anything. Instead, it just happens to him. Those who face adversity and grow stronger can achieve much, but those who merely suffer are simply boring.



Now, those are my general thoughts. I'm not saying that a story shouldn't have any of the archetypes I don't like--sometimes they play important roles in the story. I'm just saying that I find it hard to get attached to those types of characters. Of course, a particularly well written character of a type I don't usually like can grow on me, and I can lose interest in a character of a type I do like if his personality just doesn't sit right with me.