Sunday Links: July 15th, 2012 Edition

Is it really possible that the typical summer break from school here in Ohio (and, I believe, much of the rest of the United States) is essentially half-over now? We're at the mid-point of July, that's for certain! Typically, I review my goal status at mid-month; since Mondays are #writemotivation days in July, my goal check post will be up tomorrow.

I had an extremely productive writing day Saturday along with a first for me. With some of my stories beginning to come off their exclusivity periods with their first publishers, they are available for reprints. Yesterday, I made my first submissions to foreign-language markets. There are some markets which will accept English-language submissions for translation; they often pay only in copies, but for a reprint and for the chance to see my story printed in another language, I'm okay with that. Douglas Smith has a nice list of non-English markets for speculative short fiction and that is what I used for my market research.

Speaking of links, below are the writing-related links I've collected this week which I thought would be good to share with others. If you've found some interesting links this week, I hope you will share them in the comment section below!

Savor Successes

Writing for publication can come with a lot of rejection. Most beginning writers who are trying to sell their stories to paying markets will receive dozens of rejection letters for every acceptance they receive. I just did a quick scan through my submission tracking stats on Duotrope. There was a stretch of about three months where I had almost exactly 100 fiction submission responses and ONE sale. And, yes, I'm not going to lie -- it was somewhat miserable.

Since then, to steal a phrase from poker, the deck's been hitting me in the face. (Thinking about that phrase, it's not obvious that this is a good thing. Well, it is.) I counted 89 submission responses starting with the sale that broke that drought, which was also my first pro sale. I've had 13 acceptances in those responses. Which is phenomenal. (Now, realize, that also means I've had 76 rejections. Still, that's a ridiculously good rate for someone at this stage of a writing career.)

And there are two thoughts I have about this. One is that I really, really need to enjoy this now while I can. I think that where I really stand today as a writer is somewhere in-between the 1-in-100 acceptance ratio and the 13-in-89.

The other is that for people who haven't gotten there yet, who are still struggling with those huge piles of rejections relative to acceptances, or who maybe even haven't gotten their first acceptance yet... If you keep at it and keep working at your craft, acceptances are very likely to come in time. And when they do... Oh, my goodness! Be prepared to feel like a million bucks (even if the story payment might only be for $10). And treasure those early acceptances as much as you can, because no matter how great later sales feel, it's hard for them to compare to those first acceptances after so many rejections.

What You'd Call "Guidelines"

I've mentioned before that I really enjoyed the first Pirates of the Caribbean movie. Much more than I liked any of the later three movies, though each of them had their own individual moments which were enjoyable. Part of that may have been the fact that it was unexpectedly entertaining. Come on, a movie based on a theme park ride? It sounded like a disaster waiting to happen.
But I also think that one thing that was present in large doses in the first movie and got kind of lost in the later movies was a sense of fun and whimsy. The first one never really felt too serious, the latter ones did and their attempts at being fun sometimes felt forced in a way that the first movie's humor rarely did.

I'm not really looking to talk about fun in stories today, though that certainly would be a good topic. But I was thinking about guidelines and that word makes me think of Geoffrey Rush's character Barbossa bantering with Keira Knightley's Elizabeth Swann. At one point, she appeals to his honor as a pirate and the rules of the Pirate Code. But Barbossa points out that not only is she not a pirate and therefore not entitled to the protections of the Code but that the Code is also really more of "guidelines" than actual rules.

Well, that attitude might work if you're captaining the Black Pearl. But it's not a good one to take if you're a writer looking to submit your fiction to a publisher. They may call their guidelines "guidelines" but if you don't want to shoot yourself in the foot, then it's best to treat them like hard and fast rules.

Sunday Links & the Week in #storyeachnight: May 20th, 2012 Edition

May is absolutely flying by. I've been incredibly busy with any number of things this month. Our oldest is graduating high school in a couple of weeks but between now and then is the classic film convention which my father has been a major force behind for 43 years now. It's called Cinevent and every year well over 600 people come to watch movies, talk about movies, buy and sell movie memorabilia and so on. It's older than I am and I literally grew up with it.

This year the preparations for the convention have been extra "interesting" for me since my father was injured in late February and while he was convalescing I was tasked with doing a lot of the communications work which he would normally have been doing for the show. It's been a learning experience, that's for sure. I'm glad that I've done it to help him, the rest of the convention committee, and the attendees. It's also reminded me why I have little interest in being a convention organizer on a regular basis! And, for those of us who attend conventions -- science fiction, film, comics, what-have-you, it's been a reminder that the staff put in a heck of a lot of time and effort and voluntarily deal with no small amount of frustration to help put together a great experience for their attendees. (And, yes, sometimes a "great" experience isn't what ends up happening. But most cons I've been to in the past have been good or better.)

Speaking of conventions, I'm still trying to decide which one I'm going to make it to as part of my goals for the year. I'll be at Pulpfest almost for certain, but I barely count that since it's something I've been going to for years anyway. Context and Bouchercon both have a certain appeal to me, but I'll have to see as things get closer to the date for both of those.

A quick programming note: There won't be a Dissecting the Short Story post for May. Since I said I'd give the new format with reader votes, etc. at least two goes, I'll do one again soon, most likely in June.

Now with all that out of the way, on to first my weekly #storyeachnight rundown and the list of links I've found interesting for the week:

Using Index Cards To Plan Short Fiction Submissions

I've talked before in posts like my "Life of a Story" post about using Duotrope to research markets and track submissions. I've always handled sending a story out to market in what seems like a somewhat time-intensive manner. When a story is rejected or is going out for the first time, I run a Duotrope search, go through the list of possible markets (excluding ones I already have a story out to) and then submit the story. This can be very quick or somewhat tedious. And I ended up looking at a lot of the same markets' information repeatedly.

Recently I've started doing a bit of pre-planning around my submission. I think that this will help me save a bit of time on resubmissions in the future. Here's what I've done.

Rejection Relics

Somehow, through an unknown number of moves, I've managed to hang onto a folder of rejection slips from the early 1990s. Going through these recently was kind of a cool bit of time travel. One thing that's amazing is looking at the slips and seeing some of the titles and realizing that they don't ring the slightest bell at all as to what they were about. Even more amazing is when there's a reference to a plot point and even that does nothing for my memory. Apparently teenage-me wrote some story called "Madonna with Child" which somehow involved Elvis Presley. I have no idea which "Madonna" the story referred to...

Part of me wishes I had those old stories. (Yes, the rejection slips survived, but the digital files apparently did not... I have exactly two of my 1990s stories still in digital form.)  Part of me is glad that I don't have them. I suspect that the rejection letters may have been a bit more charitable to someone of my age (which I apparently referenced in my cover letters). It may well be best that the stories themselves are lost to time.

I pulled the rejections which I found most interesting out of the file to scan and share. Six of them are presented further down in this blog post. (I've blacked out or cropped out addresses since they would be long-inaccurate for any of these markets.) I hope you enjoy taking this trip back with me to visit a different writer and a much different fiction marketplace.

Sunday Links: February 5, 2012 Edition

Before getting to the rest of the links, I wanted to call out Rachael Harrie's post from a couple of weeks back announcing a mini-Campaign for writers starting tomorrow, February 6th. Her Fall 2011 Campaign was a big part of my own success as a writer last year, providing me with a lot of new friends in the writing/blogging world and giving me a lot of encouragement. I plan to sign up for this month's activities and I hope they're as much fun as last fall's.

Now for this week's links...

"Scene and Structure: Make Something Happen" AND "Find Your Writing Tribe" (Daniel Swensen at Surly Muse) - Normally, I only link to one post per blogger per week. But Daniel hit it out of the park with both of these, and I couldn't decide which one to pick, so I'm breaking my "rule." In the first link, Daniel reminds us to make sure that each scene has meaning and keeps the story moving forward. In the second, he talks about the importance of having fellow writers to learn from, celebrate with and, when necessary, commiserate with. Two excellent posts from a fine blogger.

"Tips for Writing a Traditional Murder Mystery" (Elizabeth Craig guest-posting on Nicole Basaraba's Uni-Verse-City) - I thought that this post made for a nice primer on writing mysteries for those who've never tackled the genre and it also provides good reminders for those who have worked with mysteries in the past.

"Craft Thursday: Stupid Writer Tricks" (Jaye Wells) - Jaye talks about several different tricks that she uses to make sentences and paragraphs keep pulling the reader along. A nice set of tips for when you're fine-tuning your prose.

"Kind is Sometimes Cruel" (KT Hanna) - KT talks about the fact that giving a writer "kind" or "pleasant" feedback not only isn't helpful, but is actively harmful. It keeps the writer from hearing what they have to hear to move forward. And it's so easy for a writer to hear someone saying "You're doing great" and believe it, even when it isn't true. (Of course, it's also easy for a writer to hear someone saying "You're doing lousy" and believe it, even when it isn't true.) The best thing you can do is find people who will give you honest (but tactful) feedback. KT talks about some of the techniques that go into this.

"The PEST Method" (Alex Shvartsman's Speculative Fiction) - Alex talks about the four elements he takes into account when deciding where to submit his short fiction: Prestige, Exposure, Speed, and Terms. Well worth reading, especially if you're looking to submit short stories for the first time or haven't ever given much thought to how you pick where to send your stories.

Additionally, here's a recap of the posts from this week on my blog:

"Final January #writemotivation wrapup" - The #writemotivation activity for January wrapped up this week and I posted a final review of where I stood with my goals for the month. I ended things on a high note by adding 2000 words to a short story in the final two days of January.

"Using a Routine" - Inspired by a blog post by Eric J. Krause I talked about writing routines and what they can do for you.

I appreciate you stopping by to check out the links. Are there any writing-related articles/blog posts you've read this week which really inspired you?

The Life of a Story: Idea to Publication

I've received some questions in the comments to recent blog posts about my story-writing process. I provided replies on several specific details, but thought that the topic as a whole was large enough that it really needed its own post. So, as promised to the person who left those comments, this is that post.

First, a disclaimer. I've written about 30 stories this year, and maybe 75 or so in my lifetime. I've also never had more than a low-end semi-pro publication. So, take this advice for what it is, the comments of someone who's still striving to make a mark in fiction.  That out of the way, let's talk about what I do when writing.

Most of my stories start with a plot idea rather than a character or setting idea. Sometimes that idea is very general, other times it's quite specific -- such as the central clue of a mystery story around which everything else will depend. Where do these ideas come from?

A Juggling Act

Today handling my writing has felt like a real juggling act. I felt this way a bit once before, back around late-September, early-October. In brief, I’ve got so many short stories out on submission and so many new ones that I’m working on that my head is spinning. I had to sit down at one point and make myself some notes on what I was working on and prioritize things. Even after that, I felt like I was looking at quite a lot of things that were high priority!

I generally follow the dictum of “start at the top, work your way down” and also try to avoid having stories sitting around unsubmitted for any serious length of time. I’ve got 27 stories out on submission right now. That feels like a lot, to me. At least at the moment, it does. It also means that when I get a rejection in, it can be a bit of a struggle to find a market that I don’t already have something out to which would be appropriate for the story and which I want to submit to.

This led to me needing to do something embarrassing today.