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Posts tagged ‘writing’

Jan 15

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It Begins Here – One Year, One Hundred Rejections

"To Do" Board

“To Do” Board

Well folks, we are half way through the first month of the year and already the rejections are piling up. Just today I got two more. I’ve been thinking – How am I going to keep track of my progress? I can keep a running tally on my “To Do” board. (See above pic.) But I also want to keep track of my progress.

So I’ve decided that every month on the 15th and the 30th (25 for February) I will post an update on my rejection process. Remember, I’m trying to hit 100 by the end of the year. Will it work? Who knows. The point is to get me to submit, submit, submit.

Here is my tally as of January 15, 2015:

Rejections: 4

Acceptances: 0

Pieces still out for submission: 5

Ah, so small! I need to submit more, but since two came in today, I haven’t had a chance to send them out. Hopefully by this weekend I can get them out, along with three more. So by the 18th, the “Submission” line should be 10.

One big problem is my very bad habit of writing long hand. With the exception of longer works, I almost always write the story out by hand. Now, many of the stories I wrote last year need to be typed up. I’ve been slacking on this and now I have 2 stories written (with notes and everything) that need to be transcribed. And at the end of a long day, the last thing I want to do is spend more time in front of the computer. That’s why writing long hand appeals to me. I don’t have to sit at the computer. I can write anywhere and don’t feel like a zombie.

Still, I think 4 rejections is a nice start. One came as a form rejection. Two were the “if you haven’t heard from us by X date, you can assume you are rejected”. But the last was a personal rejection, with the editor saying he enjoyed the story, but competition was tough and my story didn’t make the cut. He ended the note telling me to please submit again (I definitely will.) and wished me luck.

See, that kind of stuff makes this challenge fun.

Oh, and I’ve noticed that I have a few more people following this blog. I just wanted to say “Hi!” and thanks for stopping by to read my blog. I really appreciate you taking the time to read my thoughts on my life as a fiction writer. I hope you enjoy reading this blog as much as I enjoy writing it.

And for kicks, I leave you with my submission tracker that hangs on my board. This was not everything I submitted in 2014 (I only started tracking pieces during the summer.), but it is the majority. I know, I know. I’m so high tech…

Writing Pics 001

Dec 30

Final Post for 2014

Last post for 2014. What a year it has been. As I write, my last story is almost done. I still need to write the ending, but I have one more day left in the month, so time is not up yet. Barring any serious distractions, I should be done by tomorrow afternoon. So finishing 12 pieces for the year completes one goal I had for 2014. This doesn’t even count the numerous short critical essays, fiction, and analyses I did for class. Plus the posts I did for this blog. At last count I wrote about 8,000 words this year for the blog. All that stuff is just bonus material. Who knows when I will have to whip out my thoughts on Chekhov’s Gustav.

Anyway, let’s review the goals I had for the year.

Goal #1 – Finish 12 short stories for the year and one long piece.

I have 12 (or 11 and ¾) pieces finished. I say “pieces” because I did write some personal essays and submitted them for publication. I figured essays took just as much time as a short story, so they should count. My longer piece I did stall out on, but I will get back to it sooner or later. I have a lot on my plate right now, so I’m not in a hurry to get back to the story. It can wait.

Goal #2 – Sell one short story.

Done and Done. Saw my first story in print this year.

Goal #3 – Read at least 25 books this year.

Got through 16 this year. Considering that I only read one while I was in class last semester, I think that is pretty good. My last class was purely on short stories and I read 100-200 pages a week. There was just no time to read stories for class and other books.

Goal #4 – Buy no new books, unless I get gift cards.

Yeah, that goal is a bust.

Goal #5 – Get my credit card balance down.

Truthfully, it is only a little higher than it was last year. I pay down the balance, just to see it go back up again with my school tuition. But I don’t have anymore classes to pay for, so I should see some real progress this year.

For 2015, I have some new goals:

Goal #1 – Write 2 new pieces a month.

I managed to write about one a month, so I can up my game and make it two. It will be tough come spring because of thesis, but I’m going to try. Maybe more flash fiction…

Goal #2 – Finish a longer piece.

I have a lot of other projects I need to get to work on. If I really want to scare myself, I write them all down. I have ideas for days. But because of school, I have to put them on the back burner. Hopefully after this spring, I can really devote some time to these longer projects.

Goal #3 – Teach myself how to format, design a cover, and upload a book for self-publishing. This is something I’ve been thinking about over the past 6 months. I’m really curious about self-publishing and would love to give it a shot. Might be fun.

Goal #4 – One Year, One Hundred Rejections

I’m going to try this challenge. I goal is too get 100 rejections over the course of one year. Even if I don’t hit the number, that is an insane amount of submissions for one year. Way more than I did in 2014 and 2013 combined.

Thoughts on Rejection

One thing you get used to as a writer is rejection. Exactly, one year ago I got the harshest rejection letter I have ever gotten. Over the years I have gotten every kind of rejection: a form rejection, a nice, well meaning letter, a detailed, helpful note, and finally nothing at all. But I never got anything mean.

That was hurtful and something I consider unprofessional. I don’t think I will ever submit to that market again (And no I won’t name them. People change frequently in publishing, so I don’t want a publication to have a bad reputation from my one negative experience, esp. if that reader/editor is no longer there). It depressed me and you can see the results. I didn’t post here for months. I loved the story and to have it and myself insulted was tough.

By April, I pulled myself out. In truth, I didn’t really write much in January through April. I didn’t do much at all. But the warm spring days brightened my spirits and I was back at work soon enough. I wrote more stories and submitted.

Nine months after that harsh note, I got my first story accepted.

I write this because I think the worst has happened in my submitting. My fear about writing (that someone will completely hate my writing and tell me so) was fully realized.

And I survived.

If I had given up after that rejection, I would never be where I am today. I wouldn’t have all these new stories written, my story in the anthology wouldn’t exist, and I would probably be an unhappy person thinking that I should be writing and submitting. But now, I am ending this year on a good note. I pushed through the tough moments and was able to experience the good. That is the lesson I take with me into the new year.

I’ll see you in 2015!

Dec 10

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Goal Line in Sight

I’m looking at you December. You’re almost gone and I’m trying not to notice. The fall has gone quickly and now I am staring at the end of the year in my sights. This is the last week of classes for me. I’ve completed everything for the class, save showing up and having one last discussion in class on Bluebeard. (Side note: I had no idea there were so many stories about Bluebeard! Really, it is a bit nuts.) So the pressure is off. I have registered for my thesis class, worked on my stories, completed the form for the class, and have a few short weeks before I will begin my final work.

In the beginning of the year, I laid out some goals. Currently, I have 11 completed pieces and I have no doubt that I will get the last one done by the end of the year. I have 15 days of vacation in December, so I have lots of time to write.

Other goals might not happen. I left the goal of buying books wayyyy behind earlier this year. But I won’t meet my reading goals. In truth, school just kept my too busy. Even though I read books for class, I just didn’t get to all the other books I have on my list to read. The class I’m in now is for short stories and those handouts came first. So it’s hard to read for pleasure when you have to get through 100-200 pages of short stories for class. All in all, I’ll get through about 20 books. My goal was 25, but I’ll take the 20.

I got one story published. So that goal was hit. Yay!

Ah the credit card… Yeah, grad school is still expensive. If I hadn’t gotten furloughed this might have been a kept goal, but two weeks with no pay hurts. Writers need all the money they can get.

Finally, I have my goal of completing one longer work. I haven’t finished it, but I have more words than I did before. I don’t know if I will finish by the end of the year, but I am not disappointed. It is coming along. Maybe I will get to it too over vacation.

It is vacation after all. I gotta hit some of those after X-mas sales!

Looking ahead for 2015, I still think I want to try the One Year, One Hundred Rejections. I have lots of material now, so time to submit more stuff. Also, I want to keep up the pace of one new piece each month. I can speed up after I graduate, but I want to keep it low for now.

Back at the end of December with final numbers.

Oct 30

The Need for Fear

There is a lot of scary stuff going on in the world right now. In some ways, Halloween seems silly. Why would any one want to be scared on purpose? Why would we want to celebrate this day? There is real horror in the world and no scary movie about a serial killer, or ghost, or other deadly creature is going to capture the real horrors of this world. I believe it was H.P. Lovecraft who said, “The oldest and deepest emotion humans have is fear. The oldest and deepest kind of fear is fear of the unknown.”

We fear what we don’t know or understand.

I do agree that horror provides a safe environment for us to be scared. Heck, my last post was all about horrific stories and how much I loved them. I can read the story and think, Man that is messed up. But then I close the book and the story stays there in the fictional world. I may think about it, but all the while I know it is not real. Same with movies. I can watch a scary movie and when it is over it stays in the fictional world.

Most of the time.

Every now and then, something will stick with me and I can’t get it out of my head. I have a near photographic memory, so when I remember something, it never goes away. (Blessing and a curse, people.) I can watch hours and hours of Criminal Minds on reruns, but I have never seen one episode of The Walking Dead. I just can’t do zombie stuff. Probably the only zombie movie I liked was Shaun of the Dead, because it was funny. But I didn’t watch it all the way through. I even watched World War Z, but they weren’t really zombies, so I didn’t feel the same. Even so, I watched through my fingers.

Zombies hit upon a real fear of mine. The idea that we are all mindless beings destined to consume. We are all monsters underneath the veil of civilization. Yeah, it gets to me. I know they are not real. I know in all reality civilization is going to last a good long time. But I still can’t put it in the “fiction” part of my brain. There was a really bad Will Smith movie a few years ago, I am Legend. Remember? There is this moment in the movie that I just can’t forget. It’s not the monsters chasing him, or when the dog died (so sad!). The part that sticks with me is early on in the movie. Smith’s character is putting his wife and daughter on a helicopter to get out of the city. Standing in line is a woman begging him to let her go too. She says, “Please. I’m not sick. I’m not sick.” But she is sick and a thin line of blood drips down her face as she begs him.

That denial. That is what scares me.

There could be a monster within us all, and we are in denial about it. So, no zombies for me. Although recently I tried to write through this fear. I tried writing a story that was a post apocalyptic with zombies and everything.

And I failed miserably.

I just can’t do it yet. I’m not sure why, but it’s not in me. I liked the story that came out. It’s a funny, somewhat sad, and a little dark, story set in LA. But society is not gone. People are not gone. Life is different, but the world keeps turning. I hope to sell it one day, but not to a zombie market.

I’ve been in plenty of scary situations. There was that time it was raining and I was going way too fast on the highway. I took one of the most dangerous exits and damn near flipped my car over. (Thank God, they have changed that exit a few years ago.) Or there was the time when I was on campus as an undergrad and a rattlesnake jumped out in front of me. And then there was the time my car battery died in the parking lot after I got out of class… Hey, I’m okay. I made it through all these scary moments.

My point is that fear in real life is okay too. It is a natural emotion and I don’t think ignoring it is healthy. Halloween can be used to sharpen that emotion in a safe way. After all, the world is still turning and there are plenty of things to fear. Screaming your head off in a movie can be cathartic for some. I know reading creepy stories is for me.

So Happy Halloween folks.

And on November 1st, let’s try and make the world a little better.

Oct 5

The End is the Beginning is the End

Fall is upon us. The trees are just starting to turn here in the Mid-Atlantic. I’ve never really felt like fall is an ending, just a change. After all, new TV season starts now. (Btw how good is the Good Wife right now? I think it’s the best show on TV. Although Person of Interest is a close second followed by Sleepy Hollow.) In some ways nature is like a circle. It ends and begins and ends again and again. I think I’ll take this month and wrap up any outstanding projects I’m still working on.

As a writer, I’m constantly creating something new. I think up a new story, essay, or blog post. A big problem I have is finishing what I start. Heinlein’s second rule always seems to get me. So as we deepen into fall, I’m going to remember that I must finish what I start. I need to end before I can begin something else. I’m still off from work, so this is a good opportunity to write The End on a few things.

Also, I did say I wanted to finish a longer piece. So far, I’ve just stall out on the story. This is going to require a big push to get it done, but I only have a few more months to go before the end of the year. I can see the goal ahead. I’m heading toward it.

And yes, I stole the title of this post from the Smashing Pumpkins song.

Sep 25

What’s Your Goal?

I’ve been thinking about goals. Maybe because I’m less than a year from graduating. I find myself googling various writers to see what comes next. I said to myself, a few times over the summer, that I won’t know what to do in a year. I’m so used to the routine of work, school, home. Again in less than a year, I’ll be back to pre-2011 me. A me that took vacations and traveled!

Oh, and I had disposable income!

Recently I found this article by Tobias Buckell. In it, he details the difference between goals and milestones. In a nutshell, goals are things you can control. Milestones just happen. I really love this way of thinking and it is helping me put things into perspective. I reread my goals for the year and I realize I am going about them in a wrong way.

My goal should not be to be published. Being published is a milestone. My goal should be to mail out the story twenty times (or more)before I give up and bury it in the trunk. I have no control over editors and what they will buy. But I do have control over my stories. So, I write the best story I can, polish it up, and send it out into the world. That’s what I always do and that’s what I will continue to do.

This can also apply to other things in life. Instead of a goal to lose 100lbs in a year, you could say the goal is to exercise 5 days a week. Who knows if you can even lose that kind of weight in a year. But if you make the commitment to eat your veggies, lay off the sugar, and move your body, you can see some changes. Forget the number, that is a milestone. Aim for the things you can control.

So next January, I’ll think long and hard about my goals. I’ll aim for things I can control. I’m already thinking of the One Year, One Hundred Rejections challenge that was popular a few years ago. Poets employed this method, but I wonder what that would be like for a writer of a longer form. At the very least, it will make me more productive and more aggressive with submissions.

Still writing my own September challenge, but we’ll see where the chips lay in a few days. Until then, think of your own goals and where you want to be. A friend said, “Everyone should have a goal in life.” It can be as simple or abstract as you like, but I think you should have something.

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