Write1Sub1--Month 5: May

I suppose I was a bit disappointed in myself, hence the late update for May; I'd been doing so well.

Although I worked on a few short stories during the month, I did not actually complete any of them. Complete for me means a beginning, middle and end of some sort, and the one I'd been working on the most (Pig to the Slaughterhouse) reached 2k still lacking an ending. It felt like I'd gone in the wrong direction in fact; hence the ending eluding me I suppose.

However, I can't exactly call May a failed month since I made ten submissions of five of this year's stories.

No sales this month, and lots of rejections coming in due to the high number of submissions the previous month, but hope still alive.

I know I'll make up for this month's lack of new output.

Just remembered: one distraction in the month of May was a novel idea that kept commanding my time, feeding me bits and pieces of what it is, what it will be. Learning about this novel bit by bit had me in a sort of spell as it teased me with glimpses I ran to write down. I can't wait to get back to it.

Actually, I'm not sure if this happened in May or June or both...

Write1Sub1--Month 4: April

A successful month--particularly so. I was done with my W1S1 goal before the first week was done, submitting two newly written flash pieces by April 6th. At that rate, I thought I'd get at least 4 new pieces written and subbed by the end of the month and worked toward that goal, starting two new pieces--one of which is almost done, the other still waiting on some probably unnecessary research. I probably could have made it but was ruled by anxiety for the next 2-3 weeks--cricket season was in full force. I was so anxious waiting on market responses, I ended up working on older pieces and submitting like crazy. Seriously--I'd never imagined anything like it...not this soon anyway.

Now I've calmed down about the crickets even though I have 20 pieces still out (submitted a total of 30 pieces between hint fiction, flash fiction, short stories and poems).

The Breakdown

Of the 5 flash stories submitted this month (all still pending responses + 1 from Feb):

- 2 new (April 2011) pieces

- 1 newish (Jan 2011) piece

- 2 super old (2002) pieces

Of the 7 short stories submitted (all still pending responses):

- 3 newish (Jan-March 2011) pieces

- 3 older (2008-2010) revised/adjusted short story pieces

- 1 super old (2002) piece

Of the much shorter works:

- 16 poems (6 still pending responses, 1 acceptance so far--my first!)

- 2 hint-fic pieces (1 still pending response)

Actual total number of submissions between the 30 pieces: 38 (includes re-subs, sim-subs).

So yeah--pretty happy with this month's output!

ETA--2011 monthly subs comparison:

# of January submissions: 5

# of February submissions: 8

# of March submissions: 1

# of April submissions: 38 (19 = flash/short story subs, 19 poem/hint-fic subs)

Write1Sub1--Month 3: March

I made it for March just in the nick of time. It was another successful month, having written one (03/30) and submitted it (03/31). It was also successful in that I was finally able to venture outside of my usual mainstream/literary direction into genre fiction...a tad.

I wrote a piece that I'm still not sure what it is exactly, but it pretty much fits dark fantasy, psychological horror, and supernatural/paranormal horror.

One of my readers said it was his favorite piece of mine so far (and he's read one of my novels and eight of my other short stories/flash-fic pieces)--that it felt more complete than my other shorts.

I must admit, this one took the longest to work out; after thinking about it for a while, it took me several days to write out random pieces and ideas (still without an ending), and a few more days re-working it and finally finding an ending. For a piece on the shorter side (2k), that's a lot of time for me; something this size usually takes 1-3 days to sort out and feel 'finished.'

I also broke my write2sub2 streak this month; however, I feel like I will more than make up for it in April, having several deadlines I want to make.

In fact, I just wrote my first new piece for April today (04/03) but more on this later.

Write1Sub1--Month 2: February

Another successful month!

Since I'd written and submitted 2 new pieces last month, I wanted to repeat the task this month and pulled off a story for a Writer's Digest contest on 02/10, and one for Enchanted Conversation on 02/24.

At this point I have already surpassed last year's total short story output; in fact, I think I only wrote one new short story last year (for NPR's 3 minute fiction contest).

Currently, I have a total of six short stories in submission (four of those new--written this year), with results possibly coming in March through June.

I want lots of stories in rotation this year; I feel an acceptance coming on soon. Already I had an editor's interest in one of my stories (no longer in submission due to editing plans) which I haven't resubmitted yet but will in a few.

Contest deadlines really help my productivity so I'll keep an eye out for contests deadlines every month so I can keep this up; I'd be one happy camper if I manage 24 new short stories this year.

Write1Sub1--Month 1: January

So I promised to write one new short story and submit a story (new or old--not sure) every month for the year. My new January story came in response to an NPR 3-minute fiction call past mid-month. I wrote a short short/flash on 01/18, revised it and submitted it 2 days later. My write1sub1 challenge for the month was complete! But I went ahead and submitted an older story to three new markets the same day anyway. Just because. And then I figured, since I'd subbed 2, I'd make January a write2sub2 month--especially since I wanted to make Glimmer Train's standard submission cut-off date. I thought and thought, brainstormed and brainstormed and as usual, had plenty of ideas, but didn't know where to go with them.

Then suddenly at around 2am in the early morning of 01/27, one week after the 'big' submission day on 01/20, a story came and told me it had a direction. I worked on it for about 3 days, and was able to submit it on time to count for this month, and make GT's January deadline.

So that's a total of 5 submissions for the month! I'm very happy about it since it's 3 stories to 5 markets instead of just one story submitted to 5. Definitely a good start for me.

Now, I have to find similar impetuses for February I guess; I had NPR and Glimmer Train driving me in January.

Writing Resolutions

I have so many resolutions I couldn't make just one list--I had to break them into three categories to help manage/track them all, including: health and beauty (which is further broken into two sub-categories), career (the one currently bringing in money), and writing, with a list of at least 5 to 10 resolutions each.

Here are the ones related to writing:

1) Read at least 50 books over the course of the year

2) Keep subbing novel 1 (TPA)

3) Finish/start subbing a second (BC) and third novel (PoN)

4) Write1Sub1--Light Ray (which is kind of a 2-in-1 resolution: writing and submitting short stories. For this one in particular, I've resolved to write at least one short story per month, and submit that story to a market at some point in the year).

5. Participate in NaNoWriMo 2011 in November.

NaNoWriMo 2010- Update

So I made 50k right before 9pm on 11/30. I began the day with around 42k, so had to write over 8000 words to make it, but make it I did!

I just couldn't 'fail' two NNWM years back to back--I had to at least continue the pattern of succeed-fail-succeed-fail...so I succeeded. And if that pattern is to be broken, it will be by succeeding again and again, more often than 'failing.'

A pattern was broken however, in that this particular successful year, I not only didn't finish about a week early, but I, for the first time, was down to the last day, the last hours. But it made me put out my personal day best: over 8k in about 6 hours.

So that's my wrap-up! Finished NNWM with 50.5k (although the site word count validator counted it at about 500 words less but 50k nonetheless).

Yay!

NaNoWriMo 2010

So as usual, NaNoWriMo had begun somewhat successfully with me finishing day one with almost 300 more words than the daily requirement (1925 words).

I still don't have a strong sense of my main characters--no real sense of any of them at all, but I'm getting real, strong senses of a few side and (so I thought) inconsequential characters, minor characters. Characters that didn't even exist in my plotting and popped up only after I started writing yesterday.

I think I'll still be okay because this is the first time I've had a really strong sense of the story's plot and direction. I even know the very last sentence. But it feels weird not knowing who any of my four or so main characters are. Sure, I have notes on what I'd like them to be like in shallow ways and to starkly distinguish them from each other but none of them feel real to me yet.

Oh well, this is certainly not what I should be worrying about at this stage. The only thing that concerns me is that what I have is a false start but hey--I needed to get some words on the page. Even a false start will take you somewhere.

Anyway, time to start writing for day two.

Reading Goals- 2010

I realized in horror that I've only read 2 books so far this year and...I'll just copy it over from my facebook note (posted to help hold myself accountable. I mean--what? 2 books in 9 months??):

I tried to jump-start my reading habit in 2006 with a pledge to read 100 books for the year (which later dropped to 50) but only made it to 39--a number that should be a slow year for me; in fact, I'm only now closing in on having read 100 books since 01/01/2006, over 4 years later.

I have 7 more books to finish in order to finally reach that number, and less than 3 months to do it. Not to mention the holiday season is approaching and I'm planning to write a novel in November. But damn it, somewhere between the novel-planning this month, the novel-writing next month, holidays, working, looking for work etc., I'm getting those last 7 read by 12/31/2010 (which should also help prime me for my 2011 50-Book goal).

Luckily I've started a few books already and just need to finish them and add a few new books. The list is as follows:

(Started, need to complete)

1. The Little Giant of Aberdeen County- Tiffany Baker

2. Mrs. Dalloway- Virginia Woolf

3. The Handmaid's Tale- Margaret Atwood

4. Notes from the Underground- Fyodor Dostoyevsky

(New- to read)

5. The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo- Stieg Larsson

6. Between Lovers- Eric Jerome Dickey

7. Erasure- Percival Everett

Goal: finish 1, 2 and 4 in October, read 6 & 7 in November, and 3 in December. 5 either in October or December since I'll be aiming for writing 2000 words/day in November. And that's that.

Progress Report- 2010

Oh wow--I have not been keeping this up well! And it's not that nothing was happening because things certainly were...anyway, now I get to make a neat, tidy wrap up of the writing year thus far (and before the influx of NaNoWriMo posts for the month of November. Of course I'm participating!).

So here's this year in writing:

Novels

I tidied up one WIP (TPA), added a chapter, cleaned up the last few chapters and made other revisions, then sent it to 3 beta readers. Within a few months, 5 beta readers had finished it and I'd gotten glowing reviews. I also started aggressively sending out the work to agents and to date, it's been sent to about 100 agents.

I've gotten 48 responses, including 4 full requests, and 5 partial requests. The agents who've requested the full have read it, and had positive things to say--outside of form--but don't feel they can sell it. I also got 3/5 responses (passes) on the requested partials.

I'm leaving this work alone in terms of sending it out again, until I go back in and fix an inconsistency I realized, and probably make a few more minor changes. Then I'll start sending it out again next year.

Short Stories

1. I sent out one short story last fall/winter--an extract from a larger work (CS)--to eight markets with as many passes. I sent this story out again this past September to six markets and I'm awaiting six responses. This particular story might be a little tougher to place because it's very specific in a couple different ways.

2. I sent out another story--"The Representative"--to seven markets. My first response was an editor's interest in publishing with a request for edits. Since then I've received 2 passes from 2 other markets, but I have not yet sent in the edited work to the interested market. I need to do that asap because it's exciting to think I could be published sooner than later and would be very motivating. The only reason I haven't edited the work yet is because for the past year or so since 'finishing' it, I've known something was wrong and needed adjustment and hadn't been able to figure out what or how to do it. I finally just sent the piece out, kind of with my arms thrown up in surrender. And now the editor's edit requests pretty much get at the same thing that's stumped me since writing the piece. Anyway, I've got to work on it and send it back in before the editor's forgotten/changed his mind! Hopefully I can sell it to this market and move on, my faith in the process renewed.

3. I sent out a short short/flash for round 5 of NPR's 3 minute fiction contest. 600 words or less, given first and last line. Once NPR's first printing rights expire 12/31, I'll send it out to other markets. Yes I am, perhaps lamentably, assuming I won't win because I didn't dedicate enough editing time to it; I could've cleaned it up better.

Anyway, it's amazing what a contest deadline can do! Suddenly in a short period of time, I had a new story. I hadn't written a new story for about 2 years! And there's no real reason why I can't write a minimum of 1 or 2 short stories per month--all I need is a jump-start and some sort of kick in the butt (deadline) to do it. That's the problem--I'm addicted to contest-type motivations; I have trouble just doing the work I should--and used to--be able to do easily and with glee.

My next plan is to enter the Writers of the Future contest and I'm currently cooking up a story suitable for that market. And of course--NaNoWriMo! I finally have a new idea to work on too--I had exhausted all my ideas/execution of ideas within 3 NNWM years (by the end of November 2008). In November 2009 I had worked on one of the two stories I'd worked on in November 2007. Anyway, this year's idea is very commercial and most likely will sell faster than any of the other novel-length works I currently have going!

In conclusion, this month is a matter of planning for this year's NNWM story and carrying out my reading goals (which I'll put in another post), plus working on my Writers of the Future idea. Oh--and editing "The Representative" and sending it back in to that interested Editor.