The W1S1 Check-in and Chill Lounge and Bar

I've been getting in at least 500 words a day, which is something, and they have been channeled into poetry for a bit. Need to write an abstract right quick and then focus on a story to maybe throw my hat in for the next WotF quarter.

I've been "retooling" my writing a bit, and now I'm focusing in on 5-6 stories that need editing and trunking everything else. (I also have a few stories in the works that are nearing completion.) Consequently, I only have one submission out there right now... though that submission is being considered for publication, so there's that.

In other news, I think I might join Twitter soon, to promote the serial and whatnot, tweet about writing, and maybe sort-of acknowledge that I live in the 21st century...

Hope everyone's April comes to a productive close.

Brandon M Johnson said:

In other news, I think I might join Twitter soon, to promote the serial and whatnot, tweet about writing, and maybe sort-of acknowledge that I live in the 21st century...

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Ha ha! Me too, though I just don't think I have much to say on Twitter.

I've been giving Twitter a try these past few weeks, and it isn't as much of a chore as I thought it would be. I'm not a natural poster/blogger/commenter (as you can probably tell from my post count), but I'm finding it doable so far.

The meat is finally filling onto my W1 bones now that the novel edit's done. Hoping to get the first draft finished this morning.

Twitter can be fun! Then again my twitter is probably more personal than yours is intended to be. There are some writing communities on there too. #kidlitchat and #fantasychat are two tags with meetup times if you want to discuss children's literature and fantasychat. #mywana is another writing tag and #amwriting is always interesting. I'm sure there are others but those are the big ones I can think of off the top of my head.

All of my current subs are "overdue" in the sense that they are taking longer than predicted. I suppose I could rejectomance that it's a good thing, but... there are only so many times I can refresh my email each day! (My dad, who was doing this fiction submission thing a few decades ago, reminded me that at least I don't have to keep walking all the way to the mailbox to check).

I joined twitter last month with the idea that when I eventually have something to promote there, it would be good to look like a real person who had been on social media for more than 20 minutes. I'm up to 19 tweets and 13 followers, haha. It feels so unnatural to me. And I can't even bring myself to attach my real name to it because I don't want anyone I know to find me and my unnatural tweets.

The reason I really love twitter, though, is following other writers. I feel like I've gotten to be friends with all these authors I love even though I am actually just stalking them.

I think Twitter is probably too cool for me

I'm going a little crazy editing some older stories and have been hit by the 'I wasted subs on this' phase of it. Of course, I don't actually know if the editing will sell it either yet. At least I know I'm still improving and haven't peaked well below saleable I guess *shrug*

One of those random, probably stupid questions: Sword & Sorceress say no header/footer for submissions... does anyone know if that includes page numbers?

Good to see everyone making progress.
Fihr -- You get bonus points for writing on holiday.
Brandon -- You might enjoy Twitter. I'm an introvert yet racing toward 1000 followers there. I started setting up interlinked platforms for my fiction a few months ago -- had to force myself. Now if I skip it a few days I miss it.

I'm continuing the daily story writing challenge.

Got out two submissions today, so I'm up to 10. I want to have the second draft of the Gothic horror novel done by the end of May. I found notes on it I thought I'd lost in the move, so that helps. I've started revising this month's new stories and thinking ahead to where to send them.

I am probably not using Twitter correctly, because I follow very few people and am not very disciplined about posting updates. Some days I post a lot, but sometimes I go 2-3 days without logging in. Even so, I managed to somehow fool 800+ people into following me, so it can be done.

My strategy, for what it's worth, has been to try and say or retweet an interesting thing any day I actually post -- and not to overwhelm the feed with self-promotion.

You people with Twitter followers are impressive.

I didn't make my word count, but I got halfway. I think May will be a better month as far as getting in strong word counts every week. Looks like it's the end of the month, so I need to tally up my submissions and rejections.

I use Twitter to bitch rant about things that aren't working in whatever story I'm writing. Or to *squee* about acceptances/great lines of dialog/just finishing something. I usually follow-back folks. But periodically, I go through and get rid of folks who use automation to retweet the same stuff over and over every day.

In writing news, just scraped past 35k last night. Most of the week had non-writing days thanks to the legal hassle. (Hoping that will be mostly over after Tuesday, but we may be at the tip of the iceberg.) But the novella is still growing steadily into a Real Novel. And until I get it finished the short stuff is on hold. (Because agent wants to see All The Things.)

Aggy, workworkwork (and more work)

Always heartening to see productivity here. I wrote a tall tale this morning, going way back to my earliest writing influences.

Twitter's a mixed experience. I've taken cues from people much more experienced in social networking and then lightened up about it all.

I'm not sure how valuable it will be for conversions. I promote other people and share inspiring bits and genre news a lot more often than I post anything of mine. A chunk of my blog traffic comes from Twitter, although I get twice as much directly from Google. I rarely post blog links, so I think people come from the links on my profile -- so for me it works best to focus on engaging. Good practice for developing and learning about an audience.

It's been great for watching what *not* to do -- the me-me-me people flogging their books nonstop. It's becoming more of a networking venue. It's fun having followers to share with when I read a story that nails me and when there's finally some good news in this long slog of submitting my fiction. Inside news and glimpses of writers, editors and publishers I enjoy adds to the fun.

I got another story submitted last night so I'm up to 11 -- six science fiction, three horror and two contemporary fantasy. Revised a couple more horror stories from the new pile. Two more new ones to go and then I'm going to apply my daily fiction quota to the novel.

I love social media.

I was trying to figure out a name for the gold coin currency in my secondary world fantasy novel. They're thick triangular gold coins which are quite expensive (an average craftsman would earn an equivalent of only 2-3 per month of labor). So I posted on my Facebook page asking for suggestions, and logged off.

A couple of hours later I came back to find SEVENTY SEVEN comments, with a range of advice from awesome pro authors like Mike Resnick to my friends who aren't themselves writers at all. Lots of good suggestions there, but one really caught my eye:

"Dragon scales."

Perfect for how the coins look like, and can be abbreviated to "scales" in dialog.

And no, there are no dragons in my fantasy world. But who cares? They can have mythical creatures, just like we can.

Did my stats for the month:

AEIOU and Sometimes Why? Take 2 Month 7

Submissions: 8
Rejections: 6
Acceptances: 0
Personal Rejections: 2
Short Listed: 1
Publications: 2
Shortest Wait: a few hours
Longest Wait: 130 days and counting

Stories Finished: 1
CF: 18,500 words so far

Further musings about the above stats are posted on my blog if you are so inclined.

Well, after a(nother) month of hard work I managed to send off Version 25(!!) of my time travel story to Cr0ssed Genres themed submission call. I think I might have almost nailed it this time, lol. I've been working on this story since 2011.

That's pretty much all I managed to do of fiction this month. I have other stories to revise and resubmit but I'd really like to be writing more new stuff. I've only managed to stay on top of my W1S1 challenge by writing 4 new stories in February (but none in any of the other months this year!!) I'm thinking of doing a daily or weekly challenge just to get the new ideas flowing more regularly again.

I've been kidnapped by novella edits for the past few months but I have a bunch of story ideas itching to be written! I also have only 1 sub out at the moment - and that's just not gonna cut it! So, my plan is to kick things into high gear this month! Who's with me?!

Managed to finish my second story of the month this afternoon, which keeps me on target for this year's goal.

Hmmm, not even started any new stories this month, let alone finished any. 2 hours remaining. Challenge accepted!

This was my best month ever for short fiction. Three days ago I wrote a new horror story that I think is the best story I wrote this month. Since then I've taken a break from writing fiction. Edited some stories, did a few submissions and am getting back in gear on the stuff that brings in more money.

Next week I'll get back to the Gothic horror novel. Feels good to take a breather.

Hooray! Finished a draft of new flash piece with 25 minutes to spare.

Nice work, Dani!

Great productivity again this month -- I check in here every time I want to be inspired to get back to work.

My stats for April:

W1S1 done and out. This one was tough to write. I had the bones of it down, but the story just wasn't working. I finally figured out that the story needed to be written in a format I'd never tried before, and the words just flowed onto the page.

2nd draft of the epic/werewolf novel done. For May I plan to make those final tweaks and get a synopsis done.

8 stories in circulation now, with 4 rejections in April. Must do better in May.

Just realised I sent off my first submission ever a year ago today! A paper submission to Interzone, for a story that had zero chance of ever being bought by them. I had no idea what I was doing. I've written 18 new stories since then (not including a run of 6 horrible trunked monstrosities from early on, which we do not speak of).

Congrats, Dani! Wow, 18 is a lot...

Ugh. I can't count how many story beginnings I've stopped because I just decide "this is a stupid idea and you should feel stupid for writing it".

Hapax Legomenon said:

Congrats, Dani! Wow, 18 is a lot...

Ugh. I can't count how many story beginnings I've stopped because I just decide "this is a stupid idea and you should feel stupid for writing it".

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At some point you'll reach a moment where you realize every idea is stupid, but that doesn't mean it can't be told in an interesting way.

Aggy, has a novella very similar to LOTR except there are gorillas, cyborgs and a cranky young woman with a shotgun in it