The W1S1 Check-in and Chill Lounge and Bar

Revised and subbed a story; now I'm up to 6 submissions out. Really hoping to reach 7 tomorrow if I can finish off another that's hovering at the edge of completion.

I wish I was busy writing but instead I'm funking (like sulking but artsier ).

I'm wrestling with a short that's a bit of a stretch for me. It doesn't want to go down on the page and I've been standing over it with my arms crossed and my foot tapping.

Got my first full request of the querying process. My hopes for it aren't great but the validation gave me a real buzz. I'm also brewing my next novel, planning to start that once the short gives up and starts to behave.

Hasn't been a great writing summer for me, but I'm still plugging along.

@Fihr Good luck saving money.

@StormChild Good luck and congrats on the request.

@AC I hope you got your seventh out.

I'm working on revisions to the Spider Thief novel and tightening up the pitch for the sequels in prep for (possibly) sending the whole thing out on submission in September.

My novella is being returned to me since Eggplant is closing up. It'll be undergoing some reworking/polishing before it, too, goes out to find a new home. (The whole closing down/rights return is disappointing, but the sales had been very low, so I'm hoping this is a good thing overall.)

RL continues to be stressful in the extreme. The previous issues with the sewer folks taking us to court has not been resolved by paying the money ordered by the court. Now my landlord is being threatened and we're facing eviction. >_<

And here I keep thinking my life is dull.

Aggy, tired

Melinda: Thanks! And I did get it in today.

I have one more story drafted which I want to try and finish off before the month ends, and if I have time I'd like to at least take a shot at another anthology due this week. Here's hoping!

Aggy B. said:

My novella is being returned to me since Eggplant is closing up. It'll be undergoing some reworking/polishing before it, too, goes out to find a new home. (The whole closing down/rights return is disappointing, but the sales had been very low, so I'm hoping this is a good thing overall.)

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I'm sorry to hear that about Eggplant and your novella. I wish you luck in finding a new home for it. I hope your RL calms down soon.

Pulling for good new options and positive responses for all of you getting work out there.

Fihr -- Thanks. I've started building in more destressing activities and a daily work cut-off time. May your reno go smoothly!

I finished the edits on my Gothic horror novel yesterday, along with detailed notes of the remaining tasks. Despite having only one day a week for fiction, I'm on track.

Encouragement for the eBook adventure kept coming so I made a list of all the projects in progress I could complete and wing out within the next few months.

This week I'm focusing on getting the NF stuff done as early as possible to have two days for fiction. I have a fantasy of a day off from all projects yet that isn't in the cards yet.

Ty Schalter said:

At 37 days, my Fireside sub is 5-6 days older than the Rs coming off the board at The Grinder. Hoping this means a bump (pretty please?!) Also got a sub at Shimmer rounding into Day 4, hopeful for this one after my last sub there got a nice personal. Now, I gotta quit making excuses and write before NFL teams start tossin' the ol' pigskin around.

Peace
Ty

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I enjoy reading your columns are Bleacher Report

Despite how much heat you are getting for your rankings going into training camp.... Lol You have some thick skin my man.

Sudoroot said:

I enjoy reading your columns are Bleacher Report

Despite how much heat you are getting for your rankings going into training camp.... Lol You have some thick skin my man.

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Hey, thanks! Really appreciate you reading. Yeah, there's a Dolphins fan on Twitter who sends me a pic of Cam Wake almost every day, and mocking me for saying he's lost a step—which isn't what I said, but...

fihr: You're welcome! On the reverse, it says "The bearer of this card has been officially rejected by Clarkesworld. Please be nice to them." It's cute.

My W1S1 check-in, again, is failure.

With just two pieces out on sub, and four sitting around waiting for revision, I spent much of last week beta-reading/editing a good friend's novella. Between that and ACFantasy so kindly taking a look at one of my dust-gatherers, I think I'm finally ready to do some serious revising and re-submitting.

This is hard for me. I've always been about pouring everything into the first draft—long before I became a columnist (where my first draft gets pubbed as-is, plus a copy edit, four-to-five times a week). But I've got to kill these darlings, or these stories just won't sell.

Peace
Ty

My month was pretty good in terms of writing. I got 3 stories written, for a combined total of about 15,200 words. This brings me up to 11 total stories for this year that I've written and am happy with, and a total final draft word count of about 50,800 words for the year so far.

In terms of submissions, I sent out the three that I wrote this month, two to anthologies and one to an online magazine. Additionally, I revised another story and sent that out to an online magazine as well. Add in one that I subbed back in May and I have 5 current submissions. While I learned in the past couple days that a couple ones I sent out a while ago were not received due to technical issues, I've already worked out new markets for those, so I hope to do some polishing and get them out again within the next couple of weeks. That should push me up to 8 active, which would be a new record for me.

Ty: Good luck with the revisions!

Ty -- You've got the work in progress, that counts. I like Ray Bradbury's 'throw up, then clean up' method. I can relate to your experience as a columnist, almost all my income comes from client work I nail on the first draft.

Fiction is a whole different monster. I've been working on taming my revision process. I'm planning to finish my Gothic horror novel on the third draft -- speedy for me.

Revised and submitted a story -- first time out on this one, a supernatural horror story from my April marathon. I'm down to five subs out and I'm okay with that. Stayed up late to get this one out.

I'm going to see if I can put more time into the novel this week. I'm managing to knock assignments out faster by running a timer and logging everything. If I can get ahead of my work load, I'll add a second session on the novel.

Finished up revisions to the Spider Thief novel. (After the agent nudged me to get it back to him sooner rather than later.)

Time to start looking at the SF Western novella and the Magic-punk novel again.

Last week was great because I recieved a deadline from my publisher for a Halloween book. It was not so great because instead of adding words, the first thing I did was delete a thousand words.

But this week has started well with a high word count already. I also attended Bubonicon where I heard Connie Willis speak. She is AWESOME.

Subbed to F&SF, so I'm back up to 6 submissions.

I've just subbed to F & SF too. It's been a long while since I last subbed there, and even longer (eighteen years) since I was in it!

Got another story out there. Back up to 7 on submission!

Congrats, all!

I put in 2 1/2 hours on the Gothic horror novel yesterday. Added two new scenes. Discovered I'm writing faster, about 1500 words an hour, up from 1000. So little time for fiction, at least I'm slamming with what I've got.

Got a second story sub out. Finishing up ones I planned.

Ahead of production on the stuff that pays the bills, so I plan to take two days off this week. I need to recharge.

Not getting any new writing done because of other urgent priorities. But, am subbing my existing stories when I get a chance.

Just subbed to F&SF, and checked some stats.

There are roughly 420 submissions in their system as of now, today, based on the number my sub was allocated.

On the Grinder, 105 subs to F&SF are recorded, vs 71 on Duotrope.

This isn't very scientific, and I only look when I have a rough idea of how many subs are out there for a market, but when I compared stats for WotF last time results were coming out, I found a similar thing.

It looks to me as though more people who sub to fantasy and SF markets (the ones I sub to) are tracking their stuff on the Grinder now than on Duotrope.

Fihr, that's what I'd heard as well, but it's nice to see some stats on it.

Just subbed something new to ASIM. I was going to sub to DSF but I just saw they changed their wordcount guidelines... anyway that makes 3 out. I have not written short stories lately, but I think I wrote something like 17k last month, so that's something.

I think this was my highest word count week ever. In a way it's a shame it's not short stories because then I would have some new stuff to put out there. I'm looking forward to writing short stories in the fall, though. I hope everyone's doing well.

Tuning up a near-future dark fantasy short for F&SF by the deadline or before. I may not have a shot, but now the story's good enough for other markets.

Two fantasy shorts out on sub right now, the most I've had in years. Being productive in longer fiction is helping me write short stuff too.

Hard deadline of Sept. 15 to send 43K fantasy novella to the agent; there's *possible* NY interest. Then back to the space opera sequel, which needs 20K to be done.

Filigree said:

Tuning up a near-future dark fantasy short for F&SF by the deadline or before. I may not have a shot, but now the story's good enough for other markets.

Two fantasy shorts out on sub right now, the most I've had in years. Being productive in longer fiction is helping me write short stuff too.

Hard deadline of Sept. 15 to send 43K fantasy novella to the agent; there's *possible* NY interest. Then back to the space opera sequel, which needs 20K to be done.

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You have a lot of stuff going on. Hope you meet your deadline.

Just a reminder: As Filigree mentions, the F&SF C.C. Finlay issue with e-subs closes for subs on Friday.

I took the future fantasy/horror thing from 2300 words to 4300 words, polished it, dithered a bit, and then subbed it to Finlay through the F&SF link fifteen minutes ago. The best I can reasonably hope for is a personal rejection, I suspect.

But that takes me up to *3* short stories out at once! You folks are inspirational.

Thanks, Brandon. I should have a lot more on my plate, since I'm playing catch up for eighteen months when I couldn't meet my writing goals because of life and business reasons. At this point, if I can get the fantasy novella out on sub and the space opera sequel to the publisher, I'll call 2014 a great year.

Congrats on all the productivity!

I added another 2k to the novel this morning, nearly finished with the fill-in bits. Sneaking in research during the week. Up to 58k now.

Scored a new gig so no 2nd day off, yet it's a huge improvement over most of my clients. If it flies, it will cover my core expenses. I'm pitching articles that fit with my research priorities, so it's a major win.

Planning to put in a couple more hours on the novel after a break.

Fingers crossed for the gig, Batspan.