Clearing, and Thoughts on the Industry

As of last night, my second accepted story, Clearing, is online! You can click here to get to it directly (with no way to back out to their main site...I think Abandoned Towers is one of the last of the heavily-frame-laden websites in the web-o-tron), or you can go to the Abandoned Towers site, and click on the Science Fiction section on the left.

I tend to be pretty laid back with a lot of things in life: for example, I program in PHP as a hobby; I know a little bit and can build most any functional thing, but I have no desire to become the best programmer that I can be; it just doesn't mean enough to me to take classes, read books, and stay up late for months-on-end and become a world-class über-programmer...I don't need to see the matrix, I just want to make a button that will generate a report.

Writing, however, isn't that way for me. It's become one of those things that, at least once a decade or so, I will become obsessed with (business was that way for me once, and that took me from being jobless and homeless during a chilly Oregon winter to seven years in business school and, eventually, a VP-level job in banking). I really, really want to do it as well as I possibly can and hope to do it for a living someday, and I love studying other writers' work and sponging up industry knowledge to learn what works and what doesn't.

To that end, as I mentioned to CJ earlier, I have been stalking agent and publisher blogs for a couple of weeks now. This has been a very valuable exercise. In that short time, I've gained some insights into what is selling, what seems to be declining, and general gut-check info from folks who are elbow-deep in manuscripts and New York publishing house drama (First Five Pages-type info). One thing I've learned, which I'm sure is no surprise, is that the publishing world is getting slayed by the economy, and some publishers have stopped, more or less, accepting manuscripts. And that sucks. So, I guess I could have picked a better time to try and get published for the first time; but, I guess it's tough all over (banking is no picnic right now, for sure). But, as one agent wrote, it's a good opportunity to wait out the recession and knock out a couple of manuscripts, submit to agents for, if nothing else, feedback, and keep grinding the axe.

But, I suppose I'm not all that worried about the selling part now, as I am yet to complete a full manuscript. That is definitely putting the cart first, but I guess it all becomes part of the long-term strategy. The important part of writing is...well, writing.

And, like Steve Martin said: talking about music is like dancing about architecture...same goes with writing. So, I'm off to the Land of Words...

Remember, Remember, the month of November

OK, time for the November roundup...

• Mrs. Marsupial's Tea Party, written and submitted to the Cafe Doom contest in October, took the silver medal for good behavior at Cafe Doom...subbed it to Clarkesworld (rejected), and is now in-slush with Sybil's Garage.
• Started and completed Contract of Men, which now sits with GUD.
• Started and completed Filtered White Light, out with AGNI.
• Started and completed The Tucker Farm Incident for Dark Jesters (also pending).
• Knocked out about 20k of Mojave, doubted my storyline, and put it aside to simmer.
• Clearing (version 2.2) (does everyone version their stories, or just me?) accepted for the online edition of Abandoned Towers
• Inspired by the story started in Tucker Farm, started a new story-of-indeterminate-length called Seattle Pizza Company v. The State of Washington. I knocked out about 3100 words last night, which I think is my one-day record.

Given that I got one acceptance and some positive feedback for Mrs. M, I'm calling November a success.

In addition to working an insanely busy job in banking, raising a family, trying to keep my old house from falling over, having a year-round infatuation with Halloween special effects, and trying to break into writing, I also do some programming on the side, and just knocked out a massive project that has been dogging me for over a month--which frees up a little more time for the other things on the list, and takes the stress quotient down a bit.

It's 8:30am on the west coast, and is now time to concentrate on the job that pays the bills. Tonight, back to the Seattle Pizza Company.

Number Two (no, the good kind of number two)

After about seven weeks in round two, I got a minor revision request from Cyberwizard for Clearing and, within a few hours of resubmitting, an acceptance for Abandoned Towers! Woohoo!

Yes, it's for the website (she gave me the choice of web or print, and I chose the former...at this point I think I need broader readership more than another hard copy ToC); and yes, it's FTL (and we all are aware of the debate stirring around that topic... apparently that thread is still active, and, if you scroll down the bottom, plumbing new depths of pettiness and backbiting). But, like I mentioned over on Aaron's blog, this is the point in my career where I need some of that free love...of the few FTLs I've subbed to since kicking this whole writing thing off in July, I have gotten some great feedback from many of them, including early feedback from the former submissions editor for Abandoned Towers...and I am incredibly grateful. So, until I'm cool enough to sell exclusively to pro and semi (that's all I've subbed to since October or so), I'll enjoy a symbiosis with folks who are in a position to cultivate talent, and take whatever attention I can get, given that this is my second published work to-date.

To summarize: WooHoo! She said she'll put it up once she gets a hard copy contract, so hopefully in a week or so.

Also, I finished the Cemetery Book...it was a very cute book packed with Neil Gaiman creepyisms, and seems to definitely be set up for a sequel. My kids are really looking forward to the Coraline movie in February as well.

October Roundup

Not a very eventful month for me, sadly...lots of words, not much submitted.

• I managed to get a screenplay off to Hotel Guignol, but I think that was actually in September, now that I think about it.
• Clearing was rejected by GUD, bounced by Clarksworld, but passed through the first gatekeeper at Abandoned Towers, where it currently sits.
• I submitted a piece to Cafe Doom for their annual Writer's Choice contest...I can't tell you the name of it, as voting continues for another week or so, but I will say that of the twelve current votes, it's "on the board", so to speak. That is very exciting...really, unbelievably cool. There are some great stories up there by some excellent writers, and the fact that I've gotten any votes from that crowd is beyond flattering, even if I don't end up in the final three. I have about ten more stories to read before I can vote.
  
• I knocked out 10k of Mojave, which will, hopefully, become a growed-up novel one day...but, I lost traction with the Halloween haunted house project (here are some pix, if you're interested...it also kept me off of Blogger for a week or so, hence my radio silence), Cafe Doom, and...
• A new quickie project that popped out of my keyboard half-formed. It is called The Contract of Men, is non-speculative, and very much inspired by the humbling style of McCarthy's The Road (which I'm about halfway through).

So, there's October...next on the docket: finish Contract of Men, keep grinding away on Mojave, and go hear Neil Gaiman speak at the library on Thursday. I did consider it, but I'm not WriMo'ing my NaNo this year...I'm scared of getting sidetracked off of Mojave again.

The Dangers of Nyquil

After 4 days, Clearing was jettisoned by Clarkesworld with a form letter...yesterday, I submitted a query letter for Clearing to Abandoned Towers, got a positive response, submitted the story, and just now received another positive response from the sub editor, saying it "seemed well written and put together with nice clean dialogue" and has passed it on to the editorial group...not an acceptance, but I'll take it, even with the word seemed attached. That makes me happy.

I'm sick yet again, and had to choke back some Nyquil, mostly so that my poor wife can sleep through my gasping and choking and coughing. Since Sunday, I have been thinking through a story that really sounds fun (I'll share more as I progress, but kind of a what-if story around the proposed nuclear waste dump in Yucca Mountain just north of Vegas)...but, as I dig more into this story, it has to be a full length thing--at least 50-70k words. Which is daunting, as I'm yet to complete anything that long. Last night, in a diphenhydramine daze, I dreamt chunks of the storyline, which makes me even more excited to work on it. I don't want to blow this, so I'm going to take a few more days of outlining and character development before I start work.