Tag: contest

Finish Something: No Glimmer of Hope

On By aftheadIn finish something8 Comments

Sometime this afternoon the status on my submission to Glimmer Train went from “In Process” to “Complete” which means they aren’t going to publish my story.  Winners were to be notified this week and my hopes were high when I was still “In Process” yesterday.  Sadly, I am not a prognosticator, but just a dreamer.  Am I disappointed?  A little bit, but I have to admit I had a lot of fun the past week imagining the scenarios:  receiving the e-mail telling me that I was actually going to be a real live published writer, telling my friends and family the wonderful news, and seeing my story in print.  Having something to be excited about is fun, even when it doesn’t turn out the way you want.  (Also, a little teeny tiny bit of me is still hoping I make the top 25 list even if they aren’t publishing my story.  I’ll have to wait for November 1st for that list.)

Now that I know, I can move on to submit my short story, The Fisherman, to the next two contests I found: The Master’s Review Fall Fiction Contest and The Writer’s Digest Short Short Story Contest.  First thing to do?  Fixed my pronoun agreement error in the first paragraph.  Sheesh, what a rookie!

The Master’s Review wants “strange, scary, disturbing and weird” from emerging writers.  The Fisherman nudges into all of these categories, so is a good fit.  However, they accept up to 7,000 words and at 1,242 words my story is a sliver of the length limit.  That said, finalists will be announced November 15th, so I’ll immediately have something to be excited about again.  Yippee!

Writer’s Digest wants a short short story with a limit of 1,500 words.  I make that cut off length with ease.  It’s an open competition though, so it’s me versus the world of published and established writers.  They award through twenty-fifth place.  This closes November 16th, so I’ll have one day after the Master’s Review deadline to submit here.  The Master’s Review accepts simultaneous submissions, but I don’t think Writer’s Digest does.  (I’m not sure, because Writer’s Digest has a lots of pages of rules.)

I’ve got a plan!  I hope someday I write another short story that I feel is a fit for Glimmer Train.  I enjoy reading the stories they publish and would love to be able to say I was featured on their pages.  Someday…

7-7-7 Challenge

On By aftheadIn Uncategorized9 Comments

Seventeen.  I have seventeen draft blog posts.  Some of them are deep and need time and effort to covey what I really want to say.  Some of them need a picture.  One needs some graphs.  One needs me to give a present first.  The blog posts are stacking up and I’m feeling drowned by the bits left to finish them off.

Ta da!  One of my favorite bloggers, A Funny Thing Happened When I was Learning Myself to the rescue!   She nominated me for the 7-7-7 challenge, which I love!  Thank you!  Here are the rules:

Go to the 7th page of my work in progress. Find the 7th sentence on that page, then paste the following 7 sentences into my blog post. Finally, select 7 other writers for the challenge.  It does not have to be fiction, I am interested in reading anything you’ve got!

What?!?!  How fun is this?  Since I have two works in progress over seven pages, I’m sharing them both.  From my first, yet to be completed, nameless novel:

Ingrid gasped, “Oh no, we use nothing but organic, free range eggs in this household.”

“Joke mom” Grant said and sat down on the dove grey love seat in the living room.  Anna joined him, and set Ingrid’s cup of non-alcoholic eggnog on a silver coaster.  Anna watched Ingrid as she took a sip of Anna’s eggnog.  What on earth was going on?  Ingrid was a germaphobe and she was drinking from a cup with a smear of Anna’s lipstick on the edge.

“So, what news do you have for us?” Ingrid asked and raised her eyebrows at them.

The second 7-7-7 series comes from my completed novel, Hallejulah.

Golden, grey and silver buildings lined the street in a variety of shapes and sizes.  There were Tudors next to low rise apartment buildings next to mansions; yet the street did not look odd with all the conflicting styles.  There was a gentle breeze and he could hear the leaves rustling in the trees.  No one walked the streets.  It was quiet.

“Welcome to the residential sector,” Petra said. “Here you will find all the residents of Heaven, and each new member is assigned living quarters based on their soul characteristics.”

Now for my seven nominees.  It appears as though my nominator and I share many favorite blogs, but there are a few I enjoy that didn’t make her list.  I’m leading with my “Hanna” derivative sisters.

  1. JoHanna Massey
  2. Proofreader Hannah
  3. K E Garland
  4. Spontaneous Whimsey or Socrates Underground (It’s the same author on both blogs!  So sneaky!)
  5. Alexand Knits – She’s mostly a knitter, so maybe she’ll provide us with a picture of the seventh stitch on the seventh row of some knitted object.
  6. Duck and Cover
  7. Amie Writes – who hasn’t been writing much and I miss her!

Also, a shout out to Mom Who Runs, who nominated my nominator.  Gotta love the blogging community!

Dream or Prophesy?

On By aftheadIn Fiction3 Comments

On September 13th I had a dream.  (Yes, I know, I hate hearing about other people’s dreams too.  There’s a point.  I’ll be quick.)  I’m holding in my hands a book, well, not quite a book.  It’s papers with book-like organization and book like shape and it has my story in it and pictures of me.  Not quite my story, there are differences, but my story and weird pictures I don’t ever remember being taken, but they are of me.  I flip through the unbound pages to the cover.  Glimmer Train.  “Oh,” a woman’s voice says, “You aren’t supposed to see that yet.”  The story is The Fisherman, which I submit to Glimmer Train for their Short Story Award for New Writers award the end of August.  In my dream I saw my story in the magazine.

I have read countless articles and books on writing.  Get it out there, they all say.  Just keep submitting, they all say.  Then they always say, “I didn’t even remember I had such-and-such story out there, when I found out I got published.”  Okay, I know I’m a newbie, and I know this is my first submission but WHAT?!?!  I’m going crazy here.  I have a full time job, I’m a mom, I’m fostering two kittens from the animal shelter, I’m coaching my daughter’s soccer team and I still check my e-mail several times a day to see if I’ve heard from Glimmer Train yet.  Are these other writers beings with hearts and souls of stone, or am I just nuts?

It’s kind of fun.  The site says, “Winners will be contacted directly the week before the public announcement in our bulletins” and the bulletin is due out November 1st so the longer I don’t hear something the more giddy and butterfly-stomachy I feel.  Sixteen days….but if I don’t hear in nine days is that good news by default?  *flutter flutter*  Then I tell myself, “They just moved to a new computer system.  You know how that goes.  It’s what you do for a living.  They are probably just doing a batch update in the old system and that’s why you don’t know yet.”  *flutter flutter*

I’m trying to keep my rose colored glasses on.  I know the odds are slim.  I know they get tons of submissions.  I know no one gets published on their first submission.  Why did I have to be the one who submit a story when they got a new computer system?  But I haven’t heard anything yet so the excitement builds.

They probably just lost it.  It’s stuck in some bit or byte and they don’t even know it’s there.  November 1st will come and go and I won’t hear anything, and I’ll miss my chance to submit to the Writer’s Digest competition I’m eyeing.  I’ll be that awkward whiny person who e-mails them, “Uh, did you ever read my story?”

Gasp.  Maybe they like it.  Maybe I’ll get published.  Maybe it really is good.  I think it’s good….sometimes.

It’s like a writer’s Christmas Eve, but this time Santa really might not come, or he might bring me coal.  Do you hear the reindeer’s hooves?

I just checked.  Still no e-mail.  Still no update on my submission status.  I’m still In Process – Your work has been received and is in the review process. Check guidelines for response times.  Of course the guidelines are gone, because of the new system.  This is like every user I’ve ever programmed for paying me back for moving stuff they want to find on a website.  When will I move to Complete or *flutter flutter* Accepted for Publication?

Nine more days, or sixteen….

*flutter flutter*

Glimmer Train Submission

Get it Out There – The Short Story Edition

On By aftheadIn Publishing Process11 Comments

Back in June I blogged about going to see my BFF Neil Gaiman speak and his message to new writers.  Like many other established authors out there, his suggestion was to finish something, then get it out there.  Since that day I have finished a first draft of a short story and my first novel.  While waiting for my novel age, I have been working on nine tasks to get me ready for the effort of creating a second draft of my novel then finding an agent and publisher.  One of those tasks was to polish my short story, The Fisherman, and get it out there.  Well, I actually said “see how I feel about getting it out there,” but honestly, I feel pretty darn good.  It is out there.  Monday night I corrected my last few inconsistencies, paid my $15 and hit submit. My story is now officially in the Glimmer Train Press “Short-Story Award For New Writers.”  Can I get a hallelujah?!?  I’ll find out by November 1st if I win or not.  Time for more waiting.

I’m really, really glad I submit The Fisherman before tackling the editing process on my novel.  My story was SHORT (1241 words) and my novel is LONG (98,942 words).  Editing my short story was a gut wrenching crabby weekend of work.  If I edit my novel at the same rate I’m going to be crabby for 80 days!  (At one point this weekend I remembered another message from Neil Gaiman where he said people think that writing is ethereal but really it’s wandering around grouchy in a bathrobe.  Yep, he was talking second drafts, I’m sure.)  However, I learned some great stuff that I think will make editing the novel easier now that this effort is under my belt:

  1. I need a reader who believes in me, loves my work, and will remind me why I’m doing this when the bathrobe lady takes over and wants to hide in the basement burning my novel.  I’m lucky enough to have two of those readers.  One of them is my mom who also happens to be my ideal reader and my first editor.  The other one is a dear friend who makes time to encourage me even while she’s living her own crazy life.  Having that really honest joyful reassurance is so important.  Find that person. Buy them presents.  Nurture them because you are going to need them.
  2. I need a reader who is pragmatic and good at the rules of grammar.  My husband had to read my story twice this weekend.  The first time he agreed with my mom, “Yeah, you’ve got a lot of ‘ands’ in this story” and the second time he found two inconsistencies that were nit-picky but the difference between a kind-of-final draft and a final draft. Having someone who will know if your prepositions don’t match is awesome.  He never gushed about my story, but that’s okay.  Other people handled the gushing.
  3. I need a plan.  If the story doesn’t make Glimmer Train, that’s okay.  The deadline for the Writer’s Digest Short Short Story competition is November 16th.  That’s where The Fisherman is going next if it doesn’t find a home at Glimmer Train.
  4. I need a deadline. Once I found my competition and realized it was due 8/31 I got motivated.  I couldn’t hang out in the bathrobe too long.  I’m hoping that I can make deadlines for my novel that mean something to me and keep me motivated.  Otherwise I might have to find some weird novel competition.  (Hopefully this means I’ll be good with deadlines if and when someone else ever cares about my stuff getting published.)

Those things are all great, but I also learned one really big writing lesson.  A game changer of a lesson.  I am chickenshit.  Once my mom and Mr. Afthead pointed out all the “ands” in my story I realized what I was doing.  I was making the reader do the work.  Description after description read,

“When the sun is low and the puffy cloud-filled sky is painted pink, purple and orange, and the shadows are deep enough to hide details of faces and bodies, the door will open and he will slip out to join the families on the banks of the river with his rod and reel.”  – 4 “ands” in one sentence

I had 69 ands in my first draft. Let’s pause and consider 69 of 1241 words were AND: almost 6%.  Ugh.  I cut that down to 31 through updates like,

“The sun must be low in a sky filled with orange puffy clouds.  The shadows must be deep enough to hide the details of face and body.  When the conditions are right he will slip out to join the families on the banks of the river with his fishing rod.” – 1 “and” in 3 sentences

What’s the difference between the first and second versions.  Lots of stuff, but in my mind the difference is that in the first version I am paranoid that the reader won’t see what I want them to see.  So I paint a very detailed picture in a very complex sentence.  I give them a magnifying glass and some paint of their own – in case they don’t like what they see – and a guided tour of the picture complete with one of those narration phones you get at a museum.  In the second version I am brave.  I assume the reader has their imagination on and can paint their own picture in their mind and we can move on together.  Are their orange puffy clouds the same as mine?  Do they really understand the conditions?  That is scary, but my favorite part of the story is the magic, but through over-describing (The child is excited and terrified.  The dad is teary-eyed and proud.) I was losing the magic.

Thank goodness by nature I’m a taker-outter and not a putter-inner, so the edits weren’t hard once I knew what they were.  I honestly believe that every reader has “better things to do” than read a book.  They have bills to pay and mother’s to call and a house to clean and kids to bathe and endless ands to stick into their writing.  If I make them work too hard they will leave.  If I tell them exactly what they need to know, and maybe a little less, they will keep reading because they can’t stop.  They will paint their picture in their head and want to know how it turns out.  I want my stories to beg to be read, but if they are tedious because I am scared they won’t get read.  So watch out novel!  I’m coming to you and I am brave and ready to chop you down to size.  I’m bringing my cheerleader readers and my nitpicker with me too.  We are a fierce team and taking on new members if you want to join us.

Only 59 days until I find out if I won the competition or not. 23 days until I can read my novel. Tick Tick.

Rebranding: Periodic Publishing Posts

On By aftheadIn Publishing Process10 Comments

ANNOUNCEMENT!  ANNOUNCEMENT!

The feature formerly knows as “Weekend Writing Update #x” is being rebranded to “Periodic Publishing Posts.”  This move is being made for several strategic reasons:

  1. The posts are not about writing at all.  I am writing the posts, but I write all my posts.  It is the nature of posts.  The posts are about publishing and the steps I am taking to get my work out there.  So the new brand more accurately reflects what in the heck I’m taking about.
  2. Weekends are terrible for blog traffic.  I don’t know if you other blog writers see the same thing, but my readers just aren’t interested in reading over the weekend.  This does not surprise me because personally I have time to type a post over the weekend, but no time to catch up on my favorite blogs until the week.  I’m busy babysitting chickens (yep, that’s a real thing,) coaching soccer, and setting up obstacles for our backyard “Kids’ American Ninja Warrior” game.  So my weekend post may become a Tuesday or Wednesday post.  I’d pick the proper alliteration day of the week, but none of them start with “P”.  Any foreign speakers out there that can tell me a day that starts with “P?”
  3. Update is the most pointless word I have ever put in a blog title.  I’ve used it twice.  That is enough.

Guess what all is up in my publishing process?  Still no approval paperwork from the office.  I’m getting annoyed, while trying to understand that my bosses boss probably has more important things to do than sign a piece of paper approving me to work outside of the office.  Still, I’d like to start moving on my new domain and my CV.  Bureaucracy.  Annoying and hard to spell.  I hate it.

I’ve made other strides though.  Tomorrow, or Monday at the latest, I’m sending in an updated version of my short story The Fisherman to Glimmer Train for their Short Story Award for New Writers competition.  I spent one evening this past week searching through the contests and awards in the 2015 Writer’s Market trying to find something that appealed to me.

Stop.  Funny aside here.  I can submit an optional cover letter with my story.  I am a staunch believer in cover letters.  When I hire for a position I am unabashedly biased against people who do not include a cover letter.  In the first version of my cover letter I said, “After perusing the Writer’s Market I decided that Glimmer Train had the right combination of openness to new writers and success producing excellence that I wanted.”  Both my mom and my husband said using “perusing” was shorthand for “I’m a smarty smart with a big vocabulary.”  So I came up with some other wording options:

  • After slogging through the Writer’s Market…
  • After being overwhelmed by the Writer’s Market…
  • After contemplating the Writer’s Market….
  • After scanning the Writer’s Market…
  • After waking from my nap and wiping drool off of the Writer’s Market…
  • After scouring the Writer’s Market….
  • After removing the breakfast dishes from the Writers Market…

Guess which one I went with?

After scouring through the Writer’s Market, I had a list of 23 contests I felt my were a fit for my story, but I decided on Glimmer Train.  Why?

  1. They only take unsolicited work.
  2. They have a new writer’s contest that closes August 31st.  This forces me to do something right now.
  3. The contest is only $15 to enter.
  4. I love why the publication exists.  They want to discover new writers.  They read 30,000-40,000 stories a year and publish 40-50, but every story gets a chance.
  5. I love the tone of their site and the stories that they publish.  I rush ordered Issue 92 of their magazine this week to read it and make sure my story is a good fit.  I think it is.
  6. They accept simultaneous publications, so that means if I want to chase after some of these other contests it’s okay with them.
  7. They’ve got a pretty good track record of their stories going onto bigger and better things.

I’m waiting for a final review from my mom editor, and then I’ll submit.

Stop.  EEEEK!  I’m going to submit a story to a publication that receives 40,000 stories a year and publishes 40.  (Worst case scenario.)  That means I have a ONE IN TEN THOUSAND chance of getting published.  If you like percentages, that is 0.1%.  I didn’t pursue an acting career out of high school because there was only a 5% chance of making a career out of it.  I do not do things that are this unlikely.  What am I thinking?  Deep breath.  I really am quite glad that I’m not an actor.  Deeper breath.  I have a 0% chance of getting published if I don’t submit my story.  Deepest breath.  It’s okay.  The worst thing that will happen is my story will not get published and that’s exactly where I am right now.

I also started doing some searches about finding an agent and found this gem from our own WordPress community.  The Color the Books Blog has all kinds of great information. Want to know how to search Twitter for what topics agents and editors are looking for?  Search #MSWL for Manuscript Wishlist of course.  Or just check out http://manuscriptwishlist.com/, which I also learned about from this blog, and it will just aggregate all that information for you along with tidbits from agents about what they want.  Oh yeah, that’s kind of handy.  He’s also got stuff about how to keep track of your queries and what tropes are popular.  (Prior to this blog I didn’t know what a trope was.)

I also spent some time building a list of books I love that were first books for the author and reading through the acknowledgements and about the author pages to see who their agent is and looking them up.  Nothing concrete happening there yet, but it’s an interesting list.

Finally, I’ve almost finished reading the book that my friend’s ex-wife wrote.  When I’ve read that I’ll ask for an introduction.  I’m also going on a walk with another friend of a friend who published a memoir.  I’m working the network, because four weeks from now I will have just finished reading Hallelujah for the first time and will need to figure out my next step: copies for all my friends from Kinko’s or moving toward publication.