Second Quarter 2010
Apr. 1st, 2010 11:31 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sinanjuI received a rejection today. Asimov's rejected "Man-Ape". It's already back out at another market.
My larger goal for this year is to write at least three, preferably four novels. I've got one under my belt. Today I took a stab at starting two more. The idea is that if I stall out on one project temporarily, I can switch to the other and let my subconscious chew on it awhile. Good in theory, but in practice I spun my wheels today and produced nothing usable.
I began to wonder if I had enough of a concept for a story--in both cases. Or did I just have a nice hook? I took a couple of runs at an opening for one story but they didn't satisfy me. I wasn't even sure how to begin the other. I forgot the first rule I learned while writing the first novel in November: it doesn't have to be good. I can fix it later. But in order to fix it later, I need to write it now. So tomorrow I'll leap back in again.
I spent some time reading over some of my earlier openings to stories. Some of which go on for quite a few pages, and some of which I really rather like. One I liked so much that I may see if I can use it as a seed for one of the novels. It helps to remind myself that I can, in fact, write stuff I enjoy rereading later. It helps to stifle the inner critic.
I've also got a couple of short story ideas, but I'm resisting writing them. They're more of the sort of thing I've been publishing with Cobblestone. But while those successes are nice, they haven't been terribly cost effective. Perhaps I haven't been promoting myself effectively--and self-promotion is one of the things that appears to be necessary in the online romance/erotica markets--but I'm not sure how I could do it any better. Oh, I'm sure I could spend a lot of time at it, and money, if I wanted to. I don't know that that would make any difference.
So while I enjoy writing those stories, and it's always nice to have someone accept them (which suggests that they too hope to make money on them), it's just not a good use of my writing time to produce them. (On the gripping hand, I've not yet sold anything else to anyone, so I suppose one might argue that they're more cost effective than the other things I'm writing. So far, at least.)
Ah well. Rejection is part of the game. I'll continue writing and submitting and eventually someone will recognize my genius! In the mean time, time for the statistics!
Stories in Circulation: 11
Rejections: 33 (a new one today, already sent back out)
Stories Accepted: SEVEN
Stories to Resubmit: 0
Novel Queries: 1 Novel, 5 queries out
Novel Rejections: 4
Project 1: Space Opera (Title TBD)
Words Written: 0
Project 2: Urban Fantasy (Title TBD)
Words Written: 0
My larger goal for this year is to write at least three, preferably four novels. I've got one under my belt. Today I took a stab at starting two more. The idea is that if I stall out on one project temporarily, I can switch to the other and let my subconscious chew on it awhile. Good in theory, but in practice I spun my wheels today and produced nothing usable.
I began to wonder if I had enough of a concept for a story--in both cases. Or did I just have a nice hook? I took a couple of runs at an opening for one story but they didn't satisfy me. I wasn't even sure how to begin the other. I forgot the first rule I learned while writing the first novel in November: it doesn't have to be good. I can fix it later. But in order to fix it later, I need to write it now. So tomorrow I'll leap back in again.
I spent some time reading over some of my earlier openings to stories. Some of which go on for quite a few pages, and some of which I really rather like. One I liked so much that I may see if I can use it as a seed for one of the novels. It helps to remind myself that I can, in fact, write stuff I enjoy rereading later. It helps to stifle the inner critic.
I've also got a couple of short story ideas, but I'm resisting writing them. They're more of the sort of thing I've been publishing with Cobblestone. But while those successes are nice, they haven't been terribly cost effective. Perhaps I haven't been promoting myself effectively--and self-promotion is one of the things that appears to be necessary in the online romance/erotica markets--but I'm not sure how I could do it any better. Oh, I'm sure I could spend a lot of time at it, and money, if I wanted to. I don't know that that would make any difference.
So while I enjoy writing those stories, and it's always nice to have someone accept them (which suggests that they too hope to make money on them), it's just not a good use of my writing time to produce them. (On the gripping hand, I've not yet sold anything else to anyone, so I suppose one might argue that they're more cost effective than the other things I'm writing. So far, at least.)
Ah well. Rejection is part of the game. I'll continue writing and submitting and eventually someone will recognize my genius! In the mean time, time for the statistics!
Stories in Circulation: 11
Rejections: 33 (a new one today, already sent back out)
Stories Accepted: SEVEN
Stories to Resubmit: 0
Novel Queries: 1 Novel, 5 queries out
Novel Rejections: 4
Project 1: Space Opera (Title TBD)
Words Written: 0
Project 2: Urban Fantasy (Title TBD)
Words Written: 0