Boarders Writing a Novel Thread 4

[Centrist Simon Steele]

Damn, that's 2200 an hour.

Even when I'm really cranking, I don't usually break over 1200 in an hour. Maybe 1500, depending on the content.*

* at least with fiction. Blogging or message board posting is a whole other ballgame.

I was in the zone! It might have been 2.5 hours. I don't feel like I started before 12am. But I might be wrong.

[Zoë Sumra]

I'm stuck making "minor changes" (read: pretty damn major changes that involve not too many words added to/deleted from existing content) straight into my typed-up Word document. The problem is that I handwrite all my first drafts because I find it easier to think of what to write when looking at a piece of paper than when looking at a Word document. :bang:

On the plus side, I worked out what to do with my half-chapter and decided not to write my two optional full chapters because I didn't actually need to. Therefore I have a hole-free draft, except for the hole I've just created with a couple of bangs on the Return key, into which I'm about to insert a failed armed robbery. Yay.

[Original Ned's Bones]

Reposting from last thread:

Interesting thread, and thank you all for sharing your writing process. I've had some ideas floating around that I think would make a good stand-alone novel, but have yet to commit to it, other than jotting down some notes. I don't have a lot of confidence in my chops, so I think I'll tackle a few short stories first.

My question to all of you is, what will you do with your manuscript when you finish it? Maybe this is for another thread, but I'm just curious as to who you need to contact, etc.

[alguien]

88,000 words now. The end is in sight!

Just received word back from OnSpec that they'd like me to re-work and resubmit one of my stories to them. So the plan is to work on my book after I finish my morning runs before work and edit this story after work. (its gotten complimentary personal rejection notes from Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction and the online Fantasy Magazine--so I know its got potential)

I sort of can't wait to be finished with my book, TBH. I've enjoyed the process, but I have about 12 ideas for short stories that I've been anxious to get to. Since I'm usually one to start a project and never finish, I've told myself no new stories until the first draft of my book is done.

Once its done, and I've edited it a bit (at least the first few chapters), I plan on finding an agent. I've had 10 short stories that have been published, three in smaller print magazines, two in small press book anthologies, three e-zines, and two podcasts. None were professional rates (except for a poem I got $100 for) but most were paying semi-pro (2-3 cents per word). Hopefully that's enough to be considered legit agent material.

I'll probably be scanning Writer's Digest for agent listings, but anyone else know of any good sources? I've heard SFWA has some good resources and perhaps LOCUS. I've used Duotrope for my short stories, but while they have book publishers, they don't seem to list agents yet.

[kuenjato]

Reposting from last thread:

smiler, to answer your question:

My completed manuscripts are all pretty long, so my immediate plan is to bind them for my own personal library. I'm currently in the editing phase on several of these. Once I finish my current 300k monster I plan on spending the next 9-10 months working on several much shorter works and on a series of short stories. My wife keeps bugging me about submission, so I've set a timeline to start the agent/query grind, being May of next year. This will give me the time to polish several potential novels, write a slew of short fiction, and start a couple more novels in the meantime. After that, dunno... if the rejection process is utter and complete, I'll just chug along like so many before me and after me. I've enough ideas to last a couple of lifetimes.

[Zoë Sumra]

Reposting from last thread:

My question to all of you is, what will you do with your manuscript when you finish it? Maybe this is for another thread, but I'm just curious as to who you need to contact, etc.

For my part, I'll look for an agent who handles space opera novels. In the UK the Writer's Handbook and Writer's and Artist's Yearbook, published annually, have agent listings, including what each agent does and does not accept, and agents have websites detailing what they require for submission. Very few publishing houses accept unsolicited manuscripts nowadays (and there are increasingly few agents in the UK at least who handle SFF), so the agented route is more likely to, well, work.

There are also online options to get yourself noticed including contests rating query letters, etc.

For short stories the path would be completely different!

[Myrddin]

My question to all of you is, what will you do with your manuscript when you finish it? Maybe this is for another thread, but I'm just curious as to who you need to contact, etc.

I'm almost done polishing and cutting my manuscript, so I'll be starting my Agent Quest soon (as in by middle of July). While that's going on, I'll finish researching and outling my next book.

[jbpark]

Guys, how do you feel about short stories? Think they're necessary for getting an agent?

[alguien]

Guys, how do you feel about short stories? Think they're necessary for getting an agent?

No, a book (or at least a decent start to a book) is necessary. As I understand it, a list of short story publishing credits allows an agent to take a prospective client more seriously. So they do help.

But absolutely necessary? Nope. They can't make your book magically better, but they can create a decent impression of professionalism.

[awesome possum]

Agreed. They're not necessary, but it definitely helps to show that you are capable of writing material others have wanted to publish.

[Original Ned's Bones]

Thanks everyone! Where do you send your short stories? Magazines, contests, etc?

[Ebenstone]

Reposting from last thread:

If it's a first draft...walk away...take some time away before diving back in. Then reread it, edit it and then rewrite it. Then workshop or beta it...then edit and rewrite again. (Maybe more...maybe less.)

Then submit.

Alguien, try Query Tracker. Great site. Not only TONS of agents listed, but great contests and lots of great information. Can't recommend it enough. Got me my original agent with one of their contests and all my nibbles have come from the site!

[Starkess]

Out to sea right now and incredibly busy. Barely have time to sleep, let alone write. But I am trying to carve out a bit, when I can. I have a board coming up this weekend that I need to pass, once that's done I won't feel so guilty about not studying every waking minute that I'm not doing something else.

There was a good blog post over at Scribophile today (http://www.scribophile.com/blog/its-time-for-a-reset/), something I've been telling myself for a while now. So in that spirit, I am going to set myself some daily goals of some measurable amount (rather than my current "Try to write something"). I do love to write, I do want to do this...and so I just need to pull myself together so that I can.

[kuenjato]

Yesterday I completed my personal beast... hammered out around the last 4200 words in four-five hours. The thrill and giddiness of completion (not felt from 2007) was nearly overwhelming, this time around. Particularly as this is the longest and most complex project I've ever tried. It came out to 301,138 in the end, though I've a little stuff to add and a lot of stuff to cut in the eventual edit/rewrite stage.

What did I do to celebrate? I started a new book a couple hours later. Something in the same world but much, much shorter (I hope to keep it under 120k). As I've been contemplating the opening for a couple of months, the writing went smooth -- between yesterday and today, I'm almost 5k in. It's nice, to work in a completely different setting with different characters. Relaxing.

[Zoë Sumra]

*gives round of applause* Well done, kuenjato! I really hope the editing goes well and the second one behaves as you want it to.

I:

1) Decided last Saturday I was going to fix an already-identified setup problem with a scene

2) Realised last Sunday that that would create MORE setup problems for the same scene

3) Figured out a solution last Monday; wrote some of it

4) Didn't write anything on Tuesday because I had a job application to finish

5) Didn't write anything yesterday because I was shatteringly tired

6) Haven't written so far today because I'm cross with myself for not writing the past two days...

... Iiii really need to pull the stick out of my bottom and do something.

[alguien]

Thanks everyone! Where do you send your short stories? Magazines, contests, etc?

www.duotrope.com is an awesome (and free) site that is your friend here.

[Rumarumo]

Yesterday I completed my personal beast... hammered out around the last 4200 words in four-five hours. The thrill and giddiness of completion (not felt from 2007) was nearly overwhelming, this time around. Particularly as this is the longest and most complex project I've ever tried. It came out to 301,138 in the end, though I've a little stuff to add and a lot of stuff to cut in the eventual edit/rewrite stage.

What did I do to celebrate? I started a new book a couple hours later. Something in the same world but much, much shorter (I hope to keep it under 120k). As I've been contemplating the opening for a couple of months, the writing went smooth -- between yesterday and today, I'm almost 5k in. It's nice, to work in a completely different setting with different characters. Relaxing.

Kudos.

I myself am still writing that damn short story. It went stale on me for a while there but I read that article on Scribophile and it motivated me enough that I set a daily writing goal for myself. Not a massive one, mind, seeing as I'm just starting and I know I won't keep to it unless I start small.

So; 500 words a day.

Yeah, yeah, minuscule, but so far (and almost 6,000 words later) I've stuck to it, even despite early starts at work the past nine days which have me shattered seeing as I only seem to write at 3 in the morning. I almost wavered night before last after a rough day at work and an inability to gush anything but shite onto the page, but I couldn't sleep so I went back to the computer at an obscene hour and ended up hammering out my favourite scene of the story so far from nothing, as well as deciding that I'm going to switch the order a bit and include some (hopefully-not) hackneyed flashback sequences.

Just thought I'd post due to feeling upbeat about my writing for more than five minutes at a time, even if it is comparable to a wannabe rock star boasting about his mad guitar hero skillz despite an inability to actually play one in real life. Sort of.

So, off to trek up my little sand dune and leave Everest to the experienced ;)

[Starkess]

(From my LJ)

I've found that by setting myself an attainable daily goal (write at least ONE PAGE every single day), I'm being much more productive. Sure, it's not a lot (I'm handwriting this ms, but I figure that 1 page is approx. 185 words), but in the past week I've written almost 3,000 words, which is about 3,000 words more than I wrote the week before that. I also find that by having a goal I can actually make, I feel less guilty and more excited at watching the pages mount up.

So hopefully I can continue this, and maybe bump up my goals as I meet them...I really want this ms to be done this year, well into the second draft preferably. We'll see.

[kuenjato]

Keep up the good work, everyone! "Just" 500 or 180 words is getting further, page by page. Some days I struggle to get 400 down... usually this involves narration/omni-view, as it requires more mental sweat for me than, say, action or dialogue.

I spent around 6 hours today editing the last hundred pages of the just-completed manuscript (single-spaced pages). Not a serious edit, just a read-through to clean up my tattered drafts, slash the more obviously-unnecessary, and get an afterglow perspective on the completed craft. Overall, I'm pretty happy with it. I'm now going to put it away for six months and allow that particular obsession to rest... well, really, to transfer it to other projects.

The editing never ends...

[Ealdorman Halasahr]

Darn, darn, and Mega-darn!

I sent a manuscript to this publisher two months ago - my first one ever. It was a smaller publisher aiming specifically for the genre of fantasy, and it had even started this particular subdivision for fantasy, sf, and horror.

Alas, a few days ago I got the rejection-letter, and it SUCKS!

Did I mention it SUCKS!!! (Yes, three exclamation marks!!!)

I know, this is something one has to expect will happen a number of times, and I'm the misunderstood artist and all that, but still - it really SUCKS!

After all, I've only invested some four years on the project (not effectively, but still, I started this looooong story in October 2006).

It was a rather small publisher, so today I'm going to send a revised version of that novel to one of Sweden's larger publishing companies, and hope for a better luck with that one.

And, since I truly am one of those tragically misunderstood artists, I'd like to point out to all of you strugglers of sentences, believers in books and fighters for fiction that Astrid Lindgren (famous for Pippi Longstocking, among other books) got rejected, and, oh, even The Beatles got turned down when hoping for a record deal with Decca ("We just don't see the potential in you as a band ...").

So, basically, I'm not going to give up, and neither should you. We are all better than the publishers think, right!