Author: Nat

Nov 24, 2008 by

Quick roundup: Rejections from both Flashquake and Ellora’s Cave. I think I might dig out or write a few more flashfic for Flashquake (just scribbled a vampire scene for mininano), and I’m going to find another 2000 words for the selkie story to submit it to a Samhain collection. I don’t know where I’m going to find 2000 words, but I have until March to find them, so it’s not a big panic, anyway.

I wasn’t surprised to get it back from EC, considering the belated spotting of errors in the cover letter, but their response does suggest they read the partial. I think. Either that, or it’s a really placatory form letter.

We have reviewed your submission and while we found the writing good and story line very well done, we feel that this story is not right for us.

Ellora’s Cave wishes you the best of luck with your future writing and in placing your manuscript elsewhere.

Yes, the constant rejections are a little wearing, a constant little chipping that gets slower closer to hurting (but I’m not letting it hurt yet), but I’ve not even been doing this for a year yet. If I still haven’t had a success in five years time, then I’ll let it get to me. Flashquake seems to have got to me more than most, because I was quite confident there, but they gave feedback (albiet brief), and I can have another shot with something else next time their submissions open. I expected to get the Selkie story back, and it was a very nice rejection, so I’m not so bothered; besides, I’m feeling pretty keen on Samhain (enough that I was beginning to wonder if I’d done the right thing by submitting to EC). We’ll see how I feel if they reject.

The ‘I <3 your blog’ meme has left me with a general desire to rec some blogs, especially because since then I’ve added several more to my rss feed.

Useful Writing Blogs

The Swivet – Colleen Lindsay’s blog, usually focussed on her experiences as an agent and news from within the industry.

BBC Writers Room – The BBC writing blog. It focuses mainly on scripts, but it’s full of interesting links.

A Guide to Literary Agents – Does what it says on the tin. Good at answering questions.

Redline and Deadlines – the editors’ blog for Ellora’s Cave. Focus on the ePub industry, and personal experiences of their editors.

Writer Beware – An eye on all the scams and unprofessional activity in publishing.

Other Writer’s Blogs
By which I mean my friends, since I’m sure everyone has Neil Gaiman and William Gibson bookmarked already. All of these people are in the process of getting published, though, so maybe in a couple of years time they’ll fall into that ‘obvious’ category of Gaiman and Gibson.

A World of Writing – Jessica Meats

Spec Fic and Nonsense – K V Taylor

Into That World Inverted… – Sarah Rees Brennan (okay, so I’m more an fan than a friend, but her blog is so much fun to read).

Useful Prevarication Blogs

Photoshop Disasters – for all those photos with three fingers, or an extra hand, or a shadow that reveals the model’s real figure.

Cake Wrecks – When professionally made cakes go bad!

Inkling Science Magazine – having finally updated for the first time in months. I was worried it was dead.

In Reading, Writing
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Nov 10, 2008 by

Competition and Submissions

No luck with the Aesthetica competition (who only just scraped the email through one their own much altered deadline). Shame, I was batting my eyes at that £500 prize! I have less work this month, which really means I ought to have more time to write, but I’ve got so used to writing in my notebook that I find myself avoiding typing things up. Luckily, days at home are quite boring, so I’ve got some done today, and I’m mini-nano-ing away on another short story.

I’m submitting Ruin and Exoticism to Clockwork Phoenix now. I’m alsogoing to look for somewhere for ‘Another Summer’s Day’ and ‘Unsent Letters’, both of which went to Aesthetica, because it’d be good to start reaching outside of the ghost story genre again. I scribbled a little two page thing in the notebook the other day, on the basis that the kind of magazines that are always lying around at work usually have a single page story (and not always a very good one). It’s something else to try, anyway.

I wonder if typing up old stories counts towards mini-nanowrimo?

In Writing
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Nov 1, 2008 by

Site Redesign

New site update is live, since I promised it for yesterday (what was that I was saying about deadlines…). Aesthetica have sent an email out saying that they’re taking another week to finish judging, which is my excuse for the day’s delay ^_^

In Uncategorized
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Oct 30, 2008 by

Birthdays and Deadlines

The firmest kind of deadline, I think, is a birthday. If you fail to provide a promised physical present – say, a bar of chocolate – by a person’s birthday, the assumption is that you forgot or didn’t care. For a non-physical presents this is even more so; bank holidays and empty bank accounts make rather flimsier excuses.

I like writing stories for people – you really can’t get a more personal gift – and quite often you can persuade the birthday boy or girl to give you some prompts too, to help inspiration flow. I emailed someone a birthday fic today, which was pretty deadline-tight. I planned it while falling asleep on tuesday night, wrote it yesterday, and proofread it before work this morning.

I can do deadlines. Evidence suggests I need them, if we’re honest. Some writers utterly fail at deadlines, which isn’t the end of the world (though may result in having to return an advance – about the only time that might happen). I’ve heard people claim it’s an ‘artiste’ thing – creativity just doesn’t work like that – but to be honest, it’s just a personal thing. Some people work well to deadlines, some people don’t. The problem is when the latter is mistaken for the former; if you can’t make deadlines, don’t commit to them.

Two things that really helped me were doing an English degree (missed deadlines = failure), and editing the creative writing magazine. After two years of the latter, I was glad not to be the nagging one any more. Our fresher’s fayre magazine was a week away from printing one year and consisted, at that point, of two poems. Nagging annoys people, going to print without a regular feature annoys people, putting a magazine out eight weeks late annoys people. Editors have deadlines too, and I’ve definitely learnt to respect that.

On the other hand, I’m aware that there are a lot of instances where I don’t want to do deadlines. It’s one reason I’m determined to finish a minimum of the first two books of Greenhelm before I even start submitting it anywhere, and considering my propensity for retcons when later plot demands, I know the sensible thing to do is wait until all three are finished. This may take some time.

For now, I’ve pledged myself to mini_nanowrimo. I’ve tried the proper NaNo a couple of times, and I’ve always had other commitments get in the way (essays with deadlines of their own, for example). Mini NaNo has a much lower wordcount (I’ve pledged a 100 a day), but the thrust is towards doing it daily, rather than the total words. I could write 3100 words in an evening, and frequently have, but considering I sometimes go for months at a time without putting a word down on paper or screen, I’m quite nervous about the dedication required to write every single day. Luckily, unlike NaNo, I don’t have to stick to a single project, so when I get stuck on one project I can at least spit out a random drabble. I’ve never had writer’s block – knock on wood – but I suffer from terrible writer’s laziness, where I’d rather sit and read or watch TV and let other people be creative for me. Luckily this is about commitment, not creativity!

Asylum has come back from Electric Spec. I’m expecting a response from Aesthetica tomorrow regarding the competition. Well, they gave the impression they’ll respond to everyone, but if I don’t get an email I think I know the result! I’m going to retire Asylum for a bit, since genre-wise it’s such an odd fish, and it’s probably the oldest piece I’m submitting. I now have a big enough ‘stable’ of short fiction that putting one aside for a while isn’t as threatening.

Expect a big change to the website tomorrow too (been waiting for the Aesthetica response). New layout time!

In Writing
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Oct 12, 2008 by

‘Under Your Skin’ submitted!

Dear Editors

I am submitting my novella ‘Under His Skin’ for your consideration. It is a gay paranormal romance, complete at 18,200 words. Since it is divided into two parts and an epilogue I have not been able to provide you with the requested chapters, but I have attached an extract that I feel is the equivilent.

‘Under His Skin’ follows an artist, Barnabas, who rescues a stranger from a storm and nurses him back to health. The stranger is revealed to be a selkie, which Barnabas reacts badly to and refuses to continue their burgeoning reltionship. The selkie eventually proves his love for Barnabas by chosing him over his seal skin.

My previous publication credits include a short story in Diorama Comics Hallowe’en Anthology and several pieces in my university’s creative writing magazine.

I look forward to hearing from you soon.

Yours,

Natalie Kingston

So, yep, I’ve submitted the selkie story. Went through Redlines and Deadlines advice on cover letters, which didn’t really help me! They posted on reccomendations, and encouraged people to submit potential cover letters, not a single one of which actually conformed with their reccomendations. Most of them had several paragraphs of blurb, and though the editors were suggesting they should be cut, none of them really came back to the original point that it should only be a few sentences.

Anyway, since the selkie story is 18000 words, I figured I might as well go for the short blurb. The rest was fairly easy; it’s much the same as a short story submission. The difficulty on finding cover letter advice for longer pieces is a real pain; searching for query letters works a bit better, but most of that isn’t relevant to somewhere like Ellora’s Cave. I think I’ve muddled out a compromise, and at least it’s not too long!

I was going to post about suspension of disbelief, but I’ve been distracted by the burning need to buy ‘Best Little Whorehouse in Texas’. This weekend introduced me to the fact that I was apparently wrong about Dolly Parton. Honestly, that’s why I submitted the selkie story today; save myself from a thinking post. I just spent three hours writing and rewriting that cover letter instead.

In Writing
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