I’d utterly forgotten about Asylum, out with Dark Recesses Press. One line email, but it was a personal rejection, not a form, so that’s good!
Some wonderful advice on writing (nabbed from Redlines and Deadlines):
“Persevere, develop a thick skin, get a blog and invest in your greatest vice as it will get you through the hard times.”
Amarinda Jones
The selkie story (still lacking a decent title) is doing the proofreading rounds. If anyone wants to proof an 18,000 word m/m erotic novel about an artist who rescues a mute young man from a storm, to learn that he’s a shapeshifter, comment!
I was planning to submit to Cobblestone, but having read a few of their gay and paranormal romances, I’m slightly less keen. They’re alright, but both of those I’ve started so far are clunky and a little blunt. Ellora’s Cave seem deserving of their reputation; those I’ve read so far have been hard to put down. Also, being larger and better known, they tend to sell well!
However, the submissions process for EC is geared towards longer books. They want the first three chapters and a two+ page summary. The selkie thing has two parts and an epilogue, and I don’t know if I can make a summary last two pages.
I guess that’s a task for today; a good excuse to try and ignore all the things I have to do in order to move one antique solid oak huge wardrobe from my room to the living room (we’re going to keep DVDs in it!). Including cook dinner for those who are moving it.
I’ve typed up the first bit of the selkie story from my notebook. It’s about 9000 words long, and when I add the rest in I think it’ll be about 12000. Not too long for a short story, but I’ve stumbled across a perfect agent to submit it to, but she won’t take shorts. As a short story, there are some scenes and events that are almost skipped over, that in a novel you would expect to be extended. A lot more showing I can do. And, for pacing, there are significant additions I can make, spreading an afternoon out over two days, and deep introduction to certain characters, and so on. Even so, I think I’d be lucky to scrape 40,000 words, when even for a short novel you really want at least 60,000. It’s a pain. It may require some kind of subplot, which I’m not keen on.
Still, it’s started, and it’s fun to write, and I have loads of bits and pieces in my new notebook I can throw in. We’ll see how it goes.
I will blog about FatE at some point soon. I’m tempted to see if I can record something and upload it, to try out my own story telling skills. There was an irish story that really caught me, and I’d like to have a try. Still definitely a writer, but that doesn’t mean I don’t vey much apreciate the art of telling. Oh, and all that cider was very nice too!
…And wireless, too. Did I miss anything good?
I’ve typed up about half of the notebook; all of the Greenhelm stuff, and half of the short stories. There’s just a few odd bits otherwise, and a chunk of The Dark which is half typed up anyway. Some of the short stories I’m really pleased with as are, others need a bit of filling in. They’re predominantly ghost stories, which makes me feel anthology-ish, but I need to get at least some of them published in magazines first. There’s just a sad lack of English Ghost Story mags at the moment. There’s also an unexpected piece of mythological erotica that sprung itself on me towards the end of the book, about an artist who rescues a selkie. I’m now adding scenes to it, in a way that makes me feel like I could have a novella here, or even a novel, which is nice.
I started another in the new notebook, but I’m going to have to force myself to stop, because it’s not going anywhere and it’s dragging down a decent beginning. Too much RL Stevenson and M Shelley (and a little bit of EA Poe). It’s hard, to kill something after you’ve put effort in, but it’s stopping me from writing anything else; today I flipped the notebook round and started on an additional scenes for the above mentioned myth erotica, which was much easier and more fun. Obviously, I’m not writing the erotic parts at work!
I’ve never really listened to audiobooks of my own volition before; as a kid I’d listen to whatever my parents were listening too, though usually miss chunks, and for long car journeys my sister and I would get some say (usually Terry Pratchett, read by Tony Robinson). Actually, that’s part of the reason I started downloading them; because I had some long journeys coming up, and I wouldn’t have bothered with the radioplays if it wasn’t for next month’s holidays. It makes it harder to write while travelling, but I’d started out with some standup CDs and realised that I’m tired enough of music on trains to sacrifice the writing time.
I wouldn’t listen to an audiobook in the same way I do music – when I’m walking to work, for example – but for quiet but boring tasks, they’re great. In terms of my own writing, it makes me much more keen to submit to those podfic sites, and more interested in downloading from them, too.
So, after all that moving kerfuffle, I’m probably not going to post for another month!
I’ve been reading Pepys’ Diary, which I’ll write more about later (when I’ve finished it). I hadn’t quite clocked how much travel there was on the Thames and its tributries; apparently you were much safer in a boat than a coach, since it made it much harder to be mugged! So, something for fantasy and historical writers there: boats preferred by the middle and upper classes, when available.
I’m moving house on monday (well, fingers crossed!) so I’ll be offline for a while. Perfect excuse to type up everything in my work notebook, which I’m four pages from filling now. Nice rejection from Riptide; I’m going to wait until they’re accepting submissions for vol4, and send them Exoticism.
There’s something quite satisfying about packing, but it seems to be generating as much mess as it’s clearing, which is prompting me to run away on a regular basis. For newspaper, of course. And teapot shaped knobs for a chest of drawers ^_^
