July 2015 Motivational Thread

SteveW said:
I can give it a read. I critiqued one of the earlier drafts and have been a big fan of this. I'd love to see what you changed. You've got my email.
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Same here, RM. I have another novel I'm working on, but I can take a look after that, if you'd like.
 
Thank you to @Facing, @SteveW, and @Wilson Geiger. You guys all make me feel like I have fans! And I'm not even published. :D

Alright, let me put it all together and I'll get it off to you guys.
 
Well that uncertainty I'd had hanging over me is resolved. I was recruited for and just yesterday offered a job to teach Spanish at my kids' school. So I'm not going to add any new commitments to my goals this month, and joining the novelette/novella competitions seems unlikely at the moment. It won't change anything of my plans for Spire City, nor submissions, agent queries, etc. But it will likely slow down any new writing I do for at least a little while.

So far this month I've written one flash (not for the comp here) and one micro (for the comp, but not yet posted), plus finished revising "Language of Fish and Storms." I think the first place I was planning to submit that already has a story of mine under consideration, so that may have to wait a bit. Plus I've finally gotten around to some of the things I have to do to be ready to release Season Two of Spire City starting in October. Next, in among looking through curricula and all that, I hope to tackle the Ecotone story before time gets away from me...
 
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@SteveW and @Wilson Geiger, I have just sent my story off to both of you. Take your time with it. I'm in no hurry.

@Facing, let me know when/if you want the story and I'll send it to you then. Hopefully it won't get lost in the email quite so easily that way. :)
 
RedMage said:
@SteveW and @Wilson Geiger, I have just sent my story off to both of you. Take your time with it. I'm in no hurry.

@Facing, let me know when/if you want the story and I'll send it to you then. Hopefully it won't get lost in the email quite so easily that way. :)
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You can send it now, it will just sit there until I finish reading about pirates. :D
 
Just got feedback on my latest ghost story...not so good, but it may be salvageable. If I can get to the changes this weekend, I'll post a read/critique request in the workshop thread.

I haven't made progress on the next outline, but hopefully that will come once I work out the bugs in the first story.

I made a bit of progress on this month's flash piece, but not sure if I'll get that out this week. That deadline is getting closer, but I still got time.
 
N. E. White said:
Just got feedback on my latest ghost story...not so good, but it may be salvageable. If I can get to the changes this weekend, I'll post a read/critique request in the workshop thread.

I haven't made progress on the next outline, but hopefully that will come once I work out the bugs in the first story.

I made a bit of progress on this month's flash piece, but not sure if I'll get that out this week. That deadline is getting closer, but I still got time.
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I know you can improve the ghost story, Nila! And yes, post a request to the workshop. Let us help you!!
 
SteveW said:
You should take a look at the monthly Micro-fiction contest. It is a very small obtainable goal. Maybe it would be enough to get you back in the game.
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Actually I think Micro is much much harder than the flash or short story, but it's a good thought and I'll take a look.
 
Between work :( and Sunfest :cool:, I'm not going to get any writing done today, but my Sunday is currently completely open. I'm hoping to leave the 10 000 mark in my wake and finish my Pattern Box draft by the end of the weekend .
 
Yippie?

I just received the following email this morning, and I'm not quite sure what to make of it.

Thank you for sending us "15:32". We read it, and we loved it. The unfortunate part of putting together an anthology is that we had *so* many submissions that we had to decline even stories that we loved.

We have good news and bad news. The bad news is that we looked at the stories that we had and realized that "15:32" would be a far better fit for one of our planned future anthologies. In this case, we would very much like for you to consider allowing us to keep "15:32" until October, when we will be coming out with Theater B. Early the following year, we will be coming out with Book of Blasphemous Words. We think "15:32" would be a great fit for the former.

Would you allow us to keep your submission for one of our future anthologies?

Do you think they are asking me to let them hold onto it for consideration or for publishing? I wish @KatG visited this thread. o_O

This is the closest I've ever come to being published, so obviously I'm going to say yes but it would be nice to know if I can safely get excited about the prospect of my first publishing credit or just more waiting and nail biting.
 
Facing said:
Yippie?

I just received the following email this morning, and I'm not quite sure what to make of it.
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Basically, they are asking that you not submit your work anywhere else until they get around to considering it again. How (cough) nice of them. This is where you put your business hat on and realize they didn't send you a contract that could easily have reserved the story for them. Keep submitting, I say. Looks like you've got a good one, here.

Kerry
 
I'd say it's quite encouraging, actually. Unless it's a really sketchy outfit (in which case, hopefully you wouldn't be submitting to them in the first place :) ), then they probably get a dozen (or far more) story submissions for every slot they have. So they wouldn't give such a response unless they saw the story as a good fit for an upcoming antho. Not a promise of publication, but at least a good sign that it'll make it to the final round for consideration. But then, nothing's certain until you get a contract (or even after that, actually--I have a couple of "upcoming" publications that I'm beginning to wonder if they'll ever see the light of day...).

So yeah, you do have to weigh, as Kerry says, the fact that you might be passing up on other opportunities to leave it with this venue. If there's some other place you think it has a good chance at, you may want to see about subbing it there in the meantime. But with typical acceptance rates at most places, I'd guess you'd be better off being patient with this market, letting them hold on to it (really October isn't that far off), and then working on polishing up and submitting other stories in the meantime.

Either way, an encouraging response, though, even if it's not an acceptance quite yet. Congrats!
 
Thanks for the feedback. I'll leave it where it is until October and go from there. I'd have never even written this little story if it weren't for the contests here, so... time to get back to writing. ;)
 
Andrew Leon Hudson said:
...last month I topped my target word count for maybe the first time all year, so I'd like to do that again.
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Achieved, and a bit over too. Not all of that is fiction, but I'm past 12k for the month which is the minimum I wanted to be doing on a regular basis. It's been seldom this year, but this makes it two months on the trot and with plenty of days left over to start eating away at my deficit.

Also, here's a specific short term goal: four days to finish that short story for @sullivan_riyria 's tagalonganovel competition. I'm at 2,400 words now, so that's maybe a half (but probably a third) of the way through, and I've already written the supporting material to go with it.
 
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