Rejections and Promises

A fairly productive week this week.

I finished working through the second draft of the first half of Act Two. The last two chapters aren't great and may need to be redone but that's because I'm setting up things for the second half. As soon as I get a new printer I'll print out chapters 21-30 and do a third draft read-through and see how it stands.

I was rejected by F&SF and Weird Tales this week, which was nice. Those stories are going elsewhere now and this weekend I'm doing a final draft of Promises, Promises which is looking to be a very strong story if I can just get the ending right.

Joe Abercrombie has a great entry on his blog about his second drafts. In a word, Intimidating.

My Own Little World

For the past hour I've been writing with the light off. The only light comes from the glow monitor and the only sounds are the gentle rush of traffic outside, the hum of the heater beside me, heating my cold room and my fingers on keys. Nice to be in my own little world for a bit.

But now it's time to switch the light back on. Grrrr. But this week has been good. I'm roughly half way through Act Two and its ok. I'm a bit apprehensive about the second half but I'll deal with that next week.

No new rejections and I still haven't sent RWBW to Black Static. My printers out of ink and I just want to get a new one. I should also get a couple of lamps.

What do you get the man who has everything? Lamps, it would seem.

Thanks for reading.

Meeting with the Man

All is going well, this week.

Still in the swing of Act Two, a wobble here and there, there are still bits I'm not happy with, that I don't find convincing just yet but I feel I'm coming to a point that for some scenes I'm going to have to move on, leave them alone and see to them in the third draft. That the story and everything that happens in them is fine, it's just the language I don't like and that's what draft three will be about. Draft two is about the story, Graeme, let draft three sort itself out when the time comes.

Cemetery Dance rejected me with a standard letter, which is nice. It's been a while since I've heard from any mag, I was beginning to worry. RWBW will go off to Black Static next, I reckon.

And, of course, yesterday, I went to the Terry Pratchett signing and was so excited about talking to himself I almost cried. It was a bit weird because after all he's just a guy but I asked him why his bog computer had six monitors and he told me it was like having a big desktop (I'm paraphrasing here). Instead of all that minimizing windows and such it's just easier and more intuitive to have the window on another screen. Plus, when you have six big screens with the Matrix screensaver it looks awesome. He signed my book, we both agreed we disliked editing and left it at that.

Was nice to have seen him. Will hopefully have more news next week, maybe I'll even be working on a new bit of the novel I haven't before. That'd be nice.

Thanks for reading.

The Buggerallto Report

Hello,

little to report this week. Now that I'm sort of back in the swing of novelling I was hoping for a relaxing weekend writing. Instead, I had a relaxing weekend of sleeping and being ill.

Doubts still linger with the book, blah, blah, blah, I'm not enjoying this why would the readers etc, etc. But I'm shoving all those deep down and just getting on with it.

The magazines are quiet. Kinda worried that they just haven't received the stories. I can't wait to get a good old rejection.

Thanks for reading.

Reconciling our differences

You are now reading the blog of a published author. Twisted Tongue # 11 went out Friday night and I couldn’t be more pleased. I’ve got the free PDF version and am going to get a couple of printed copies for prosperity. I can’t believe how a short a piece it was, barely over a magazine page. Looking back, it seems quite raw and I find that almost cute.

Other stories are still with mags, haven’t heard back from them yet, should chase up a couple today.

For those of you who are regular readers (or have been in my vicinity at any time these past few months) you’ll know I’ve been in a crisis, worrying about my writing, especially about my novel. I’m slowly getting back to my old self, trying to just sit and have fun with it rather than angsting over every word. It’s slowly beginning to work I think, but it would be nice for those magazine editors to write back and tell me my most recent stuff is quite good. I need a bit of a morale boost.

Just playing about with Promises at the moment, trying to make it a bit better. As usual these days I don’t think its great but can’t for the life of me really see what’s wrong with it, I just wish it was better. I’ll just have to submit it and see. Will hopefully have a draft done in the next couple of days then back to the novel.

Just need to keep my nose to the grindstone and hope it all comes out fine in the end.

Thanks for reading.

And I suppose I should mention it. A friend of mine from work died last week and I miss her a lot. She was always there to smile and enthuse about books and things with me in the tea room. Things just won’t be the same without her.

Thinking Hard, Thinking Soft

Been a while since I posted.

I've been on holiday the past week. By holiday I mean from my day job. Been staying at my parents in the country writing for about 5 - 7 hours a day. Can't say I got as much done as I'd like but I at least got some done.

I was givcn some nice advice about writing a couple of weeks ago in Bloomsbury Bowling Alley of all places. Well, actually, the girl was talking about bowling but it all boiled down to the same thing. The amateurs, she said, start off better than the pros because they don't care. The pros over think the ams just have a laugh and do well.

Though I don't want to call myself a pro (rumour is that Twisted Tongue # 11 starring your truly is released tomorrow) but I think being published has caused a change. Now I look at everything I do, especially the novel, and ask will this we published? Always the answer is no. I see a small error, get pissed off and end up rewriting and being annoyed that that isn't perfect either. But the truth is, and always has been, nothing I write will ever be word perfect, nothing anyone writes is ever word perfect. I have to reacquaint myself with that fact.

I've been trying to keep that in mind while I've been going back to the novel. it's worked to a degree but I just have to try and go back to enjoying myself, knowing that it isn't perfect but it's still damn good (in my opinion). All I can do is my best and hope its good enough, not my best and tell myself is shit and start over again.

Everything else is fine. Something Wicked have Of The Father and Weird Tales have No Longer Living.

Thanks for Reading.

Sweet Blessed Relief

Well, it turned out that there was something wrong with Do All Prey Dream, just as I had foreseen. Everything, everything was wrong.

So, I've worked my way through it, gave it the usual third draft treatment of pacing up and down my room, reading it aloud and making changes. I took out long pages and almost halved the bloody thing, changed the ending and changed the entire sentiment. There's a lot there still intact but a lot has changed. And it's now called No Longer Living. I'll start sending it out soon, I haven't yet decided on a first but probably one of the biggies. I'll get started on redrafting Promises, Promises tomorrow.

The novel is sitting on the sidelines, waiting patiently. I look forward to going back to it and enjoying the fresh look time apart will give me. Also, spending time doing a third draft of a story has reminded me how much I'll change in that draft so it's reassuring that though much of the novel's second draft is pants that'll get fixed in the third. Aaaah, sweet blessed relief.

Another rejection this week from Revolution SF:

"There's a lot of good writing here but the story just didn't grab me."

So, standard fair there. I'm going to send it on to Something Wicked next.

Thanks for reading.