Planning the rest of the year

Now that I've finished Shadows and Dust, or the first draft at least, I find myself with almost too much time on my hands and an odd feeling that I'm forgetting to do something. It's been with me for long enough that I don't feel right not adding to it each day. So I decided to plan the rest of the year in regards to writing.

I'm using September as something of a break. I reactivated myself on Critters now that I have time again, and I just started critiquing a novel from there.

In October, I thinking I'll write a short story or two, just to keep my hand in that game. I've also been told that I should hear back from the magazine that is considering Percy Wallace by mid-October. If it's a rejection, I'll probably make a quick editing pass on it.

November is NaNoWriMo, and I'm going to participate again this year. However, instead of the 50,000 words required to win, I'd like to write a 75,000 word complete novel. That's 2500 words every day, which will be a good way to train myself to stretch my output.

I think that in December, I'll edit Shadows and Dust. Over two months will have passed since I finished the first draft, which hopefully is enough time for its freshness to fade in my mind. Then whenever I complete the editing, it's revision time.

Somewhere in all of this, I also plan to revisit Jack O'Lantern. I recently came up with a subplot that I think will help the novel a great deal, but it'll take almost a complete rewrite to integrate it. I've already written a basic synopsis for the expanded beginning, which should be enough to get it going.

It's going to be a busy autumn and winter.

Editing and Submitting Senility

I proofread Senility tonight, using a technique that's been recommended by many: reading it out loud. I closed myself in the bedroom and did it in one setting, making up voices for the characters when I read dialogue.

I had fun doing it, and I'm amazed at how many little things I found that, once corrected, improved the writing. Repetitions of words, sentences that didn't flow, etc. It's a stronger work now. If The Lay of Percy Wallace is rejected (by the magazine's guidelines, I should hear back in less than a week), I'm going to use the same process to polish it.

So, after I revised, edited, and proofread Senility, I proceeded to submit it to another magazine. One of the bonuses that came out of my recent revisions is that the story is now under 4,000 words, making this magazine* available. They respond quickly, usually within 2-3 days. I won't even attempt to deny that their speed puts them near the top of my list of potential publishers. It's a hell of a lot nicer than waiting 3 months, which I have been with Percy (the fast magazine rejected it).

*I'm not going to identify magazines to which I submit unless they accept my story. There's enough in this post for people familiar with the markets to figure it out, if they so desire.

Senility rejected

Senility suffered its second rejection. I've learned some more about editing since I submitted it, so I'm holding off on sending it in to the next magazine until I work on it some more. Hopefully, it'll come out a stronger manuscript.

Having a story get rejected sucks. I go into the submission process expecting rejection to keep myself sane. But it still hurts when other people don't see my stories the way I do. Still, though, if there's one thing I need to have in order to make it in publishing, it's a thick skin. Rejections come in droves. It only takes one editor to say yes.

First revision of Jack O'Lantern complete

Today I finished my first pass of editing on Jack O'Lantern. It's amazing how much lousy writing I found when I read it. But at the same time, I found some real gems in there. Reading through and making the notes about what needed to be corrected was the easy part. Getting in there and actually doing the editing was difficult, and not fun. It got discouraging after awhile. Editing focuses on the bad writing, after all, and then fixing it. And so when I went through page after page, and saw the mistakes pile up, the poor sentences compound, and the just plain "what was I thinking?" moments keep coming, I got discouraged. I'd work on 20-30 pages at a time, and then just shove it aside when I hit a hard part. But the manuscript was always there, always nagging at me to get back to it.

Now I'm done with that first editing pass. And there's still so much more editing and revising to do. There's at least one whole chapter that I need to add, to flesh the story out a little. There are probably a lot of little details I could use to put in, things to make the story and world come alive. But hell, at this point, I'm happy. Another major step in the writing process complete.