I mentioned in the first post that my journey had begun a little while back. If you followed the chain of events, February marked my first story that was aimed at professional publication. That story is named Daughter-Debt and is being judged by the Writers of the Future (WotF) contest. I have submitted a few other stories to magazines which were entered in some contests although never published. I have two rejection notices so far with Daughter-Debt and two other stories out on the market currently (a children's story and a short science fiction piece.)
After mailing Daughter-Debt, I began working on a submission for the next quarter (3rd quarter, April - June) of the WotF contest, but this story has grown to over 20,000 words with at least another 10,000 more words to go. WotF requires stories to be under 15k words. Oops! I have decided to start a new story for this quarter of the WotF contest and expand this story into a novel in the 70k-100k word range.
Writing a novel which is over 70k words seemed huge to me in January, but I have had so much fun writing the first 20k words, that I don't expect any trouble with the other 50k. I have to flesh out the story points a bit for the additional length, but I don't expect that to take much effort. I have placed the project on the back burner so that I have an entry ready for the WotF contest by the end of June.
What am I entering in the WotF contest then? Well, I have three ideas at this point. I don't have titles for these yet and don't want to give the story plots away, so I will not give more information right now. Suffice to say, I expect to finish one or two of these in the next seven to ten days. Then I will begin the editting process.
What do I do to edit? The first thing I do is hand the manuscript (fancy term for story) to my wife. She is not an editor, but she reads science fiction and fantasy. She does a great job of letting me know when I leave her stranded or suddenly pull an item out of the air. This gives me some great feedback about what is essential for my reader.
After her review, I sit down to 'fix' the things she points out. This is usually my first time reading the entire work in one sitting. This allows me to have a few days separation and then to read it for effect. I have gotten some interesting surprises already in some of these readings. On one such reading of Daughter-Debt, I discovered that my writing edits on a section resulted in my inadvertent cutting of over a paragraph which was key to understanding the scene.
I make the changes and get my wife to reread it to see if she feels her problem(s) were solved. Once she feels comfortable with it, I send the story to either a workshop or a group of friends who I trust for honest and blunt feedback. This was as far as I got on Daughter-Debt.
In theory, my next step would be to set the story aside for a month and then do a final edit before mailing it. So far, deadlines have prevented me from hitting this last stage. It bothers me a little, but I'd rather have a slightly less than perfect manuscript out there than NO manuscripts out there. I figure that a rejection will allow me to revise it again then. And if it is not rejected...
Keep 'em coming!
Monday, May 21, 2007
Friday, May 18, 2007
First Thoughts
Welcome to both of us! For you, this is a new adventure (you hope as much as I do). For me, this is no less an adventure, although I have been in my journey for a little while now.
What prompted me to begin a Blog? What is this Blog about? Why should you care? Who is Dominic? What makes him special? Why is there a government car out in front of your house now?
Okay, so you might care about some of those questions, but not all of them. I get it. Let me fast forward to the parts that I can explain.
First of all, if the government has a car in front of your house, it is not my fault. I have done nothing to no one at no time in no place that I am aware of. So that government sedan must be looking into something more related to you than to me.
The other questions have answers that would be best explained by me telling you about the last year of my life as well as some other background elements. After that I'll come back and clarify anything that I might have missed.
Last April I was informed that my services were no longer required at my employer. We both knew that a separation was on the horizon, but it still caught me off-guard. I scrambled to find something new so that my wife and, at the time, one year old son would not be impacted. In hindsight, I wonder if my muses were working overtime to get me on track.
Over the next two months, my life shifted. The Monday afterward, I had the interview which lead to my current employer. I started two weeks later. Learning a new job challenged me, mostly because I was setting up their first formal Human Resources department. It was easier and tougher than I expected, but it has been a much better environment. I realized how much stress my former job had placed on my family and me and began to decompress. One afternoon, I realized that I had a great job, my family was doing well, and yet I felt something was missing.
Several days later, I stumbled on Writing.com. The website provides a forum for writers at all levels and all interests to be able to make their work available to others, whether for critiques or just to know it is being read. A few days later, I wrote my first story in about ten years. It was short and took less than five minutes to write, but it was the first step.
For six months I wrote a few short stories a week, often with glaring gaps in the story, but that was fine. My desire then was simple. I wanted to write to express myself. But something else developed during that time.
Initially my stories got comments like, 'Nice, but something was missing' and 'I didn't understand it, but had fun reading it'. Some contests I entered routinely gave me reviews, but few wins. Overall, the comments were that I had a problem keeping in the same tense and was not providing a complete plot.
I changed things. I reread and learned from the feedback. My writing improved.
By November I was getting comments like, 'Wow! I loved this! You should make it longer.' and 'Are you working on a longer piece like this? I would be interested in reading it, even if it cost me a little money.' On the contest front, I had weeks where I submitted as many as eight short stories and won 80-90% of them. On one occassion I was even told that I didn't win because I had won so many others recently.
These comments watered a seed which had been germinating since High School. That seed was the idea that I could write professionally. Over the Thanksgiving and Christmas holidays, the idea kept coming to the surface, but I kept squashing it. Then January came around.
January in Human Resources is notoriously slow. I wrapped up a few projects and assignments in the early part of the month and found myself increasingly searching for new tasks. One afternoon, I began scribbling out ideas for a story. Part of the idea was initially submitted to a Writing.com contest and got numerous comments as well as winning for that day. The idea grew though.
For a week I pondered where the story was going. Abreviating the doubts and worries, I eventually decided to extend the story and try for publication. This story became my first submission to the Writers of the Future contest in March of 2007.
I made up my mind to get my work published and pursue the dream of professional writing. For now I am focussed on the Science Fiction and Fantasy markets, although I could see expeditions into different markets later. And that story is what this Blog is about.
This is going to be my journal. This is going to be my record of the journey. Would you like to join me for the ride? You're invited.
What prompted me to begin a Blog? What is this Blog about? Why should you care? Who is Dominic? What makes him special? Why is there a government car out in front of your house now?
Okay, so you might care about some of those questions, but not all of them. I get it. Let me fast forward to the parts that I can explain.
First of all, if the government has a car in front of your house, it is not my fault. I have done nothing to no one at no time in no place that I am aware of. So that government sedan must be looking into something more related to you than to me.
The other questions have answers that would be best explained by me telling you about the last year of my life as well as some other background elements. After that I'll come back and clarify anything that I might have missed.
Last April I was informed that my services were no longer required at my employer. We both knew that a separation was on the horizon, but it still caught me off-guard. I scrambled to find something new so that my wife and, at the time, one year old son would not be impacted. In hindsight, I wonder if my muses were working overtime to get me on track.
Over the next two months, my life shifted. The Monday afterward, I had the interview which lead to my current employer. I started two weeks later. Learning a new job challenged me, mostly because I was setting up their first formal Human Resources department. It was easier and tougher than I expected, but it has been a much better environment. I realized how much stress my former job had placed on my family and me and began to decompress. One afternoon, I realized that I had a great job, my family was doing well, and yet I felt something was missing.
Several days later, I stumbled on Writing.com. The website provides a forum for writers at all levels and all interests to be able to make their work available to others, whether for critiques or just to know it is being read. A few days later, I wrote my first story in about ten years. It was short and took less than five minutes to write, but it was the first step.
For six months I wrote a few short stories a week, often with glaring gaps in the story, but that was fine. My desire then was simple. I wanted to write to express myself. But something else developed during that time.
Initially my stories got comments like, 'Nice, but something was missing' and 'I didn't understand it, but had fun reading it'. Some contests I entered routinely gave me reviews, but few wins. Overall, the comments were that I had a problem keeping in the same tense and was not providing a complete plot.
I changed things. I reread and learned from the feedback. My writing improved.
By November I was getting comments like, 'Wow! I loved this! You should make it longer.' and 'Are you working on a longer piece like this? I would be interested in reading it, even if it cost me a little money.' On the contest front, I had weeks where I submitted as many as eight short stories and won 80-90% of them. On one occassion I was even told that I didn't win because I had won so many others recently.
These comments watered a seed which had been germinating since High School. That seed was the idea that I could write professionally. Over the Thanksgiving and Christmas holidays, the idea kept coming to the surface, but I kept squashing it. Then January came around.
January in Human Resources is notoriously slow. I wrapped up a few projects and assignments in the early part of the month and found myself increasingly searching for new tasks. One afternoon, I began scribbling out ideas for a story. Part of the idea was initially submitted to a Writing.com contest and got numerous comments as well as winning for that day. The idea grew though.
For a week I pondered where the story was going. Abreviating the doubts and worries, I eventually decided to extend the story and try for publication. This story became my first submission to the Writers of the Future contest in March of 2007.
I made up my mind to get my work published and pursue the dream of professional writing. For now I am focussed on the Science Fiction and Fantasy markets, although I could see expeditions into different markets later. And that story is what this Blog is about.
This is going to be my journal. This is going to be my record of the journey. Would you like to join me for the ride? You're invited.
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