Thursday, July 29, 2010

Officially a writer

Yes, that's right - I feel like I'm officially a writer now, because I have received my first rejection.

It came via email, first thing Monday morning.  (Great way to start a week, isn't it?)  I didn't even have the pleasure/torture of staring at the screen debating whether or not I should open it to reveal my fate because the subject line was "Your submission to [name redacted] (sorry)".

On the bright side, there were two editors who commented on the piece, and the comments were NOT along the lines of "you suck" or "you should never try writing anything again, ever."  They were both actually fairly similar - basically, the piece needed to be longer to satisfy them.  The piece, Fog Rolls In, was about 750 words, flash-length. The magazine accepts flash, but they also look for short stories and serials.  I get the feeling that, if I were to submit to a place that was looking at flash exclusively, my chances might be better.

So I'm torn - do I take the piece, as is, and start submitting to flash markets, or do I take the piece and flesh it out more, making it into a full short-story or serial, and submit it to short story markets?

I think I'll sit on it for now.  Really, there's not a rush for me.  It would be nice to have something published, but there's no deadline for me.

In other writing-related news, I've had this romance idea brewing for three years, and it's perking up again.  I've got the female MC fleshed out in my head, and the male MC is coming together really well.  It may actually get onto paper soon... that's exciting!

I'm still not doing much editing for HEA, but I've been thinking about it, and I may have to do major re-writes, so I'm procrastinating.

I'm still reading a lot!  Below is my list of summer reading, started on June 17:

  • Soul of the Fire by Terry Goodkind
  • Faith of the Fallen by Terry Goodkind
  • The Pillars of Creation by Terry Goodkind
  • Naked Empire by Terry Goodkind
  • Chainfire by Terry Goodkind
  • Phantom by Terry Goodkind
  • Confessor by Terry Goodkind
  • Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman
  • Son of a Witch by Gregory Maguire
  • A Lion Among Men by Gregory Maguire
  • My Life Uncovered by Lynn Isenberg (my favourite book in a long time!)
I've finished the first three already!  Plus, as I'm sure you've noticed in my GoodReads feed --> I've got several others in progress that WEREN'T on the list.  I'm feeling pretty good about my progress.  Summer really is more of a reading season for me than it is a writing season.  There's just something about the heat that feels conducive to laying around with a book, so that's what I do!

What about you, folks?  Is summer a reading season or a writing season for you?

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I vote flesh it out and make it a short story. You know, whenever you get around to it.