A Week of Writing: 7/16/18 to 7/22/18

Another week gone by, another week of writing, revising, and submitting in the books.

Words to Write By

This week’s quote is something I definitely struggle with at times.

“If I waited for perfection… I would never write a word.”

—Margaret Atwood

Though I think Margaret Atwood approaches a level of perfection I can only dream about, I can certainly relate to the sentiment in her quote. Many, many times when I was writing the first draft of Late Risers, I had to tell myself “Get it done, get it down, fix it in post.” In other words, keep writing, even though it feels awful, even though every fiber of your being screams “This is garbage!” Strangely, now that I’m reading and revising, it’s those passages where I had to force myself to soldier on that are some of my favorites.

The Novel

I had a good week with revisions on Late Risers, and I’m about halfway done. I’d like to finish this week, but I have to change one major plot point at the end of the second act that will require changing a lot more downstream. That may slow me a bit, but the book will be better for it. Last week, I also had a few moments of “Hey, this might be pretty good.” Delusion? Maybe. I’m a terrible judge of my own work. It’s a lot better than how I usually feel, though, which sounds like “Hey, this is all a hot dumpster fire.” 🙂

Short Stories

Still revising stories for a pair of submission windows closing at the end of the month. Revisions on the novel have slowed me way down in this department, but maybe I can rally this week.

A slow, slow week for submissions.

• Submissions Sent: 1
• Rejections: 1
• Acceptances: 0
• Publications: 0

Yikes. Only one submissions this week. That puts me at 75 for the year, and despite a very slow month, I’m still ahead of pace for my goal of 100 submissions.

The Blog

Two blog posts last week.

7/9/18: A Week of Writing: 7/9/18 to 7/15/18

The usual weekly writing update.

7/12/18: Watch Out. That First Line is a Doozy

I return to one of my favorite subjects in this post: crafting a good first line for a short story.

Goals

I’d like to be at least three-quarters done with my initial revisions by the end of this week. I also need to get at least one story revised for a submission window closing at the end of the month. That one is kind of nonnegotiable if I want to submit to this particular market.

Submission Spotlight

As I mentioned above, I’m revising a story to send to a market that is only open to submissions this month. That market is Diabolical Plots. Why submit there? Well, for starters, they are a SFWA-qualifying market that pays .08/word. They also allow up to two submissions per author during the submission window (I’ve already got one in). The bad news? They close to submissions at the end of the month, so if you have a story that fits their guidelines, get it in now. Details in the link below.

Diabolical Plots Submission Guidelines 

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That was my week. How was yours?