A Week of Writing: 7/29/19 to 8/4/19
Another week, another bunch of words in roughly the shape of novels and stories and stuff.
Words to Write By
This week’s quote comes from Salvador Dali.
“Have no fear of perfection – you’ll never reach it.”
―
It’s been said that perfection is the enemy of done (or something like that), and in my experience that is very true. I find you have to give up the pursuit of perfection at some point, and you must be able to step back and say, “good enough,” and get that story submitted or put that novel in the hands of your agent. Right now I’m steaming toward done on my novel, and though I will put it back in the hands of my agent before the end of the month, I have no illusions it will be perfect. I’ll be happy with finished, and I believe (and hope a little) that it’s good.
The Novel
As I mentioned above, I’m getting close. I started what will be the last revision pass on the book. I’ve made changes and added all the new material based on notes form first readers and my agent, and now it’s just a matter of cleaning it up and making a few more small changes. It’s time. I’ve done the work. I’ve slaved over the thing for what feels like too long, and I need to get it out in the world and find out if it’s good enough. My general feeling after reading it for what has to be the 100th time is that it is a good book. Good enough? We’ll see.
Short Stories
Not fantastic, but this is an improvement over the last couple of weeks.
- Submissions Sent: 2
- Rejections: 1
- Acceptances: 0
- Publications: 0
- Shortlist: 0
Two submissions is a start, but I need a good 8 to 10 more by month’s end to catch up. I’ll submit one or two flash pieces this week to The Molotov Cocktail’s WildFlash contest and then at least one to The Arcanist’s monster contest. The rejection is from a pro market I’ve been trying to crack for years. This marks my 15th rejection from the market, and maybe I should I give up, but I’ve cracked markets after a dozen rejections, so why not fifteen? 🙂
The Blog
Just the one blog post last week. I promised I’ll have some a bit meatier than a writing update this week.
7/31/19: A Week of Writing: 7/22/19 to 7/28/19
The usual weekly writing update.
Goals
I’ve been making good progress on this last revision on the novel, and my primary goal is just to keep pushing on that. Short story submissions will also happen.
Publications
I’m a little late with this, but I did have another story published with The Molotov Cocktail. The story is called “The Thing That Came With the Storm.” You can read it for free by clicking the link below. (God, I love Molotov’s issue covers.)
“The Thing That Came With the Storm”
That was my week. How was yours?
2 Comments on “A Week of Writing: 7/29/19 to 8/4/19”
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Effectively Wild – A Baseball Horror Story
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Acts of War: Stormbreak
Aeryn Rudel's Rejectomancy 
Loved the “Thing” story in Molotov, Aeryn. Could feel the gripping cold, even during summer in Texas, and the last line’s killer.
For my part, it’s been a busy week. Don’t have the exact numbers in front of me, but something like six submissions, two rejections (with two others I’m sure are rejections but the news isn’t official yet), one acceptance.
Thanks so much for doing these posts, by the way.
Sounds like a good and productive week. Any week with an acceptance is a good one in my book. 🙂