A Week of Writing: 2/8/21 to 2/14/21
A little late, but here’s one more week of authorly activities.
Words to Write By
This week it’s one of my favorite Hemingway quotes.
“We are all apprentices in a craft where no one ever becomes a master.”
~ Ernest Hemingway
I don’t think there’s ever been a point in my writing career where I wasn’t keenly aware that I needed to get better and also striving to do just that. I believe in order to really get good at this whole writing thing, you have to embrace the fact that there’s no end point, no place where you can stop and say, okay, good enough. Yes, you may get to a point where you’re selling books and making a living and all those other dream scenarios, but I think that constant drive to improve, to make the next story or book just a little bit better is what makes for a “good” writer. I am still very much a work in progress, an apprentice in every sense of the word, and as Hemingway says, I will likely never become a master. That’s fine. Right now I’m setting my sights on accomplished journeyman. 🙂
The Novel
Made very good progress on the final revision of Late Risers last week, and I’m just about halfway through. A lot of what I’m doing is just tightening things up, but my critique partners suggested a few revisions that are more involved. Almost all of them are focused on improving the pacing in the middle of the novel, where the book gets bogged down with conversation and planning. A fair bit of that can be condensed, and I’ve already removed one entire chapter to speed thing sup. When I started revision, the book was at about 105,000 words. I think it’s gonna end up around 95,000, maybe a tad less when it’s all said and done. Anyway, getting there, and I think I’ll have a novel that’s ready to shop around by early March.
Short Story Submissions
Pretty slow week submission-wise.
- Submissions Sent: 1
- Rejections: 1
- Acceptances: 0
- Publications: 0
- Shortlist: 0
- Pending: 7
Just one submission last week along with one rejection. In other words, not much going on. I’m sitting on fourteen submissions for the year, which still puts me on track for my goal of one-hundred subs. I need to get a few more out this month, but that shouldn’t be difficult. I’m still hunting for that first acceptance of 2021, and I hope it’ll come this month. If not, I just have to keep writing, keep submitting, and cross my fingers.
Night Walk
If you haven’t heard, The Molotov Cocktail is publishing my first collection of flash fiction this spring. The collection, titled Night Walk and Other Dark Paths, contains forty pieces of my best flash fiction. We were lucky enough to get artist Valerie Herron to create an original piece for the cover, which you can check out below. More details on how the collection came together, plus interviews, and other sneak peeks are on the way.
Goals
Keep plowing ahead on the revision of Late Risers and keep writing and submitting short stories. You know, the usual?
And that was my week. How was yours?
Effectively Wild – A Baseball Horror Story
Night Walk & Other Dark Paths
Acts of War: Flashpoint
Acts of War: Aftershock
Acts of War: Stormbreak
Aeryn Rudel's Rejectomancy 