Tag Archives: writing tips

Works in Progress: How Many Is Too Many?

I often go hunting for quotes from authors about writing, usually for my weekly writing update posts. I recently stumbled across the following quote from novelist Philip Roth, and I really dig it. He said:

“The road to hell is paved with works-in-progress.”

-Philip Roth

It’s a great quote, and I think it cuts to the heart of the most difficult thing a writer can do–call something “done.” If you’re like me, then your hard drive is chocked full of flash fiction pieces, short stories, and novels languishing under the label “work in progress.” So I thought I’d take a dig through my files and see just how many projects I’ve started and yet to finish.

First some ground rules. These rules apply to me and only me. You can, of course, make up your own mind for what counts as a work in progress.

  • One, I will only consider a piece I’ve actually submitted as a work in progress if it is currently undergoing a major revision, like pretty much a total rewrite.
  • Two, I will consider a work as “in progress” if I have actually completed an outline. Jotted-down story ideas don’t count.
  • Three, anything I am contractually obligated to write I won’t count because it WILL be finished. To me, a true WiP needs a little uncertainty.

Okay, let’s have a look.

Flash Fiction WiPs: 13 (about 13,000 words)

The main difference with my flash fiction works in progress is that everyone of these is technically a finished first draft. That has a lot to do with how I generate my flash fiction, primarily in one-hour flash fiction contests/writing exercise that by their very nature ensure I end up with 1,000 words by the end. Most of these are in serious, serious need of revision, but a couple are almost there and will likely head out the door in the near future.

Short Stories WiPs: 22 (about 50,000 words)

My short story works in progress range from simple outlines to ancient completed works that need to be totally rewritten and everything in between.  A fair number of these might never see true completion and submission, but there are a half dozen I’ll finish in the next few months, let my critique partners read, and then send them out into the world.

Novel & Novella WiPs: 3 (about 65,000 words)

This includes one novel in which I’ve written about 35,000 words (my next project), a full novel outline, and a finished novella I’m still tinkering with. The novel that has progressed beyond the outline stage will definitely be finished, and I’m working on it now. The outlined novel I might get to one day, but it’ll be down the road a ways. The novella needs some revision, mostly because it’s the sequel to a published short story, and I’m not sure it works without that short story.

In Summary

In total, I have 38 works in progress totaling about 130,000 words. That’s actually less than I expected, though if I counted stories that have been submitted at least once and are not undergoing major revision, that number would be much, much higher (maybe double).

Now let’s answer the question I posed in the title of this post. Do I have too many works in progress? Maybe, but it’s more a question of identifying which works are actually worth completing and which I should maybe set aside as ideas that are not gonna pan out. If I did that, I guess I’d end up with half the number of flash pieces and short stories, and, as much as I hate to say it, that outlined novel might not make the cut either. This kind of winnowing of WiPs is probably a good thing for every author to do at some point. Basically, I want my creative energies going toward works that are meaningful and might have a shot at publication. Of course, that’s a tough decision to make, and, as you can see, I kinda suck at it.

How many works in progress do you have going? Tell me about it in the comments.

Let’s Play Rejection Bingo

Today we’re returning to rejections, but we’re gonna have a little fun with it. If you’ve been submitting your work for any length of time, you’ve likely accumulated a bunch of form rejections, and you’ve no doubt recognized common phrases that appear in these rejections. So let’s play a little game, and see how long it takes to get a Rejection Bingo!

Before we get started, a little disclaimer/info. Editors use these phrases because they send out a lot of rejections, and they need a boilerplate template to save time. That’s a good thing because it generally means every writer gets a response to their submission. Plus, honestly, these phrases often are a good and gentle way to communicate the no. Keep in mind a boilerplate rejection does NOT mean the editor is not being sincere or they didn’t like the story. In fact, some of the phrases below often indicate a higher-tier rejection and/or even a short-list rejection.

Okay, with that out of the way, here’s the card (in standard manuscript format, of course). The card has 25 common form rejections phrases, so over the next week or month or whatever see if you can get a Rejection Bingo. Feel free to fudge the phrases a bit. For example, if you get a rejection that says “Elected not to publish,” go ahead and count that as a “Decided not to publish.” This is just for fun, after all. Finally, yes, it is absolutely possible to fill up more than one space on the card with a single rejection. In fact, I have one old rejection that would almost get me a bingo all by itself. 🙂

Did I miss any good/common phrases for my rejection bingo card? Let me know in the comments, and I’ll consider an edit.

A Week of Writing: 1/7/19 to 1/13/19

Another week of writing come and gone. Here’s how I did.

Words to Write By

This week’ quotes comes from Ernest Hemingway.

“The hard part about writing a novel is finishing it.”

– Ernest Hemingway

What I like about this quote is that finishing can mean different things to different writers. For example, I can finish a first draft no sweat. For me that’s a simple act of following the outline and putting one word after another. Same with the initial revision. I can take a pretty objective approach to my revisions, set a goal, and then get it done. My struggle is with the type of finishing that means someone else has to read the novel. That could be my critique partners or more recently, my agent. Because at that point, finishing means the work is going to be judged, and I will very likely have to make some hard decisions. I’m at the point now, and though I’ve done what I needed to do, letting go of the book was not easy.

The Novel

Late Risers is done-ish. What I mean is I revised the book to a place where it was ready for my agent to look at it. I spent last week finishing one more revisions, and then I sent the manuscript to my agent yesterday morning. As I alluded to in Word to Write By, this was not easy. In fact, it might be the most acute “submission anxiety” I’ve ever experienced. I expect to be making more revisions based on my agent’s feedback, but waiting to hear back from him is going to be a nerve-wracking in the extreme. So, what to do?

Instead of obsessing on a novel that’s no longer within my control, I’m going to work on another novel. It’s one I started last year and manged to get 30,000 words into it before I switched gears to the current novel. Now I’ll go back and finish the first draft, and it will be my next big project, and hopefully, the next manuscript my agent reads.

Short Stories

Got a few submissions out last week. Nothing earth-shattering, but still positive yardage.

  • Submissions Sent: 3
  • Rejections: 1
  • Acceptances: 0
  • Publications: 1
  • Shortlist: 0

All three submissions were to the same publisher, and the rejection came from a pro-market I’ve been trying to crack for years. One publication last week, which you can check out below.

The Blog

Just the one blog post last week.

1/7/19: A Week of Writing: 12/31/18 to 1/6/19

My weekly writing update.

Goals

With Late Risers as done as I can get it, I’ll move on to finishing the first draft of another novel. I also need to write/edit some short stories to get my submission rate up.

Story Spotlight

The story spotlight is “The Sitting Room,” a reprint published by Mystery Tribune last week. It’s definitely one of my darker pieces of flash, and it originally appeared in The Molotov Cocktail’s FlashFelon contest. You can read it by clicking the link below.

Read “The Sitting Room“

How was your writing week?

A Week of Writing: 12/31/2018 to 1/6/2019

The first week of 2019 is in the books. Let’s see how I did.

Words to Write By

This week, it’s another of Elmore Leonard’s 10 Rules for Good Writing. This is #9.

“Don’t go into great detail describing places and things.”

– Elmore Leonard

This one might rankle some folks, especially those with the ability to write gorgeous prose that, honestly, I lack. With that in mind, I think it’s important to view Elmore Leonard’s rules as rules for a particular style. In fact, he said as much about his famous list:

“These are rules I’ve picked up along the way to help me remain invisible when I’m writing a book, to help me show rather than tell what’s taking place in the story. If you have a facility for language and imagery and the sound of your voice pleases you, invisibility is not what you are after, and you can skip the rules. Still, you might look them over.”

So, rule number nine (and rule number eight, which is the same rule just about characters), resonates with me because it fits my style. I am largely trying to be invisible when I write a story, and I try to use a spare style to show instead of tell. It also lets me focus on things I’m better at (like dialogue) and minimize things I’m not so good at (describing people, places, and things). I do agree that Leonard’s rules can be useful to any writer, but there are certainly writers who flaunt many or even all these rules and are doing just fine.

The Novel

Almost there. I had meant to turn my novel Late Risers over to my agent at the end of the year, but I didn’t quite make it. I’m very close now, and I should be finished this week. I have a few more plot knots to untangle, but they’re not too scary, and I just have to dive in and write them into submission. Anyway, I dearly hope my next update will be that the novel is off my desk and that I’m waiting, terrified, for my agent to pronounce judgment on the manuscript.

Short Stories

Getting off to a bit of a slow start on the submission front for 2019, but it should pick up this week.

  • Submissions Sent: 2
  • Rejections: 2
  • Acceptances: 0
  • Publications: 0
  • Shortlist: 0

Both rejections were for stories submitted in 2018. I received my third rejection and sent my third submission for the year this morning. I’m shooting for 100 submissions for the year again. That’s roughly two a week, and, so far, I’m on pace.

The Blog

Two blog posts last week.

1/2/19: 2018 Review: Writing by the Numbers

In this post I reviewed my writing endeavors for that last year with lots of stats and a healthy dose of rejectomancy.

1/4/19: 100 Rejections: Achievement Unlocked

An in-depth look at the 100 rejections I received in 2018. Lots of rejectomancy here.

Goals

Same goal. Finish the final revision of Late Risers, get it off my desk and to my agent.

Story Spotlight

One of my favorite publishers, Pseudopod, recently updated their list of recommended stories for new listeners. I am very pleased to report that my baseball vampire story “Night Games” is now one of those recommended stories. You can check out and listen to the recommended list by clicking the link above or listen to “Night Games” by clicking the link below.

Listen to “Night Games“

That was my week. How was yours?

100 Rejections: Achievement Unlocked

In 2018 I achieved a landmark (for me) literary achievement – 100 rejections in a single year. I know that might sound like a dubious goal. I mean, why would you want to get rejected 100 times? Let me see if I can explain.

  1. 100 rejections means at a minimum 100 submissions and probably more. In fact, I managed 120 for the year. So, basically, you have to write a lot and submit a lot to accumulate 100 rejections in a year. I did both, and that’s a good thing.
  2. 100 rejections means you (should) learn quite a bit about the markets you’re submitting to. That definitely happened, and with each rejection, especially the upper-tier and personal varieties, I learned more about what specific markets wanted. That data paid off, and last year I cracked a couple of markets that had rejected me more than ten times prior.
  3. 100 rejections (should) mean more acceptances. Why? Mostly because of the first two points. The more stories you submit, and the more you learn about the markets you’re submitting to, the better your chance of acceptance. So, yeah, I set a yearly record for rejections, but I also set a yearly record for acceptances at 19.

Okay, those are the broad reasons why I set a goal of 100 rejections, but let me break it down a bit further and really dig into the data.

1) Total Markets: 48

My rejections came from 48 distinct markets, most of which I’ve submitted to before. That said, I did get rejected by 15 new markets, some of which were established this year.

2) Total Stories: 29

I had 29 distinct stories rejected in 2018. I’d say around half were stories I started and finished in 2018. The others were a mix of reprints or stories I’d started or finished in 2017 (or earlier).

3) Form Rejections: 67; Upper Tier Form Rejections: 18; Personal Rejections: 15

So, 67% of my rejections were standard form rejections, which is about what I’d expect from the markets I focused on in 2018 (pro and semi-pro). The upper-tier and personal rejections include three short-list rejections.

4) Most Rejections for a Single Story: 10

That’s a lot, but nowhere near my record (21), and this story is out for submission again. I think the story is one of my better ones, and it’s gotten some decent feedback, so, hopefully, it’ll find a home in 2019.

5) Story with Most Rejections Before Acceptance: 8

The story “When the Lights Go On” is, I think, one of the best pieces of flash fiction I’ve written, and it was responsible for two of the short-list rejections I mentioned above (all from pro markets). So, why did it take so long to get published? It’s just part of the gig. Good stories get rejected all the time, but when you’re making short lists and getting good personal rejections, you gotta keep sending that sucker out because it WILL find a home.

6) Rejected Stories Published: 9

Nine of my 29 rejected stories did go on to get published. This does not count reprints that were published prior to 2018. The average number of rejections for these pieces is 5 (most of those coming in 2018).

7) Most Rejections from a Single Market: 8

Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to crack this particular pro market in 2018, but I came close. I did, however, get published by the runner up, who had rejected me 7 times.

That’s how I got to 100 rejections in 2018. I’m gonna shoot for the same goal in 2019. Though I hope it will be harder to hit next year, I want to keep up the same level of production, just with a few more acceptances in the mix. 🙂

2018 Review: Writing by the Numbers

Well, here we are with a brand new year, so I thought I’d look back at 2018 and talk a bit about how I did, writing-wise, in the last twelve months. This is gonna be one of those posts where I give you a whole bunch of numbers, so here we go!

Total Words Written: 153,842

This total ONLY includes projects I started and finished in 2018. This includes 1 novel, 1 novella, 1 Dungeons & Dragons adventure, and 17 short stories. Of the 17 short stories, I subbed 13, and 6 were accepted for publication. The novella will be published by Privateer Press this month. The novel, hopefully, will be published in 2019. The Dungeons & Dragons adventure was published by Goodman Games back in August.

Of course, I wrote a lot more than that. The number above doesn’t count stories I started in 2018 and haven’t finished yet or the stories (and novels) I started in 2017, worked on in 2018, and still haven’t finished. It also doesn’t count things like blog posts. If I had to guess what all that other writing would add up to, I’d guess it’d be another 100,000 words or so (96 blog posts is an easy 50k all by itself).

The Novel

I wrote a horror/urban fantasy novel called Late Risers in 2018, and I’ll turn over the “final” draft to my agent next week. I’ve been trying to get to that stage for months, revising and revising and revising, but now, finally, it’s almost ready. Anyway, here are the basic stats for the novel:

  • Word Count: 93,549
  • Time Spent Writing First Draft: 3.5 months
  • Time Spent Revising Draft(s): 6.5 months
  • Number of Revisions: 4

The word count might drop a little more once I finish this final round of revisions, but it’ll still be around 90,000 words. That’s a nice, comfortable 350ish-page novel. When I wrote the outline, that’s what I was aiming for, and I’m pleased that I pretty much nailed the length. It took me exactly 111 days to write the first draft. That wasn’t a continuous thing, though. I took about three weeks off to work on another project. The revision time includes about a month where my critique partners were reviewing the book.

The revision process went like this. After I finished the first draft, I immediately started the first revision. That revision was to fix all the huge, glaring issues I knew were there. When that was done, I sent the book to my critique partners. Once I had their notes in hand, I started the second revision, fixing the issue they called out. When I was done with that, I went back through again, fixing more issues that cropped up after some extensive rewrites. Now, in this fourth revision, I’m polishing the language as well as making minor continuity and character fixes. If this book goes anywhere, I have no doubt more revisions will be needed, but, hopefully, those will be suggestions from my publisher.

So, roughly a year of work on this novel, give or take a week or two, that will hopefully pay off in 2019.

Short Story Submissions

Okay, let’s get to the nitty-gritty here. Here are my stats for short story submissions in 2018.

  • Total Submissions: 120
  • Total Rejections: 100
  • Total Acceptances: 19

This is by far my best year for submissions, and I exceeded my yearly bests in submissions, rejections, and, most importantly, acceptances by a wide margin. I managed to crack some markets that had rejected me a bunch, and I got close with a few others.

Submission Details

  • Distinct Stories Submitted: 38
  • Flash Fiction Stories Submitted: 26
  • Short Stories Submitted: 12
  • Reprints Submitted: 7

I sent 38 distinct stories in 2018, 13 of which I wrote in the same year. I sent more than double the number of flash fiction stories over standard shorts, as I tend to write flash over shorts at about the same ratio. Finally, I sent seven reprints, two of which were accepted.

Market Details

  • Distinct Markets: 53
  • Pro Markets: 31
  • Semi-Pro: 19
  • Token/Free: 3

I sent stories to 56 distinct markets, most of them paying a pro rate. I also sent a fair number of submissions to semi-pro markets, but I limited my submissions to token and free markets in 2018. As usual, I used Duotrope’s definition of pro, semi-pro, and token/free pay scales.

Rejection Details

  • Standard Form Rejections: 67
  • Upper-Tier Form Rejections: 18
  • Personal Rejections: 15

I submitted to a lot of pro markets, hence the large number of standard form rejections. That said, I did receive a good number of upper-tier and personal rejections. Since 100 rejections in a single year is kind of a big deal for me, I’ll break that all down further in another blog post. This here is just the basic stats.

Acceptance Details

  • Pro Acceptances: 6
  • Semi-Pro Acceptances: 5
  • Token/Free Acceptances: 8

More than half of my acceptances were of the paying variety, and more than half of those were paid at a pro rate. That’s not too bad, and, of course, I’d like to increase the number of paying publications. That said, I’ll continue to submit to some of my favorite token/free markets.

Free to Read Publications

Okay, if you’re so inclined, here are all the stories I published this year that are available to read online for free. You’ll note the number of publications and the number of acceptances don’t jive, that’s simply because some of the stories accepted in 2018 have yet to be published and some are not free to read online.

“The Food Bank” published by The Arcanist

“Simulacra” published by EllipsisZine

“Two Legs” published by The Molotov Cocktail

“The Inside People” published by EllipsisZine

“Do Me a Favor” published by The Arcanist

“The Last Scar” published by Trembling with Fear

“What Kind of Hero” published by EllipsisZine

“Bear Necessity” published by The Molotov Cocktail

“When the Lights Go On” published by The Arcanist 

And that was my 2018. Tell me about your year in the comments and/or link to a blog post with all the details.

A Week of Writing: 12/17/18 to 12/23/18

I’m late with the update for obvious reasons, but even with the holiday in full swing, I did manage a few writing-related endeavors.

Words to Write By

This week’s quote comes from George R.R. Martin.

“Some writers enjoy writing, I am told. Not me. I enjoy having written.”

– George R.R. Martin

This quote might surprise some folks, but I’ll bet a fair number of authors would say Martin’s quote accurately describes them. It often describes me, and though there are times when I do enjoy the raw creative act of writing, there are plenty of times I don’t. That said, I think it’s important to note that even writers who don’t always enjoy writing probably still feel the need to write, the compulsion to tell that story or work on that novel. Then, when the writing is done, and you manage to publish something, that feeling of genuine accomplishment is pretty great.  I know chasing that “having-written” high is part of what focuses and sharpens my own efforts and keeps me plugging along through the endless revisions and rejections.

The Novel

I’m nearing the end of my last revision for Late Risers before I ship it off to my agent. As I said in my last update, I’m doing a fair amount of polishing with the language, much of which revolves around removing problem words and phrases. Last time, I spoke about overusing was, were, wasn’t, and weren’t, but those are only a few of the literary goblins that end up on the chopping block. For example, I also hunt down seemingly innocuous adverbs that add nothing to a sentence. I’m talking about words like still, now, just, up, down, around, behind, and so on. Of course, sometimes you need these words and some did survive the cut (often in dialog), but like any word on my hit list, they had to prove their worth.

Short Stories

Again, with the holiday, just a little activity here.

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

That submission put me at 118 for the year and the rejection was number 99. I did receive rejection number 100 this morning, and I’ll post a full breakdown on that particular milestone in the new year.

The Blog

One blog posts last week.

12/18/18: A Week of Writing: 12/10/18 to 12/16/18

The usual weekly writing update.

Goals

Just one goal. Finish the final revision of Late Risers.

That was my week. How was yours?