When I first decided to make a go of writing fiction, no one I knew ever really had a go of it. A high school teacher of mine seemed to be publishing all the time, so I contacted him to get the scoop on his career. Turns out he published just 11 things to various markets. Nothing to be ashamed of to be sure, but not really a career. I head another high school friend had taken to being a bartender and writing. When I got in touch with her, it was more like 90% bartending as a break from corporate b.s. and 10% writing for neighborhood newspapers.

I had no idea what I was doing, no game plan. I had a chance meeting with Jim Frenkel (having no idea how big JF is in the biz) here in Madison and he recommended Clarion. So I looked into and went. Met a lot of people. They’re listed over in the right-hand menu (of my website if you’re reading this in LJ.)

Since coming home from Clarion, I went to WisCon and World Fantasy in 2005 and met lots of people. Everyone, without exception, has been very nice. As a general rule, I don’t like humans; so I’ve been surprised how easy it has been for me to meet people I actually like. I started this blog and have gradually added more people to the list of blogs I check out daily.

Most of them have published more than I have. Some of them have published less than I have. The vast majority of them frequently have something interesting to say about writing and/or publishing. Some of it I consider good advice, some I disagree with.

Most importantly, it’s just fun to be part of the conversation.

I’ve said this before, but lost submissions have got to be the most aggravating part of this whole writing gig. My last two lengthy response times ended up being lost manuscripts so, naturally, I’m assuming anything that’s out longer than thirty to forty minutes has been lost.

I’ve got a couple outliers right now that are beyond “normal” response times but not out long enough to query about. For some reason, I’ve got a gut feeling that they’re both lost.

I spent a couple hours working on “Castleneff” last night, changed a lot, and felt satisfied until I realized it was only 800 words I’d taken the hammer and tongs to. What I originally wrote wasn’t that bad, just too mushy—as in “lacking in definition,” not “overly romantic.” I constantly stopped and asked myself, “What are you really trying to accomplish here? What’s important?”

This is why it’s easy to think of a cool story and much harder to write one. I had a long conversation with someone at WisCon about her as-of-yet-unwritten novel and all the cool stuff that was going to happen in it. The novel concept actually did sound cool, but there’s that small matter of writing it…and finding out the words don’t always want to obey and the story isn’t as clear cut as you thought.

Anyway, I’m eager to finish this sucker and see where it’s falling down. I can tell I’m getting dangerously close to it and losing all perspective, but on the other hand there’s no point in putting a flawed story in front of people so they can point out all the rough points you know are there but were too lazy to smooth over.

Enough blather now.

Current Mood – Good |
Currently Listening To – Joe Strummer & the Mescaleros – “Streetcore”