So yeah, I've got that word count thing up on the top right there. That's a word count for the novel, not for the blog. And yes, I've written a bit each day for the past three days, just a bit, which, while more than I've added to the manuscript in the past several months, is still a drop in the bucket o' words. It's mainly the "three days in a row" thing I'm happy about.
I'm trying to ignore all the things that are wrong with the manuscript as it stands. Horribly wrong. Fatal flaws of colossal depth and Stygian darkness that will inevitably doom the project and all queries related to it to the fetid, lightless depths of every slush pile known on this planet or any other. Flee! Flee from the wretched prose!
So, you know, I'm like that.
I'll probably get over it.
And don't get all up in my grill about how I'm writing this instead of the book. Fiction draws from a different well.
In other news, I have managed to send out three other bits of fiction...well, one bit of proper fiction and two strange assemblages of words...to three markets over the past week. One of which, I have just been informed, has been accepted for the August edition of Underground Voices.
That is correct. My first fiction acceptance since 1995.
Word.
For someone who's so happy on the web--wait a minute, excuse me.
My first fiction acceptance since 1995. [Insert happy dance here.]
Anyway.
For someone who's so happy on the web, I had a stubborn loyalty to manila envelopes, printed manuscripts, SASEs, and stamps. Truth is, perfectly decent markets accept electronic submissions, and while that doesn't necessarily mean that they'll respond any faster, it's certainly easier (and cheaper) for me.
I highly recommend checking out duotrope's digest, which my lovely and frenetic pal Cicily turned me on to. It contains about 2,200 markets versus the 4,000 contained in the Writer's Market annual, but it's a hell of a lot more convenient, and the occasional "Temporarily Closed" tags on various listings lead me to believe that it's a bit more real-time than the dead tree volume. It's certainly easier to search the markets, and if you sign up (free) you get to use the handy submission tracker. The interface for adding new pieces and tracking their submission could use some work--it's not immediately apparent how to do what you need to do--but it keeps things organized, and having the average response time for the market you've submitted to right next to the length of time they've had your submission is convenient. I used to do the same thing by hand in Excel (if that can be considered "by hand"), but this is much better.
Speaking of being happy on the web, I've got this new gizmo here on the back end that I'm going to try out.
Get your mind out of the gutter.
Here:
(There! Nifty. I don't know whether Zemanta will actually "make blogging fun again," but we'll see whether it's worth keeping around. I'm not exactly sanguine about its tag suggestions...among other, more relevant things, it came up with "Volkswagon" for this post. I have no idea why.)
(Did I mention the bit about my first fiction acceptance since 1995?)
I'm trying to ignore all the things that are wrong with the manuscript as it stands. Horribly wrong. Fatal flaws of colossal depth and Stygian darkness that will inevitably doom the project and all queries related to it to the fetid, lightless depths of every slush pile known on this planet or any other. Flee! Flee from the wretched prose!
So, you know, I'm like that.
I'll probably get over it.
And don't get all up in my grill about how I'm writing this instead of the book. Fiction draws from a different well.
In other news, I have managed to send out three other bits of fiction...well, one bit of proper fiction and two strange assemblages of words...to three markets over the past week. One of which, I have just been informed, has been accepted for the August edition of Underground Voices.
That is correct. My first fiction acceptance since 1995.
Word.
For someone who's so happy on the web--wait a minute, excuse me.
My first fiction acceptance since 1995. [Insert happy dance here.]
Anyway.
For someone who's so happy on the web, I had a stubborn loyalty to manila envelopes, printed manuscripts, SASEs, and stamps. Truth is, perfectly decent markets accept electronic submissions, and while that doesn't necessarily mean that they'll respond any faster, it's certainly easier (and cheaper) for me.
I highly recommend checking out duotrope's digest, which my lovely and frenetic pal Cicily turned me on to. It contains about 2,200 markets versus the 4,000 contained in the Writer's Market annual, but it's a hell of a lot more convenient, and the occasional "Temporarily Closed" tags on various listings lead me to believe that it's a bit more real-time than the dead tree volume. It's certainly easier to search the markets, and if you sign up (free) you get to use the handy submission tracker. The interface for adding new pieces and tracking their submission could use some work--it's not immediately apparent how to do what you need to do--but it keeps things organized, and having the average response time for the market you've submitted to right next to the length of time they've had your submission is convenient. I used to do the same thing by hand in Excel (if that can be considered "by hand"), but this is much better.
Speaking of being happy on the web, I've got this new gizmo here on the back end that I'm going to try out.
Get your mind out of the gutter.
Here:
(There! Nifty. I don't know whether Zemanta will actually "make blogging fun again," but we'll see whether it's worth keeping around. I'm not exactly sanguine about its tag suggestions...among other, more relevant things, it came up with "Volkswagon" for this post. I have no idea why.)
(Did I mention the bit about my first fiction acceptance since 1995?)
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