Month: May 2009

OWW

~ Scott W. Baker ~ 4 Comments

owwAfter seeing references to it pop up all over the place recently, I finally joined the sff online writing workshop (OWW).  First month is free so I intend to poke around, do some reviews, and get a feel for the place before shelling out $49 for the year.  Assuming the the reviews I get are helpful, I’ll be happy to pay.

I’ve been a Critter (critters.org) for a long time so the critiquing game is not new to me.  Why the switch?  A few reasons:

  • Many writers who are just above my current status herald OWW.
  • There are numerous professionals that are reportedly active there.
  • People paying for criticism are likely to be both more qualified to give it and more likely to benefit from it.
  • I felt like 9 out of 10 critiques I was getting at Critters were little more than grammar police or writers looking for a reason to not like a piece (despite not offering reasonable advice on improvement).
  • 19 out of 20 stories I read there were very weak.  If I read too many, I found my own prose slipping.
  • While reviews are necessary both places, they aren’t time sensitive at OWW like they are at Critters.  I can take a couple months off from reviews and not have to do a ton to catch back up.

What I’m going to be looking for is a signifcant upgrade in the quality of the critiques.  Sure, I want to know if I use the word “leach” fifty times when “leech” would have been more accurate (yes, I did it and Critters caught it), but I’m looking for advice on something beyond the surface.  What is going to stop this story from selling?  Why isn’t this character likeable?

Too often at Critters I would read a critique and think “is that it?”  I was a beginner once and I reread some of the critiques I wrote with a frown. It deeply resembles those 9 of 10 critiques I didn’t really find beneficial.  I’m not looking for advice from beginners anymore.  I want to be on the low end of the talent in the group.

Sure, Critters has pro members.  When I go pro [knocks on wood], I may go back to offer my insights to beginners.  But the pros are few and far betwixt; some of the ones I discovered there were not all that.

So I’m giving OWW a try.  Advice from the experienced is appreciated.  I’ll post something there soon, but I think I’ll start by reading other members’ work and offering my own insights first.  Now I just need to pull in at least $50 a year writing to offset the cost.  I’ve only had one year so far where I made this, but my production is way up and the workshop should help me that much more.

Critters is still a fine program for writers of different levels, especially on the side of critiquing the work of others.  My post about how to get the most out of Critters is linked to at the top right of this page (sidebar).

Faster than a speeding “no thanks”

~ Scott W. Baker ~ 4 Comments

Wow.  Clarkesworld took less than 24 hours to reject “Secondhand Rush”.  It usually takes editors several weeks to decide I suck.

So what now?  I printed it out, stuffed it in an envelope, and it’s off to Q3 of WotF.

Why am I bombarding WotF with my stuff?  This will make one per quarter for this contest year.  (Another will surely be ready by the fourth quarter.)  Well, there’s nothing quite like an “honorable mention” rather than a form rejection.  That’s not to say I’m guaranteed at least an HM (if I were, I probably wouldn’t be satisfied with one), but it gives me the “at least it wasn’t a flat rejection” to pad my ego.  The HM also becomes a tidbit to toss on the cover letter, as if to say “relax, editor, this isn’t pure junk”.

WotF also limits my competition tonon-pros.  Even at small mags you have to compete with pros and “friends of the magazine” who repeatedly have their work printed there.  I feel like I get a tiny bit of favoritism from Sams Dot Publishing because I’ve been associating with them for so long (since it was ProMartian under the late James Baker, no relation).  Maybe my quality just fits their needs, but better than half my published stories have been there.  So entering into a blind competition with other semi-pros is a good place for me right now.  Can I win?  Eventually, I bet I can.  (If Jordan can do it… 😛 )  Or maybe I’ll go pro before that happens.  Either way, I think WotF is a good market for a writer in my position to pursue.

-Oso

Happy Birthday to zzz…

~ Scott W. Baker ~ 3 Comments

It’s about 1am which means it’s now my birthday.  Yippee.

The sale to TRQ was a nice b-day gift.  Never one to rest on laurels, I just sent “Secondhand Rush” to Clarkesworld Magazine.  Their response time is phenomenal (how long does it take to say “no thanks”?) and it has been suggested this story would fit well there.

Still waiting to hear from several places on a few stories: EDF should be replying about “How Quickly We Forget” within a week or two.  WotF probably won’t send me word on “Glow Baby” for at least that long, more likely late June; but better news takes longer, so they can keep me waiting.  Tyree at Beyond Centauri is about due to give me the verict on “Brother Goo”.  I’ll likely hear back from Clarkesworld before any of them.

Anyway, it’s sleepytime for the birthday boy.  My seniors graduate tomorrow (tonight technically?) so any celebration will pretty much have to wait.  But if you light a candle in the next 23 hours, think of me.

-Oso

A sale?

~ Scott W. Baker ~ 2 Comments

I think I made a sale!  Yep, I said I think.  How can I not know?  Well, here’s the email:

I need to know if your story “Excuse Me” is still available. Whether it’s available  or not, or if you choose to not have The Rejected Quarterly publish it, please let me know ASAP, so I can either reserve the space in this issue or put something else in its place. I am finalizing the current issue most likely within the week. If I don’t hear from you in a couple of days I’ll assume you are not interested.

Thanks,

Daniel Weiss

It sounds like the story was accepted and I missed the first correspondence, doesn’t it?  Or maybe that’s just how they roll.  It sure made me contact them immediately.

 

I really like what The Rejected Quarterly stands for, printing only work that has accumulated at least five rejections.  It’s the first story I sent to them.  It’s my time traveling fart story and needed just the right market to run it.  

 

I’ll be sure to follow up when I confirm they actually wanted to run it.  The whole “reserve space in this issue” part makes it sound like it, doesn’t it?  

 

-Oso

 

EDIT: I did indeed make the sale!  I need to send them a soft copy of the story, a bio, and resend my rejections (a couple good ones there).  I have all that…somewhere.  So yay me!  

 

Now I just have to wait out the other five stories.

Getting around the block

~ Scott W. Baker ~ 2 Comments

It’s official: I am blocked.  Not a bowel thing, I’m talking writer’s block.  Several different stories I have tried to work on recently have all come to a screeching halt.  

Part of it is probably my distraction from having so many stories out.  I’ve never had so many under consideration, especially stuff I really believed had a shot at selling.  My quality has gone up of late (I think) and maybe I’m expecting too much of myself.  Like Mur says, I am allowed to suck.  Easier said than done.  

So what am I going to do about it?  In the past, switching stories has tended to unblock me.  I dug out an older story based on an idea my father pushed on me.  I read it last night and was pleased with what I had, but it was only half done.  It had gone through a lot of iterations to get where it is now and it’s ready for an ending (and a middle).  I’ve already tapped away at it.  While I still don’t feel like I’m producing grade-A prose, I’m reasonably happy with the way it’s progressing.  I’ll work on it a lot tonight; I’m aiming to add 2000 words before bed.  I seldom get large chunks of keyboard time.

My hope is that finishing this story will open up some creative juices for at least one of my other works in progress.  There are quite a few.

  • Untitled sound story (that’s the one I’m picking up now)
  • Untitled mother vs. daughter story 
  • Leech Run — story that got me waitlisted for CW, but my rewrite stalled out
  • Untitled female warrior story
  • Thinking Out Loud — military experiment story
  • All my novels: Honor by Proxy, untitled YA space novel, Tones of Magic, Eversio and Podera, The Legend of Eversio (prequel), untitled space comedy…  It’s a wonder I ever finish anything.

With all these options to work on, surely I can get something written.  I’ll keep everyone posted.  In the meantime, I’d love to hear other people’s writer’s block stories and how you’ve gone about beating it.  

-Oso

How could they possibly understand?

~ Scott W. Baker ~ 6 Comments

A few things came together recently to inspire this post.  I’ll weave them together in the best tapestry I can.  I don’t recall every source.  If one I don’t cite seems familiar, let me know.

The first item is the vaguest, but I think it came from Kate Wilhelm’s Storyteller.  Whatever it was, the writer was talking about how people don’t understand the plight of being a writer.  Even your closest friends and loved ones — especially your closest friends and loved ones — see you struggling hour after hour, day in and day out, alone with your computer and barely typing.  They want to offer you relief, to help you somehow overcome the frustrating struggle.  How could they possibly know that it’s this struggle that we writers live for?  It’s not about victory, it’s about the fight, gaining ground on a vision that can never be perfectly translated to paper.  We’re marathon runners of words, triathletes of typing.  It’s the struggle against ourselves that is beautiful, rewarding.  If it came easy, we wouldn’t do it.

This came up the other day with my wife.  She spends a lot of time in the basement working on her photography (portrait, stock, and event), especially doing editing on her computer.  I can understand what she does to a point.  I can see the changes she makes.  Some are too subtle for me to notice, others are obvious across the room.  She is a professional in that she advertises and accepts clients, but she is not full time.  She is quite talented and I am proud of all she has accomplished so far.

But.

I proposed that we each set aside some time during the week to focus on our secondary careers while the other takes care of our daughter.  She nodded and said something about she makes money doing what she does.

Ouch.  She has a point, I’m not raking in the dough with stories.  That’s not what it’s about, at least not everything it’s about.  Right now her photography money is supporting her photography habit and nothing more.  She’ll move past that eventually as long as she keeps working hard at it.  So will I.

She apologized for the comment and said she understood why I needed private time to write.  I told her she didn’t understand, but that was okay.  Now I was a little harsh there and still owe her an apology of my own, but it was true.  In fact my need for time is so obscure, I couldn’t find a way to explain to her why she wouldn’t get it.

Today I was sitting on my reading chair (read: toilet) and stumbled across as good an explanation as I’ve found as to why my seclusion time is necessary in large chunks.  I found it in the out-of-print book Those Who Can (Robin Wilson, ed.) in Samuel Delany’s essay, “Thickening the Plot”.  I won’t infringe on Delany’s copyright, but I want to share his explanation of how writers really work.  I’ll try to recreate the idea using an excerpt from my own story, “Chasers” (originally printed in the anthology Triangulation 2004).  The italics are what I’m typing; the rest is in my head.  This is a dramatization.  The real experience is much less pleasant.

  • I want to start with my character, Sebastian, flying his ship away from the base.  Sebastian accelerated away from the base. No, too bland.  I need some sensory words.  What does he feel?  Sebastian felt the acceleration… How does he feel it?  Where?  Sebastian felt the acceleration in his stomach… too specific…in his gut…not quite.  I need something more visceral, more descriptive.  How did it feel?  A push?  A pull?  I know, a squeeze.  Sebastian felt his gut squeeze… No, that doesn’t work.  Sebastian’s gut squeezed against his back… Not quite right.  Lower, more internal.  Sebastian’s stomach squeezed into his pelvis as he accelerated. Close.  There’s stomach again.  Why did I discard it before?  Too specific.  Sebastian’s organs squeezed into his pelvis as he accelerated. Good but feels unfinished.  How fast was he going?  Good place to put in some world-specific terminology.  I wanted speeds expressed in decimals of the speed of light.  How fast was he going? Check your research, dummy.  The ship he’s chasing will be going like .2 times the speed of light, so maybe he’s going .1  …as he accelerated to .1. Looks weird.  …as he accelerated to point-one. Better, but he’s not stopping at point-one.  …as he accelerated past point-one. That will work.  Let’s get in his head now.  He’s chasing a ship to refuel it.  He hasn’t caught one before, so is he optimistic or pessimistic?  Optimistic plays better.  He knew he would succeed this time. No, too optimistic.  He had a good feeling this time. Not bad, the good feeling plays against the squeezing organs.  Damn I’m good.  Need to say something about his goal.  He was going to catch this ship. A little blunt and sounds like he’s in a police chase.  Can I put more world-specific lingo in?  Maybe he wouldn’t mention the ship, but just say he’ll catch “it”.  Or better, maybe “catch” could be the noun.  He was going to make this catch. That works conceptually, but the sentences are getting monotonous.  Can “catch” be the subject?  This catch was going to be his. Ick, passive voice.  Was it better the other way?  Not really.  There’s something neat about describing a catch passively, isn’t there?  Eh, maybe I’ll come back.

That’s how writing works, forward and backward and rewriting as you go.  Not always, sometimes it rolls off the fingers like butter, but timewise, this seems to be how I work.  My original opening paragraph was surely not as smooth as this, but the process was the same.  If my wife were to come check on me after this process, my screen would say:

Sebastian’s organs squeezed into his pelvis as he accelerated past point-one.  He had a good feeling this time.  This catch was going to be his.

What have I been doing all this time?  She can’t get it.  She can have an idea.  She can equate it to the moving around of lights she did for a half hour on prom night while she made me stand there as her test dummy, but only writers seem to get it.

I love my wife and I know she wants me to succeed as a writer.  I need to keep this in mind when she calls me from my keyboard to change a diaper or take the dogs out or even do something that does not involve urine.  It’s hard to explain that breaking away from a train of thought derails the process and makes me start over, possibly rewriting several lines, even paragraphs, in order to align the story to where I am now.

What’s my point?  (Do I ever have one?)  I guess I’m trying to reassure my visitors that I get it — we all get it — even though a lot of people don’t, won’t, and can’t.  Writing is hard, it’s lonely, it’s frustrating.  Maybe I’m crazy, but I love it anyway.

Anybody out there?

~ Scott W. Baker ~ 5 Comments

Hello?

Is someone there?

Anyone?

The web seems eerily quiet.  Too quiet.  Every site I frequent seems to have fallen into stasis.  WotF’s blog has one post since March.  I registered for the newsletter from CoolStuff4Writers but am yet to receive one or see an update to the site.  Jordan’s blog is running dry, as is Tracie’s.  Even comments here are less common than caraway seeds in my teeth (and I don’t eat anything with caraway seeds…but a few show up).  Critter’s main blog is stagnant. I have six stories out (none past their anticipated response time, but that doesn’t make me any less antsy about it).

There are a brave few still puttering.  Izanobu has been fairly active, both here and at Baen’sBar (on which I am still seeing moderate activity).  Jamie created an app for the iPhone which he has recently touted.  Otherwise I’m just seeing tumbleweeds.

I know, I know, everyone is busy.  Jordan is up to his eyeballs in EDF slush about spousal homicide and wallflowers.  I’m sure WotF is buried under entries to the point that they can’t find their keyboards (something I suspect is good for the contest).  Tracie was getting in touch with her spiritual side according ther most recent posts, another definite good thing.  CoolStuff…well, I’m new there and don’t really know their schedule, so I’m extending my patience until I feel them out.

I guess what I really want to know is, “Why now?”  I know I’m busy because of school getting ready to end (standardized tests, finals, report cards, meetings out the yang-yang).  Is everyone’s May this hectic?  Or did everyone find some fantastic writing inspiration to keep them at their keyboards writing for real?

I like that last one; it gives me hope.  But come on, folks, where are you?

Writing is a business

~ Scott W. Baker ~ Leave a comment

It always catches me off guard when I have to think about writing as a business venture.  Parts of that is surely related to the artistic side that drives me to create stories and worlds; the scientific side that dares to ask “what if…”; the voracious side that needs ever more feedback and contact with other writers.  The rest comes from the fact that I’m not making any money at it.

But of course it’s a business.  There are always little things to remind me of that.  Recently my reminders came from Mur Lafferty and Writer’s Digest when they both recommended Nathan Bransford’s blog.

Mr. Bransford is a literary agent out of San Francisco.  His blog is very popular and includes invaluable information to writers in search of an agent.

See, there’s that business reminder.  I am not currently a writer in search of an agent, but I hope to be one day soon (read: finish a novel), maybe this summer.  Based on what I have discovered so far, I will likely send Mr. Bransford a query unless I discover a reason he would not be a good match (to the point of the stamp itself being wasteful…although he even accepts email queries, so where’s the down side?).  But my primary interest is in his blog and the treasure-trove of advice it offers (like here, and here, and that one among others).

One of the sample queries he touts includes a reference to a sample chapter being available on the author’s website (website cited, of course).  This made me queasy.  The very first comment left on that post addressed my concern, that being whether posting chapters on a website is considered publication.  Of course the short answer to the question is yes, it is publication.  The long answer seems to be that a chapter is not, in itself, a story and its inclusion on a website is more an advertisement than a publication.  Publishers have clauses in their contracts for such things as excerpted chapters and the like, so a chapter or two would not likely be a barrier to publication. Worst case scenario would likely be a publisher (or even agent) insisting the chapter(s) be removed.

Still, I wonder how realistic Mr. Bransford’s opinion is.  What would Tor say about it, for instance?  And how many agents really want to come to my site to find my chapters even if the query struck home with them?

When the time comes, I’ll be researching my agents very closely and do what I can to adhere to their preferred solicitation formats.  I’ll also be frequenting Nathan Bransford’s site for advice on the construction of my queries.  For a guy that looks like Luke Wilson, he seems to really want authors to successfully pair with the right agents.  A Cupid for writers.  Check it out.

-Oso

PS- While you’re at it, all the other links in this post are good ones, too.

Subraction by Addition

~ Scott W. Baker ~ Leave a comment

My Algebra classes just took an important (but not difficult) state test, so we are taking a couple days for a culturally significant experience.  We’re watching Star Wars (A New Hope).  I was shocked by how few of my students had seen it: less than a third, perhaps a dozen overall.  It’s a movie all educated people should see.  I tried this once with Casablanca with less than stellar results.  This title seems more successful.

Alas, the only version I had access to was my Special Edition.  Greedo shoots first, there are lots of CGI dinosaurs on Tatooine, and Han steps on Jabba’s tail.  And all the stereotypes about bad storytelling due to insufficient cutting are brought to the big screen.

I went through the first 80 minutes three times today, so that much is fresh in my head.  Most of us already know the parts that suck in the special edition, so I’ll use them to illustrate my points about writing, particularly short stories.  They are all sins I commit regularly.  It’s just peculiar to see Lucas get it right the first time and mess it up later.

  • Greedo shooting first. It’s hard to prove this point to some people because the original cut has become so hard to find, but Greedo originally never shot at Han Solo.  So why the change?  Han is billed throughout the franchise as a good guy so cold blooded murder doesn’t fit the stereotype.  But shooting the guy whose gun is in your face is hardly murder.  And Han is not a good guy at the beginning of the story.  Paul (Saul) is not a good guy when he first appears in the Bible.  Bad boys (usually selfish boys) that find a cause worth believing in make endearing characters.  Attempts to soften them, make them more “likeable” really rob an interesting character of his identity.  Don’t be temptted to soften a character’s actions because they aren’t likeable enough or someone says a hero shouldn’t do this or that.  Everyone has a preference, even editors.  Bending to one preference can alienate your character or even your story.  Soften with extreme caution.  Interesting is more important than nice.
  • The Jabba Scene: There are a lot of flaws in that scene, likely the reason it hit the cuttingroom floor originally.  The biggest flaw for me is the redindancy.  Han repeats half his conversation with Greedo and Jabba says a lot of Greedo’s lines.  “Even I get boarded sometimes.”  “…drops a shipment at the first sign of an imperial…”  If the information is already there, don’t give it to me again just to get a new character introduced.  Do something different with it or don’t do it at all.
  • Extra scenery: Lucas just had to add things to the movie.  Irrelevant things.  Who cares if a storm trooper is riding a dinosaur to look for droids?  If things are there just to be looked at without extending plot or character or anything (people could argue some additions as part of the setting, but setting can often be overdone by trying too hard), cut it.  If your story requires a description of the bar’s clientelle, include it.  But you don’t have to describe every client.  A cross section will do.  And little beats thrown in for comic effect may be cute, but they are usually distracting.  A taste is usually enough.

The next time you’re resisting cuts to a story, or worse, feeling the temptation to embellish a story, watch any of the Star Wars Special Editions.  Those odd moments of “why” might just inspire you to do the right thing.  Sometimes more is less.

“Secondhand” reception

~ Scott W. Baker ~ 2 Comments

“Secondhand Rush” made its appearance at Baen’s Bar a few days ago.  Edith Maor was, as always, right on top of things and provided comments within hours of posting it.  She had some good points that really strenghtened my story.  She seems to have a habit of disliking my characters.  Either I really need to work on likeability or Edith and I just disagree.  It happens.  But when I disagree with an editor of a professional magazine, especially a gatekeeper like Edith, I tend to give them the benefit of the doubt.

I also seemed to have been too subtle in a few places.  The ending made reference to something only mentioned at the story’s begining in passing.  I built up the emphasis and made the end reference more direct.  I also clarified a minor character’s involvement (Axel) and made him a touch more important.

The biggest change was to the protagonist.  He was subtly afraid of death in the original (despite being a bit of a daredevil) but without cause.  In the rewrite, [SPOILER ALERT!!] he has multiple sclerosis.  The illness doesn’t change the plot much but changes the reader’s perception of it.  This came primarily from a reviewer questioning how desperate Chang was. It also came a little from Edith’s plea to make Chang more sympathetic.  I know she didn’t mean “pitiable”, but it came from the same place.  Chang isn’t pitiful at all (how many pitiful people climb the exterior of the Statue of Liberty?), just defiant of his illness.

Anyway, I really think this rewrite is a winner, probably 90% of the way to publishability.  If Baen doesn’t want it, WotF is probably the next stop.  I think it will fit their tastes well, based on some past winners I’ve read.  But if I really knew these kinds of things, I’d be writing those stories anyway.

I highly encourage aspiring writers to join Baen’s Bar even if they aren’t ready to post there.  Izanobu can vouch for the benefits of lurking.  Looking at the short, blunt editorial comments left to other authors by the slush editors is enlightening, as is viewing the progression from one iteration of a story to the next.  Pages load a little slow; that’s my only complaint as it impedes my lurk-and-browse technique.

-Oso