Month: September 2010

Hey, that’s my story they’re talking about.

~ Scott W. Baker ~ Leave a comment

Found another little blurb on a blog about Zero Gravity.  One story seemed to get more word space than others.  Guess whose.  😀

The stories that stood out for me were ‘Leech Run’ by Scott W Baker. Leeches are people that can suck the power from any source so are particularly dangerous on a spaceship. Although illegal to transport leeches anywhere Captain Titan is unscrupulous enough to do it at a high price. But of course things go wrong as one of the leeches escape from the hold. I liked the idea of ‘leeches’ as if they were a new kind of vampire and the mystery of how one could disappear from a sealed hold to reappear again was intriguing. There was a nice little twist at the end too.

The whole review can be found at Jacqueline Kirk’s blog.

Blogroll Update

~ Scott W. Baker ~ 5 Comments

I’m in the process of updating my blogroll and links.  There are a number of people I need to add.  I don’t want the list to be so long that no one can find anything, so I try to subtract occasionally.  If I remove your blog and you want me to add you back, let me know.  Mostly I remove blogs that seem inactive or slow.  (Not that things here have been breaking the sound barrier.)

I’ve been blogging for…what, two and a half years now?  I have far from the busiest blog in the world.  But I like my little corner of cyberspace and it’s nice when new people drop by.  And after having a similar discussion in comments with S.C. Wade (incidentally one of my new additions to the blogroll), I thought it might be worth while to discuss ways to get more people to visit a writer’s blog.  More importantly, some ways to get them to come back again.  Most of this is elementary, but worth a quick rehash.

Comment on blogs you frequent. Think about it, if you like blog XYZ.com then maybe people who like XYZ.com will like your blog.  It’s reasonable.  Fit yourself into the conversation.  Pick blogs that don’t get hundreds of comments per post so you don’t get lost in the deluge, but chat.  Make sure you enter your info so people reading that comment will be able to click and get back to your blog (or website or whatever).  I find such links most efficient when they’re within the same service (WordPress, livejournal, etc.), but it usually works across providers.

Link to blogs you frequent. If you link to my blog, I get a trackback hit.  I even get an email about it, so I know.  The first thing I do (not everyone is the same) is go check out your link.  I am in part making sure you aren’t asite that specializes in marsupial porn that’s spamming me, but I’m also checking you out to see who you are and if I might want to visit your blog.  Or maybe my visitors might.  A badass site will warrant an immediate add, but mostly I make a mental note and watch for your comments.  Eventually I’ll add the blogs I’ve visited a few times so that I can get to them quickly and so that others have the same option.

Talk about stuff people search for. Some of my most viewed posts cover things like Clarion/Clarion West responses (of course), semicolons (really?), movie reviews, and links to other authors.  This doesn’t count whatever posts are accessible at a given time on my homepage.  People are finding these posts through Google, IceRocket, Technocrati, Bing, or some other search protocols.  By the way, you are registering your site with the big search engine databases, aren’t you?  (I won’t go into it here.  You should google it.)  Whatever it is that you do that other people do too, that will bring them to your site…if you talk about it.

Use tags and categories. It is annoying when someone has more tags than they have words in their blog post, but they focus searches.  Those words ping harder than normal words on a search engine and tend to open backdoors to your site (like through WordPress’s tag listings).

Get Published. For most people reading this blog, that’s probably your goal.  (That or reading my stuff or learning more about me…yeah, you’re mostly writers.)  But selling something will get your name out there and inspire people (even a few is good) to look for you.  Of course, publishing isn’t 100% within your control, but submitting is.  No matter what your slae percentage is, the more attempts you make, the more you will sell.  Also, find a way to subtly slip your web address into bios for those sales.  I have it in WotF 26.  When those books start selling/being delivered/getting read, my traffic should pick up at least a little.  (I hear Amazon has started shipping preorders and the book should be currently available on Kindle and one or more other electronic readers.)

Put your web address in your signature line. Yes, it’s annoying and mildly pretentious, but no more so than quoting Tolkein or Frost or whoever at the end of an email or message board post.  And it’s largely invisible to people not looking for it.  As I blogged not long ago, I recently had an editor check out my blog based on a submission.  If you can make someone curious about you, it’s good to give them a way to follow up immediately.

Have some personality. I have never had anyone comment on how useful my market list is.  It’s mostly there for me, so I can hop to my favorite markets easily.  I don’t offer much profound wisdom.  I’m not much of a stepping stone to bettering a career (yet).  The only things anyone ever says about this blog relate directly to my blog-personality.  Either I’m conversational or not too arrogant or funny or real…that’s what I have to offer.  Don’t offend people; don’t tap dance and juggle; just be yourself and let people in a little.  The ones you want around will likely come back.  And screw the rest of them.  (Too much?)

Be productive. Everyone hates wasting time (even three seconds) clicking on a link just to see the exact same that was there the last time you tried it.  You don’t need an hourly post or even a daily post, but I see that my hits increase when I have a new post.  People drop your links if you’re blog is too stagnant.  People come back more often if doing so has rewards.

Reply to comments. More than a word or two.  If someone bothers to share something with you, let the know you appreciate by sharing a little more back.  The more personal their sharing, the more interested your reply should seem.  This lets that commenter and everyone else who reads it know that you give at least half a damn about the people who come to your blog.  Again, this brings people back.

Don’t prattle on endlessly. Long blog posts are never read.  Really, did you read this whole thing?  The more famous/familiar/brilliant/funny someone is, the more likely I am to read their observations about life, the universe, and everything.  But even then I tend to skim for words I care about.  And if every post is a multi-page meditation, I’m not likely to return often.  I can read anything as long as it’s short.  Cereal boxes, shampoo bottles, haikus, the first page of a Jehovah’s Witness flyer.  I can find meaning in most of those, too.  So short is good.  And as I’m violating that rule more with each keystroke, I’m going to sign off.  Happy blogging, and welcome to my new link-ees.  (Link-eds?  Link-olns?  You get the idea.)

What’s wrong with me?

~ Scott W. Baker ~ 7 Comments

My latest submission to The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction has been out 17 days.  Doesn’t sound like long for a postal sub, but my previous F&SF have taken 10 days, 8 days…and that’s it.

Only two prior submissions to F&SF.  What’s wrong with me?  Sure, I like e-subs for their convenience, but this is F&SF for pity sake.  They passed on “Leech Run” and an old novelette that I’ll one day novelize, E&P.  But that’s it.  At least that’s all my records show, and I didn’t record anything to Duotrope about either of them.  It’s been over two and a half years since I sent them anything.

I find this tough to believe, honestly.  My record keeping has gotten better of late but I could easily have missed a sub or two, especially if I considered them impossible sales.  But to not even try?

There was a time when I heard a heartbreaking stat about Gordon Van Gelder only buying like three stories from slush ever.  But that shouldn’t stop me from collecting rejections from them.  Heck, I haven’t sent them GB or EE or TOL or any of my other stories making rounds. I didn’t even send them my 1500-word fart joke, “Excuse Me”.  It’s possible that I sent them “Chasers”, a story I sold back when I was just starting to keep records.   (I’m thinking of sending that one to Escape Pod once I hear back on “Leech Run”…but that’s another post.

More and more I am realizing that the person who has stood in my way of becoming a professional writer is me.  So while I hope that this delay from F&SF could mean good news (not necessarily a sale, but a rewrite request or just a nice personal rejection would be lovely), I’m going to start creating a target list for markets and prepare submissions for those targets ahead of time so I can drop a story in the mail the minute it’s rejected elsewhere.

Audio Fiction

~ Scott W. Baker ~ 2 Comments

I love listening to stories and novels performed.  It was quite a treat when we got to watch a performance reading of one of L. Ron Hubbard’s stories in LA with WotF.  But that’s not what this is about.  I loved the audio performances for the Harry Potter books.  But this isn’t about that, either.  This is about trying to get audio performances of MY stuff.

I’m told that there will be an audio version of Writers of the Future 26…eventually.  It would be badass if some of the same performers from the reading were involved, but I’d be surprised.  Besides, my story should properly be read by a woman, I would think.  It is told from a woman’s point of view despite the fact that I am not a woman.  (Trust me on that.)  This was how I experienced WotF 24 and I loved it.

I recently sent “Leech Run” to Escape Pod for consideration.  (Recently as in ten minutes ago.)  It is currently out in print in Zero Gravity and I think Escape Pod could help create some buzz for the book if they like the story.

I also sent the as-yet-unsold story GB to another audio market, Sniplits.  I think the story will lend itself well to an audio performance despite the trouble I’m having placing it.

I’ll be shocked if both stories get picked up; it would make my day if either one did.  The prospect of an audio version of my work is second only to the anticipation I felt waiting to see the artwork for my WotF story.  I’m not by definition holding my breath, but I’m breathing very shallowly.

Halloween is coming

~ Scott W. Baker ~ Leave a comment

Well before leaving for WotF, I signed up to write a story for the Codex Halloween Short Story Contest.  It’s where the weird toy post came from a month or so back.  Anyway, the story is supposed to be based on a prompt (or seed) given to me by another writer and is supposed to at least vaguely relate to Halloween.  I rejected all the easy routes to this and have decided to write a space opera.  That’s becoming my thing.  I need to write something else to get out of this rut.  But I digress.

It took me a long time to develop a sufficient story idea to make this work, especially since my prompt screamed fantasy.  Then came WotF and that raised my desire to finish my novel, so I thought the contest might just not happen.  But (isn’t there always a but?) the contest seems to inspire good writing with numerousparticipants selling their stories.  So I took a deep breath and started the story on Friday.  I’m about half done at 3500 words (give or take).  I’m pleased with it so far, which is good since it’s due October 3rd.  I plan to have a draft finished by Friday, get a little feedback, then perform surgery to make it good.

All this has of course slowed down novel production.  But I’m writing, so I won’t complain.

In the vein of Halloween, it is Homecoming week at school and part of the celebration is themed dress-up days.  Monday was pajama day; comfy!  Tuesday is 80’s day.  Sadly I outgrew my gray tweed sportcoat that might have passed for a Miami Vice theme with the right T-shirt underneath.  So what am I doing?  Change 80’s television shows…Magnum P.I.!  That’s right, the Hawaiian shirt collection is paying off.  I don’t have a Detroit Tigers cap, but I’ll live.  Oh, and the beard stays.  I’m what Magnum would have been if he’d let himself go…a lot.

I enjoy these dress-up days.  How often do I get to dress like Magnum without being laughed at?  Okay, I’ll still get laughed at, but in a friendly way.  But strangely I seldom dress up for Halloween.  Oh I was a pirate for my daughter’s sake the last couple years, but nothing I can really throw myself into.  Just once I want a badass costume: Captain Mal Reynolds; Captain Jack Sparrow; Captain Kangaroo.  (I have the build for one of those.)  I think that’s going to be one of my goals for Halloween 2011

Bar Codes

~ Scott W. Baker ~ Leave a comment

My new phone (see this post to hear me squee about it) allowed me to download a bar code reader.  How about that?  Why would I want to go to the supermarket and read bar codes?

Well, for one, the app will let me comparison shop.  But more importantly (or at least more coolly), messages can be written in bar codes and translated by my (and a lot of other people’s) phone.

In the spirit of this cool but entirely unnecessary development, this blog now has a bar code.  It’s that weird square-looking picture at the top of this post.  It will be permenantly displayed in the widget bar on the right of the page.  I’ll also consider adding it to my business cards–if I ever get some business cards–and any advertisements I do.  It’s not the standard bar code like I was used to; this is a 2-dimensional barcode of the QR variety (there are apparently several, like VHS and BetaMax…did I just date myself?)

Got a mobile phone with a bar code reader?  Try it.  Then you can take me everywhere you go!  Wait…do I want that?

Too long away from the bar

~ Scott W. Baker ~ Leave a comment

The progress bar for my YA novel, that is. I haven’t updated the blue in months despite some significant work happening during part of that. I didn’t update because I’d created a mess with some parts written twice and some pieces skipped over. To clear it all up, I cut and pasted the less desirable portion (albeit longer portion) into a different file so I could feel free to delete. From that big chop I’ve typed a little more and now my word count is about 10,000. That puts me up to 20% of my 50,000-word blind target.

As I mentioned in a previous post, I jotted down some notes from what I had before but I haven’t gone back to make the changes in the file, since I may well want to change them again before the end.  Mostly I wanted to read my copy so far to get back on the page I needed to be on.  I feel like I’ve overlooked a subplot and spent too much time on a character quirk, but I can iron all that out later.

I’m currently in a slow part of the story where a lot of milieu building, character building, and foreshadowing take place.  I know, boring.  I need to toss a little sabotage or paranoia in the mix.  Again, later.  Once I power through the next 1000 words or so, I’m into raw plot.  It’ll take another few thousand, maybe even the halfway point of the book, before the big game-changing conflict strikes.  The pacing is a little off, I’m sure; short stories are not just little novels.  As I read Old Man’s War — John Scalzi’s premiere novel, not totally outside the length target of my project — I am paying careful attention to things like pacing.  Never stop learning.

So the bar is current and I’ll update it more soon.  Jason Fischer (the Aussie in the mix at WotF 26) has cast down the gauntlet (though I think it was actually a mitten) challenging the WotF crew to write a thousand words a day.  I had already written about 800 today before the mitten dropped; I intend to hunt-and-peck a good 7000 words over the next week, though maybe not evenly spaced over the days.  I guess I’m targeting 1200 tomorrow.  If I can produce that much consistently, I’ll have a novel by month’s end.  Nevermind I have to get my Codex Halloween story written sometime…I’ll just deal with that later.  I’m a novelist for the next few weeks.  And hopefully a lot longer.

Getting back on the horse

~ Scott W. Baker ~ 1 Comment

It sucks to get a rejection.  It’s part of a writer’s life, but not one of the nice parts.  It sucks more when that rejection is a slip of uninformative paper or part of a mass email.  Even the personalized ones can suck when they say you missed it by [ ] that much.  So what do you do when the rejection comes in?  Put the story out to another market.

At least that’s the idea.  Keep it circulating until it finds the right editor on the right day who ate the right breakfast and blinks at the right times so he/she doesn’t miss the brilliance of your story.  If it sits in a drawer or on a hard drive, no one can discover that brilliance.  Sadly, I have done a poor job of doing this very simple necessity.

I only have about six finished and unsold short stories in my portfolio at the moment.  (There are others I keep chained to a radiator in the basement, but they will never again see the light of day.)  Just six to keep up with.  When I left for WotF two weeks ago, only two of those stories were out to markets.  Sad.  Pitiful.  Inexcusable.  Inconceivable!  (You keep using that word.  I do not think it means what you think it means.)

So that is remedied now.  Yesterday I reported sending a story to Lightspeed.  Today I hit the post office’s automated shipping center (R2D2’s ancestor) and got a couple snail packages out to two of the baddest slush piles on the block: F&SF and Analog.  The story I sent to F&SF (TRM…for those who don’t know, I use initials instead of story titles after a mild disqualification scare with my WotF winner, though now I doubt leaking titles will injure me) needed some brushing up.  I managed to fix two major dangling plot issues with one tidy knot before stuffing it in a big manila and sending it to Gordon to reject.  The Analog candidate (TOL) was the one Andromeda Spaceways held for so long and had very nice comments from one editor, so I sent it out as-is despite some dislike of the ending.  I like the ending in a minimalistic way, but I’d be happy to entertain a rewrite request.  I also sent a story (GB) to Clarkesword, rounding out my six stories in circulation; not sure how realistic that fit was, but we’ll see.

I’m hoping this offering appeases the karma gods of rejection enough to let me hear from those two older subs.  64 days from Asimov’s seems a long time, but they’ve surely increased their volume a lot since opening to electronic subs (which mine was).  Anyway, I need to write to keep my mind off of it.  Watched pots and all…

Before I close, I’ll analyze my procrastination.  TRM needed work and I knew it, so maybe that’s why I didn’t send it out.  TOL was a bit of a heartbreak, having been on hold, and maybe that’s why, but that’s a rotten excuse.  Gee, this story came so close to selling that I’m not sending it out where it could actually sell.  I am aiming higher on the totem pole now that it’s back out, so maybe that intimidated me.  A good reason to always start at the top and work down.  GB was a hard fit anywhere, so maybe I just didn’t want to take a chance.  Another really dumb excuse, though it works equally well for TWHDotGMP.  Bottom line is that I know better than to sit on manuscripts; I know I have pro level talent; I know all six of these stories are good in different ways.  I’m bad for letting BS (that’s not a story title, it stands for…what it usually stands for) get in the way of my career.  I’m fighting against that now.  I want to be a professional writer, and to be honest it’s been very hard going back to school after spending a week in LA pretending I’d already made it.  It’s going to take some lifestyle changes, but I will become a successful SF writer.  So if you’ll excuse me, I have to go type.

Not Quite Writing

~ Scott W. Baker ~ 4 Comments

I’m still experiencing an overwhelming desire to write.  Alas, I’m still not doing it.  I edited a story (TWHDotGMP) and sent it back out to Lightspeed who won’t want it and will have it rejected by Monday at the latest.  They may be into quirky humor, but I’d be surprised.  Technically I’m always surprised when I make a sale.  It’s not the standard response to a submission.

I’ve just finished a read through of my YA novel, or as much as I’ve got.  I’ve dumped the last ten pages or so and I’m attacking it again.  It was a move I made about the time I stopped working on it.  Now that I know where I’m going, I’m convinced it was the right move.  I made editing notes as I read because I can’t help myself, but for now I’ll pick up where I chopped it.

I have to get this story rolling faster than I have.  The first couple conflicts hit bam-bam, then the story just kind of drifts on inertia.  I’ll likely have to go back and smack someone with a tire iron or something to break up the dullness of my milieu-building.  But not right now; now it’s time to move forward.

Today was the last day of the county fair where my wife was exhibiting, so my time should become more flexible meaning more potential writing time.  And I need to use that time for writing.  I’m thinking about cutting my television time down to just meals (yes, we heathens eat in front of the idiot box) and exercise time on the elliptical machine (which is currently time that does not exist).  That should have the double-edged effect of decreasing television time and increasing workout time.  But to do that, I really should get my wireless headphones fixed so I can hear over the woosh-woosh-woosh of the machine.  But I digress.

I slept late today, until about 10:30, and I feel much more alive for it.  Basically I’m whittling away excuses to avoid writing.  I never appreciated how many I had and used.  There’s always more: papers to grade, cleaning to be done, cats to shave, 80s movies to reenact…but it’s time to push them all aside and write.  Tomorrow.  🙂

[ADDED]: As of about 1:30, I’ve tightened up some loose threads in another story (TRM) and I’m sending somewhere before I get to bed.  Why can’t I let things go until morning?  At least they’re getting done this way.