Category: Writing

Pro Zines and Amateur Mistakes

~ Scott W. Baker ~ Leave a comment

Nothing like sending a submission email without the submission attached to make you feel like a rank amateur.  And nothing like doing something stupid to inspire a blog post.  I was sending the story to Redstone Science Fiction, a young but respected pro-paying zine, and in my eagerness I hit send before attaching the story.  Doh!  Not sure if the second try went through.  I didn’t change the subject line and did not receive a (second) autoreply.  I’ll give it a little time and follow up.

For those living under a rock, you should know that Redstone is open to submissions only for the next couple weeks.  So get your (4000-word or less) stories off to them in a hurry.

For that matter, why didn’t you know this already?  (Play along for a second and pretend you didn’t already know.)  Anyone writing short fiction should be receiving the Duotrope newsletter.  That’s how I know.  A weekly market update sent direct o your email.  A quick perusal lets you find updates on your favorite markets and quick links to new favorites.  Sign up.

The TRON Scale

~ Scott W. Baker ~ 5 Comments

I have devised a new technique for rating my stories’ narrative effect.  I call it the TRON Scale.

My wife recently purchased TRON: Legacy on BluRay and we’ve watched it like six times (our four-year-old daughter loves it).  That movie is so well done.  Foreshadowing for sequels, allusions abound to the first (“That is one big door”), the characters are interesting, and the plot is always clear (if not necessarily transparently driven).  There are little things that irk me, specifically Kevin Flynn’s eighties expressions (“radical man”) sprinkled indelicately throughout, but we’re talking nitpicks in execution; the story is quite solid.  I give it a 9 out of 10 on the yet-unexplained TRON Scale.

Then there was the original TRON film.  We borrowed it from my wife’s coworker and watched it tonight.  This receives a 1 on the TRON Scale.  The original TRON is all concept with minimally executed plot.  It was hard to stay awake through the whole thing.  The stakes were never truly clear.  The characters were literally pushed from one scenario to the next.  Characters’ decision processes were sudden and never explored.  Solutions seemed to present themselves out of nowhere.  Cool visuals (for the eighties), cool concept, cool characters, but not much as a story.  And I about fell asleep because of it.  Cool is great, but plot keeps the reader/viewer involved.

I think my stories fall short on the TRON Scale quite often, particularly when it comes to understanding character’s choices.  They do things that drive the plot because they drive the plot rather than the character’s identity compelling that action.

I intend to use the TRON scale to consider a few of my current stories and decide whether modification is warranted or if those stories should be sent to games (random TRON reference…I should be ashamed).  For the record, TRON’s cool factor increased when tied to a more cohesive plot.  surely that will help some of my cool story ideas, too.

Downs that should be Ups (or vice-versa)

~ Scott W. Baker ~ 1 Comment

Rejections.  😦

No one likes rejections.  I don’t.  I got four in three days week.  It always sucks to get a rejection from F&SF and IGMS on the same day.  I wasn’t really in the mood to blog about it then.  The other two were also pro markets.  Oh, how it burns.

There’s no shame in being rejected by pro markets.  Pros get rejected by pro markets all the time.  But my last sale was a long time ago.  Long.  Submitted in September kind of long.  That’s where the rejections hurt most.

But I can also look at these rejections and smile because they are different than I used to get.  My F&SF rejection came straight from the editor rather than an assistant editor, suggesting it made it past someone.  My IGMS rejection was personalized.  The other two…not so much, but that’s okay.  A good number of my rejections explain themselves now.  This is a good development.

I’m sure I’ve blogged on this topic before.  This is kind of my public pep talk to myself.  I have seven stories out right now and odds are that none of those will come back acceptances.  But some of those stories will sell.  I have no doubt.  I bet I’ll find homes for all of them, eventually.  Low pay homes for some, deeply modified forms for others, but homes where people will have the chance to read them.

In unrelated news, congratulations to my friends and visitors that are off to Clarion or Clarion West this summer. (Yay Annie/izanobu!)  Not sure who else I know that might have made it.  Drop me a comment if that’s you.  Good luck to those still applying for Odyssey.  For those who applied and are not attending, I know the pang of those rejections, too.  Only the last rejection you ever receive will be final.  Keep writing, keep sending and you’ll always be a writer.

Summer Starts with a Con

~ Scott W. Baker ~ 2 Comments

I just booked my room for ConCarolinas.  I hadn’t realized how early CC was this year: June 3-5.  Hoorah!  That gives me a week off school before my summer con, likely the only one I’ll get to this summer.

CC has a history of being a strong literary con, strong enough that my pitiful resume didn’t get me a guest slot.  Alternative history legend Harry Turtledove will be the writer GoH.  I will most assuredly be getting my father’s copy of Guns of the South signed.  Other literary-types attending include (but are not limited to) Toni Weisskopf of Baen Books (who I met at ChattaCon), Ed Shubert of IGMS (who I met at last year’s CC and from whom I have received some lovely rejections), Gail Z. Martin (met at both ConCarolinas and ChattaCon), most of the crew from Magical Words, and Codex members J.F. Lewis and James Maxey…and those are just the ones I recognized after on quick pass.  I’m sure I’ll meet more great people/writers this year, especially since I’ll be staying in the hotel rather than with a friend that lives only a few minutes away like I did last year.  More cost but more con experience.  I missed out on a bunch last year.  Not this time.

There will also be media guests of note.  No, not Nimoy or Hamill or Spielberg or Radcliffe…not even names you would likely recognize on their own, but roles you would recognize.  John Billingsley?  He was Dr. Phlox on Enterprise (not to mention a boatload of other roles other places).  Bonita Friedericy?  General Beckman on Chuck…and Billingsley’s real-life spouse.  David H. Lawrence?  Try the Puppet Master from Heroes.  Emilie Ullerup?  Julia Prynne on Battlestar Galactica.  See, you know them.

The full guest list is at http://concarolinas.org/index.php/cc/ccguestlist/88

For those that haven’t attended a science fiction convention, they pretty much what they sound like.  Yes, people do dress up like Storm Troopers and Klingons and Ghostbusters and (oh please oh please) Princess Leia.  But not everyone.  Not half of everyone.  Costuming is a fun part of the con to behold.  I hope to eventually pull together a Dr. Horrible costume, that being WAY cheaper than say a Malcolm Reynolds costume.  But not likely for this year.  Anyway, cons also have panel discussions and an art show and a dealer room.  However, rumor has it that most business goes down outside the framework of the con…typically in the bar.  It’s been my observation, too.  My best contacts from ChattaCon were made in the bar, at parties, and/or at meals.  These are the bits I missed last year.

I have a special affection for ConCarolinas since it was the first con I ever attended.  I kind of consider it my home con despite being closer to Nashville and Chattanooga and Atlanta and probably others.  It’s big enough without being too big.  It’s got strong literary participation.  Lots of panel rooms.  A Nerf war, for crying out loud!  (Speaking of, where’s my Nerf gun?)  My folks are pretty close (90 minutes?) and can watch the kiddo.  I have a local friend.  What’s not to like?

What else?  Oh yes.  Against my better judgment, I’ll mention this here: I have booked a room with two beds when there is just one of me.  I did this with the thought that I’d split said room with a friend if I could find one attending that needed a room.  I am not expecting to be so strapped for cash that I need to split it, so I will be very selective of my roomie.  (In other words, a post like “Hey, nice blog you got.  What was your name again?  Oh, right, it’s at the top of the page.  Anyway, I’ll go halvsies on a room with you…” will probably earn a cool reception and a polite decline.  But, if we’ve engaged in conversation (real or online) and you’re thinking of attending CC and are contemplating costs, a split might be an option.  Just putting it out there.  Oh, and in the interest of full disclosure: I snore like a truck.  Yeah…I’m likely keeping the room to myself.  Just as well.  🙂

What cons are on everyone else’s hit-list this summer?

Tick…Tick…..Tick……..

~ Scott W. Baker ~ 1 Comment

I’ve been quiet a while.  School’s been busy and stuff, but mostly Ive been waiting for some sort of responses to report.  Sunmission news has been vacuous of late.  I got a form rejection from DSF on a flash, but that’s it.  I keep waiting.  And waiting.

Full disclosure, I only have one sub that’s been out n inordinately long time and that’s to a market I knew was slow.  A couple have been out for over a month.  Two more around three weeks.  The rest are under a week.  So I’m fidgety for nothing.  Maybe it’s just having nine stories out that has me itching like a shaved dog in a fiberglass sweater.  I don’t think I’ve ever had so many, but I can’t recall.  I have more I need to push out the door, too.  For instance, I’m holding one story for Pedestal which has been closed to subs this week.  Sending it tomorrow.  And my zombie culture story should be ready to sub soon.

So what to do when the waiting gets painful?  The obvious answer — write!  That is in addition to checking email every five minutes, scouting responses on Duotrope every hour, and giving the mailman dirty looks as he drives off without returning your SASE to you.

I’m in a weird place with a few projects — in the middle of a contest for Codex, trying to turn a novelette into a novel — and my production feels incredibly low compared to time spent writing.  Maybe that’s the problem.  Or maybe it’s Brad’s fault with all his success and accolades.  🙂  Or that other writer with her top secret make-me-jealous news.  🙂  Or all these creepy smileys hanging out everywhere.  🙂

Let’s face it, I’ve followed up my WotF win (announced over a year ago) with bupkis. The issue is jealousy, but I’m actually jealous of me…me a year ago.  Where did that all go?  It’s time for me to step back and remind myself that writing is a (cliche) marathon, not a sprint.  It took a long time to get to where I am (or was last year) and it may take time to move to the next level.  Things happen lowly in this business.  I know this.  I just don’t like it.

So I return to my projects at hand.  FS goes to Pedestal tomorrow — ooh, clock says today! — and I need to get CMZ ready to fly out the door soon.  Refreshing to have a new story to start collecting rejections.  And I need to finish my Codex contest story (whether it moves to the next round or not) and get my novelization project in gear.  And pretty much in that order.  Plenty to be done; no time to continually refresh my email.

You too.  Why are you reading blog posts with so much to be done?  Get to it!

Bookstore visits: then and now

~ Scott W. Baker ~ Leave a comment

It’s ironic.  I love bookstores but I seldom find myself in one anymore.  For one, they are disappearing daily.  (Moment of silence.)  Second, who really goes to a bookstore when they need a book?  I just download it to my Kindle or order it (cheaper) from Amazon.  But this post is not about the invasion of the ebook market (I for one welcome our new computer overlords) or the decline of the faithful old brick-and-mortar book seller.  This is an observation on how my bookstore browsing and buying habits have changed over the last few years.

When I started writing, I always went in search of the how-to-write books first.  A decent bookstore will have a reasonable selection but seldom the ones I really wanted.  Lots of grammar books, but I can do grammar, always could.  Several write-a-novel-in-X-days books, not really what I was after, either.  I have picked up good books right off the shelf, though: Donald Maass’s Writing the Breakout Novel, several Elements of Fiction Writing books, and others that slip my mind, but I’ve plucked some stinkers, too (not listed).  After that I’d head to the science fiction and fantasy section, rounding out with a tour of clearance items.

Now it’s backward.  I hunt for cheap books first.  Why?  Because I don’t know what I’m looking for.  Just the other day I picked up The Hero (Ringo and Williamson) and The Ice Dragon, a short story or novelette that was retrofitted as a children’s story by none other than George R.R. Martin.  The latter seemed  an intriguing idea and roused my interest.  The former, well I just don’t have any John Ringo stuff.  I suspect it’s mostly the work of his co-author set in Ringo’s world, but hey, it was a buck.  So was The Ice Dragon.  Happy purchase.

Next I go to the sci-fi section to look for WotF 26.  Books-A-Million has it.  I turned it face out last time, a feat that actually put it in front of four out of five copies of another book.  They’ll have me for it, I’m sure.  But if it sells, I guess they won’t have to worry about it.  Other than randomly pimping a book that earns me no more money if it sells, I also look for names I recognize, personally or as a fan.  I seldom buy this way because my backlog is so deep.  If nothing else, it helps me decide what to shop for on my Kindle. I also look at the publishing houses and imprints on the shelves and skim for general ideas of market trends, not to copy, just to know.

The last place I look is the how-to-write section.  This time I did actually make a purchase, my first from this shelf in a while: the Gotham Writer’s Workshop’s guide to screeplay writing, Writing Movies, the victor in a brief page-flipping battle between it and another screenwriting book.  This was not a bargain book, but I wanted a good screenwriting book to balance out the bad one I have.  I’ve been happy with the chapters I’ve read so far.

My recent trip to the used bookstore was similar, but every book there is a bargain book, so it’s a little different.  I like to skim the science books for things that might spawn story ideas or better yet deepen an existing story idea.  I got a little tiny book on Multiverse theory a few weeks back.  Not even sure what it is, but it sounded promising.

Another stop was the travel books.  Face it, I’m not a traveler; can’t afford it and don’t overly enjoy it.  But it’s tough to set every science fiction book in Tennessee, so I need to expand my horizons somehow.  I picked up a 3-D guide to Paris and an insider’s guide to New York for use setting stories in those cities, two books I would never have paid real money for (I have store credit) but will surely see eventual use.  I make a point of wandering through the sf/f section, too.

Basically, I know how to write, I just need help with specific story elements.  Setting, consistency, inspiration, ties to real-world science.  Can I make a Multiverse story set in Paris?  Or a screenplay in Soho (whatever that is)?  My chances are better now.

This of course made me wonder what other writers look for in bookstores.  Maybe I’m overlooking some useful sections?  How do you shop?

No room at the inn

~ Scott W. Baker ~ 2 Comments

It’s frightening how quickly the markets for novelette length science fiction exhaust themselves, particularly the pro-paying markets.  Starting in May: Analog, Asimov’s, IGMS, Clarkesworld, Lightspeed, F&SF, and Strange Horizons have all declined the honor of publishing a particular story of mine.  Sure, that’s their right.  Two of them were kind enough to decline personally.  But now the list of potential markets has dwindled to a mere handful, most of which have other submissions of mine in their queues.  Even if I manage to trim it down to 7500 words, not many more options open up.  It;s a small world out there.  It’s enough to discourage a guy.

I keep reminding myself: I need to focus on novels.  N-O-V-E-L-S-!  Money, success, fame — novels are the path.  Yet I keep scratching out short stuff that I can’t sell.  Oh, how the Kindle beckons me!

I could stretch this novelette into a novel if I gave it some time.  Take the linear timelin, chop it in the middle, and braid separate events to happen simultaneously, drawing them out to engulf the reader in the setting and characters.  The more I type, the more I think it could work.  But (ain’t there always a but) that’s a lot of planning and a lot of writing away.  I need to finish my current novel-in-progress before I dare attack a another.  This project will sell in some capacity, I know it will.  Novelette?  Trimmed to a short?  Inflated to novel?  Screenplay?  Yep, I said the s-word.  I know this idea works, these characters work, just…[insert primal scream here].

It’s a matter of frustration at this point.  I need to just get this story back out into the world.  It’s good.  It pulled positive comments from major editors.  There’s just so few places left to turn, mostly places I’ve never tried before.  Not sure which is scarier: the unknown entities or realizing how few are there.

How much work could a workshop shop if a workshop could shop work?

~ Scott W. Baker ~ Leave a comment

I’ve been putting this post off and now it’s almost too late.  The deadlines for applying for Clarion and Clarion West are both this coming Tuesday.  If you’re even slightly interested in attending either, go apply.  Yes, they both have application fees, but those are to keep out the riff-raff that aren’t serious.  It’s a lot more expensive to attend.  But it’s Clarion.  Stop dragging your feet and get those applications sent.

For those who don’t know, I was wait-listed for Clarion West two years ago and received a flat rejection last year.  Clarion-Clarion (aka Clarion East or Clarion San Diego…not very east) has done naught but reject me.  Mind you, I’ve only applied twice.  And that number will stay at twice.

That’s right, I’m not applying this year.  I’ve mentioned it around and I may have declared it here before, but it’s no longer economical to consider Clarion.  At least not now.  The price tag is only part of the issue.  It’s the six weeks away from wife and daughter I can’t handle.  I was prepared to sacrifice last year, as I was the year before, but my career is at a different level now.  Not that I’m soaring; I’m not.  I could still get a lot out of Clarion or CW or Odyssey (later deadline, more structure).  It’s just not worth the trade-off anymore.  I’ve placed in the Writers of the Future contest.  I’ve attended the WotF workshop.  I’ve met a gaggle of professional writers and made connections.  I have a network of writers I connect with (two between Codex and the WotF vol. 26 group).  Editors express personalized regret when they (still) reject my stories.  So I’m out.

As for those of you who have applied to Clarion West, I’m happy to see the forum there starting to pick up steam.  (I poke my head in periodically.  I’m nosy like that.)  I’ve made friends through that forum who I still keep in touch with.  Some of them are on my blogroll.  It’s a great place to network (not advance-my-career networking but more part-of-a-writing-community networking) and get intel on the acceptance/rejection process.  Plus it’s not a bad place to acquire blog traffic; I still get people linking-in to my old posts through that forum, mostly my application essays (2009 and 2010).  So go poke your nose in and say hi.

Oh, and check out my workshop page.  It’s a tad outdated, but there’s good stuff.

Good luck to all those applying!

Why do editors do everything the hard way?

~ Scott W. Baker ~ Leave a comment

I suppose it’s a good step in my career, but I’m getting tired of editors telling me how difficult it was to pass up my story only to do it anyway.  They are encouraging notes each time, but several editors have said that about several of my recent subs.  These are the “personalized rejections” I heard tales of for so long, and now I’m getting them, but why can’t they take the easy way out an run my stories?

The good news is that I am repeatedly assured that editors like my writing style and voice and characters.  For a long time I worried these would be the things that stood in my way.  Heck, I’m still not 100% sure what voice is; it’s certainly not something I do intentionally.  Just like I was told for years, style and voice are things that evolved with experience.  They just got better, to the point that people (editors and others) make it a point to comment on them.

I think it’s time to focus on macro stuff again, the way I did early in my writing career.  Plot.  Character motivation.  I have a screenwriting book that might help remind me of things I used to do better back when style and voice were…not strengths.  Maybe I never was better at them, but the other stuff was bad enough that they were the bright spots.  Whatever the case, I am soooo close I can smell the success.  A little more attention to connecting the big dots and I think the pro sales will start drizzling in.  Fingers crossed (which makes difficult typing).

Oh, and DSF was the latest to make the “difficult decision not to publish” FS.  But they want me to send more, and more I got.  Which one…?

Production is up

~ Scott W. Baker ~ 4 Comments

Over the past six weeks I have written eight stories.  8.  Can you believe it?  Seven of those are flash, mind you, but that’s eight finished products.  Yeah, yeah, some still need polish, but eight.  I’ve gone full years without finishing eight.

The primary contributing factor was my writing group, Codex.  They had what they called the Weekend Warrior contest.  It’s a flash fiction contest with no tangible prize.  each Saturday morning, a series of prompts were posted on the group’s site.  The following Sunday (Monday morning, technically), stories were due in.  750-word limit.  Judging was done by group members, mostly contestants.  It was fun.  I was in the top bunch the first week, at one point taking the #2 spot, but drifted back.  I ended the contest in 7th out of 30 entrants (fewer writing the 3 story minimum to compete).  Nothing to sneeze at.  These are all professional caliber writers and I hung with them.  This was simply evidence that I too am a pro caliber writer, something I already had reasonable evidence to support, but a little reminder is nice from time to time.

Anyway, the contest technically only accounts for five stories.  The sixth was actually the first, a failed attempt at the first week’s prompt that grew into a 900-word story and now lingers on the scales of justice at DSF (second round, long wait, good stuff).  The seventh was also a failed attempt at a contest story, though it did come in under 750.  It was Thursday before the SuperBowl and I had it in my head that one prompt would relate to a sporting event, so I jumped the gun and drafted a sports story.  It turned out to be 750 words of dialog, no speaker attributions or anything.  Experimental and maybe a tad derivative but fun.  Alas, the sports prompt never surfaced, which I guess is good because it forced me to write another story, as well as alleviating the temptation to cheat (that story would not have been written over the weekend).

Number eight was a result of someone’s idea to follow up the Weekend Warrior with a full-fledged short story in a weekend.  This wasn’t part of the contest, just a friendly challenge.  I did that, too, pumping out a 3000-word zombie tale that has so far received warm reviews.  It’s really a reduction of a novel (maybe novella) milieu that I’ve never found devised a plot for.  I didn’t expect it to be so short, but the story did a reasonable job falling into place.  I’m glad it’s short; short sells.  More market options, less financial risk for the editor. I credit five weeks of flashing (that sounds more inappropriate than it is) for the concise story.

Anyway, I’m happy to have lots to send out.  I’m still waiting to hear on a few good candidates.  Like I mentioned, DSF has one (initials FS) in deep consideration; if they buy it, it will be my first one-time-submission sale since my very first sale, “Decisions, Decisions!”  Strange Horizons has been holding EE for quite a while; nowhere near their predicted response time, but they were only open to subs for four days before I sent it, and that was to limited volume.  Escape Pod has had TRM for a long time, but they seem a bit backlogged at the moment.  (Their payment for Leech Run arrived, though.  Yay!)  I should hear something from Sniplits about GB…eventually; they have long response times, but I’m reaching the end, finally.  I need to get these other seven buffed and out the door, too.  I think I may send some of the lower-scoring ones straight to lower-paying flash markets.  Or maybe I’ll hold them while Fred works them over.  At least two of them are ready for top-tier scrutiny.  Maybe I can get my race score up above ten for once.