Its Been A Week

This is the longest I've gone without posting something on my blog for a long, long time.

I've been reading. Today is the last day to get your submissions in for Blade Red Press' Dark Pages Volume One Anthology. I've been reading, and weighing up stories like a mad man. Except for the past few days...

I figured I should take a few days break every now and then to refresh the brain, like sipping from a glass of water to refresh the palette during a meal to reinvigorate the taste buds in readiness to truly appreciate the next course, so I wanted a reinvigorated the lump of grey matter to savour what you took the time to submit to us.

I currently have 23 stories in my 'to-be-read' submissions pile. I've been told we've had over 250 submissions for this anthology of which I've read just about all of them over the last two months. I expect a sudden rush of last minute arrivals today, and then I'll have a final push to finalise my choices for the second round of reading. I really want all authors who've submitted to know where they sit in regards to their story being on hold or if they are free to submit to other markets before mid-December. According to Duotrope, I have a 17.5 day average time for responding, with a 40 day max. I think this is pretty good seeing how we have stated 6-8 weeks.

In other news (for those interested) - we maintained our unbeaten run in cricket on Saturday, knocking off the top team. With terrible weather making the ground close to unplayable, the team rallied together and moved a mountain of soil with bare hands, milk crates and a single broom to ensure we had the opportunity to gain a result. Well done to everyone involved! Depending on other results, we are either top or still sit second. If the later, then we have an opportunity to knock off the new top team this coming weekend. Keep your fingers crossed we can keep our run going.

Yesterday, my wife and I took our grandson out for a few hours. It was a good time. I really must post some new photos of the little man so you can all see how big he's grown.

That's enough waffle from me. Congratulations to everyone who took part in NaNo this year. Your efforts have been inspiring and awesome to those of us who have sat on the sidelines with our pom-poms. Remember, it doesn't matter if you got to 50K or not, it was the commitment to writing that was the winner. Now you can either finish that manuscript or polish it to within an inch of its life over the next few months. I am more than sure there will be a few gems out there.

Time for me to get back to reading...

Sporadic At Best

It seems my posting here is becoming fewer and further between efforts. I'm sorry about that.

I've also not written anything in quite sometime, but my mind is still ticking over with how I'm going to improve the first draft of Inner Voice - I'm excited by that.

So with one week left to go before the submission deadline for Dark Pages Volume 1, I'm still reading madly. I think I'm averaging around 20-30 short stories a week which is pretty good for me on top of normal life. I'm guessing around 11th of December everyone who submitted will have an answer of some sort on how their masterpiece has faired in regards to it being held over for further consideration or the dreaded rejection.

Myself and the staff at Blade Red Press have been blown away with the response and the quality of the work writers from all over the world have sent to us for consideration. It has been truly staggering. With the number of anthologies I've seen this year having to extend their submission deadlines due to a lack of response or a lack of quality work, I consider myself extremely lucky to have been inundated with exceptional stories from so many brilliant authors, both known and emerging.

It was only the other day I commented to Blade Red that we could easily publish Dark Pages volumes 1, 2 & 3 from the stories I've read. An embarrassment of riches is an understatement.

If you've not received a hold request yet, or if you don't receive one, please don't feel slighted. Decisions are becoming extremely tough for me now. I'm reading good stories that I have to weigh up against all the good stories I've already found a hold place for. This is the best reason to always submit early when targeting an anthology.

Allow me to give a hypothetical example that may well have been the case at some stage last year, but has, thankfully, not been my specific experience (yet): imagine I receive a real kick-arse story about vampires. It has well rounded characters, lots of conflict, on both a personal level and in the supernatural action arena, and has a unique hook. I've received this story a week after submissions opened and instantly put it in my possibles list. Three weeks before submissions close, I get another very good vampire story. This author has obviously taken the extra time to have the story critiqued and polished. It is good but it doesn't disturb quite as much as the first one. With reluctance, I place it in my probably not folder which doesn't mean it's dead by a long shot. The following day, I receive two more vampire stories of which one is better than vampire tale number two and the other is not bad either (if I hadn't received the other three, it would have been a contender).

At this point (because I'm mindful of author's hating to wait for responses) I need to make a decision on what to keep. I go back and read the very first story I decided to hold and because it's been a while since I first put it away, I regain the wonder I felt when I first read it, and yet it retains that feeling of an old friend, something I've read and appreciated before. I know it's going to be hard to top. With reluctance I send out rejections to all the other vampire stories. (you can change vampire for any common theme/trope: circus, dolls, ghosts, evil child, werewolf, etc, etc)

Don't get me wrong, if another vampire story arrives that is mindblowingly original (it could happen), then the first story could still be dislodged. I've not sent an acceptance letter to anyone. My possibles list is very fluid and will remain so until at least a week after submissions close, but I'm not reading as an editor at the moment (at least not first and foremost). I'm sliding over typos or awkward sentence structure and mentally replacing it with something that sounds a little better and moving on. I work through submissions purely with my readers hat on. The good point about that is I'm allowing myself to fall into the world you are creating. I'm doing my best to allow myself to be swept away with your words. I'm giving you the reigns - if you don't take hold and drive me to somewhere believable and disturbing, then the piece doesn't make the hold list. If you do, then the editorial hat comes into play and you're judged against whatever else I have already set aside. Then you still may not make the hold list - many good stories fall into this category already :c(

So I say again, the big lesson here, is to submit early and submit your very best the first time. Unfortunately, everything is subjective from there.

Editing

As I've mentioned before, during all this reading I'm currently doing for Dark Pages Volume 1, the first anthology from Blade Red Press (how's that for a plug), my mind continually drifts back to Inner Voice.

I guess I'm somewhat in the same quandary as KC Shaw and her Bell-Men project. While Kate is powering through her NaNo project and having reoccurring thoughts of Bell-Men, I'm working through submissions and yet Inner Voices remains a constant mental companion.

The latest thought process, which is cropping up more often, is the editing process I have ahead of me, and then naturally my mind carries forward and I begin to think about the submission process and the contract signing and the money rolling in...I'm normal, right? Right? Doesn't everyone do this? Anyone?

The editing thoughts came to the fore again while doing the rounds through my Google Reader. Ms A. Victoria Mixon has published a letter to primarily showcase her ability as an editor, but does so much more for the discerning writer. Many of you will be absorbed in the current series of posts Aaron Polson is running during NaNo, reminding writers about different things they should be including/thinking about during their mad dash to 50000 words. Ms Mixon's letter on developmental editing is a grand edition to those lessons.

As an aside, I remember someone (maybe Mercedes) posting something about another editor providing an editing, critique-type service. Whoever it was, can you refresh my memory please. I'm seriously considering using one of these services once I've finished working through it with my own team of critiquers/beta readers.

And as is my want, this leads into a thought I had about all you NaNo participants who can't help editing as you go (Alan, Bec, and others). NaNo is supposedly about the act of writing; getting words on the page. It's okay to contradict yourself during November. Fixing the inconsistencies is for December and beyond. Making sure things flow is not for now. NaNoWriMo stands for National Novel Writing Month, not National Novel Editing Month which would be presented as NaNoEdMo - which sounds way too much like Mork signing off.

But, and this is a pretty big but, if your normal writing regime is to go back and edit the previous chapter with a light dusting of changes before you move onto the next part of the story, then you shouldn't be using NaNo as the time to retrain your brain into just churning out words. NaNo is, IMHO, all about committing time to write. It's about getting words onto the paper but it's more about a commitment to your craft, and that's easier to do as part of a huge group than doing it on your own.

So if you edit as you go, go for it. Just add that time into your calculations so you don't have to worry over it taking away from your NaNo word goals for the day. Accept it as part of the writer you are, and will probably always be, so you no longer need to stress over it and you can plan to include it in your regime. Once the stress of that is gone, the words will flow easier once more, and hitting 50K won't seem such a long way away.

Okay, enough preaching about stuff everyone is probably rolling their eyes over and wishing I'd stop sounding like some sort of self-appointed guru. Not how I intend to come across. Just an opinion you are more than free to disagree with.

Well done to everyone participating in NaNo - regardless of where you're at in the word count race, you deserve special consideration and congratulations for committing time to your craft and getting words on the paper. That is no small feat.

Some Good News Today

Not for me - for some of you.

A bunch of 'May we please hold' emails are, or have, been sent to my short listed stories for the anthology. I hope you squeal with glee if you get one as I think you've done exceptionally well to get this far.

But all is not lost for those of you not among the lucky people. You still have a couple of weeks left to submit me something wonderful and get yourself on the shortlist.

I currently still have 41 unread stories waiting for my attention so don't despair if you've not gained any sort of notification from us yet. I think I only have three stories unread that I received at the end of October so my response time is still (or should be) within acceptable limits.

Space is now becoming one of the premium parameters. For me to hold a story above 5-6000 words, it needs to be better than two of the stories which has already made the hold list, or completely different and still able to kick the arse of one I've already held over, so keep this in mind when submitting. The story itself is still the deciding factor, but you first need to blow my mind and then it needs to fit in with the other stories around it and then it needs to fit in with the space limitations I have. Yes, folks, it's getting harder, but then, that's why those in the know submit as early as possible to any anthology they target.

Next tip: I want a dark story which is beautifully told and disturbs me - I don't find journal entries disturbing. It may be just me, but to have a journal, and to be able to read the next entry, the person needs to have survived. I've seen some in the past where the author has used a journal style to build tension and conflict, but it is a rare skill. Please, unless the piece has scared the pants off your crit group, or disturbed at least one of them into going to therapy, don't send me a journal-style submission.

Next tip: I'd like to include at least one or two more dark fantasy pieces.

Next tip: I've held over some sci-fi pieces but I've seen very little with actual aliens, or in space.

Last tip: Read the guidelines before submitting.

Good Luck!

And congratulations to the lucky few.

Moving Right Along

I'm at work so I'm unable to get onto Utube but imagine Kermit and Fozzy driving along singing the song...

As reported last week, Blade Red Press has received over 200 submissions for Dark Pages Volume 1 to date. In the very beginning, Blade Red was kind enough to be my first level filter and removed anything that wasn't quite up to my extremely high standards, but then my dictator side kicked in and I needed to see everything to make my own decisions. Since I opened my mouth and requested everything, I've read nigh on 120 stories over the last four weeks. I've got less than 30 stories in my possible hold file and had to say no to a lot of friends - so don't anybody dare say I'm playing favourites!

I could have included some big names, including some major competition winners, but I've stuck to my guns and judged the story first. Yes, I've missed out on some great current writers and the possible marketing pull they may bring, but the stories that remain will be exceptional (in my humble opinion). With two weeks or so to go, the hard part of whittling down my current possibles list is going to be one of the most difficult tasks I've ever undertaken - and yet I'm looking forward to reading those stories again. I also expect some more to arrive over the next 14/15 days that push their way into consideration to make my life just that little bit more difficult. Fun times ahead.

On the personal writing front, I've had rejections roll in and the stories rolled back out. Most of these pieces are now just looking for the right market. I've also been thinking a lot about Inner Voice and I'm looking forward to wrapping up the anthology so I can get stuck into edits. I miss writing.

Finally, a big shout out to all those I know doing NaNo. I am in awe of the word totals I see around the place. I've heard of one person who has already finished! Jealous - me - bloody oath! Still, others should not be discouraged. Remember we may all be on the same journey but each writer has a different road map on how to get to that final destination. The same goes with NaNo. Work at your pace--push yourself for sure, that's what NaNo is all about after all, but don't fret over other writers wordage. Remember you are writing, and that makes you a winner already in my book. Good luck for the last two weeks!