Last fall, I sold a story to Eric Flint’s Grantville Gazette that focused on the Knights of Malta.  After some conversation with Chuck Gannon (who wrote the outstanding science fiction novel, Fire With Fire and co-wrote the thrilling 1635: The Papal Stakes), he encouraged me to develop Malta a little more for the 1632 universe (Chuck was also kind enough to help me iron out my outline a bit).

I proposed an 8-10 story arc involving the Knights of Malta to Paula Goodlett (editor of the Grantville Gazette, and co-author of The Kremlin Games). The first story in the arc, “A Knight’s Journey: Penance” takes place shortly after the events of my first story, “The Maltese Crux” (which isn’t necessary to read to understand Penance). A former knight, Roderik, is sent to the Chateau d’If to serve a penance for his misdeeds. The Chateau is famous for playing a substantial role in The Count of Monte Cristo by Dumas and served as an excellent setting for Roderik to endure his penance.

To make a long story endless, the first story was accepted for publication and is now available in The Grantville Gazette volume 47:

Grantville Gazette Volume 47

www.grantvillegazette.com - if you go there you’ll be able to read part of the story. However, the ebooks for the magazines are available at:

www.baenebooks.com/p-1887-grantville-gazette-volume-47.aspx - Baen Ebooks allows you to purchase the magazines individually rather than buy a subscription (and in any format you please – Kindle, Nook, etc. etc.).

The first story, “The Maltese Crux” is available in Grantville Gazette Volume 44:

http://www.baenebooks.com/p-1647-grantville-gazette-volume-44.aspx

With luck, I’ll have a story in each issue of the Gazette for at least the next year if I’m able to write good enough additions to the story arc I have planned.

I sold my story, “The Maltese Crux” to Eric Flint’s Grantville Gazette Issue 44! The issue is available now!

The sale alone was enough for celebration (champagne, cheese and watching The Maltese Falcon, from which I drew inspiration for the story), however, when the electronic edition went live I found my story served as the inspiration for the cover of Grantville Gazette issue #44!

Here is some background:  I wrote the story specifically for The Grantville Gazette, which mainly publishes fiction for Eric Flint’s 1632 universe. For the uninitiated, the basic premise of the 1632 series is West Virginians from the year 2000 are transported back to Germany in the middle of the Thirty Years War. It’s not just the people transported back, but the entire town.  The series itself is sprawling and involves well over one hundred contributors at this point.  To read my story not much background other than that is really needed–it’s basically a mystery involving the Knights of Malta, but with 20th century pop culture as a major plot device.

I’d like to thank my wife Tara for her support and patience with my non-stop blathering about writing!

Also, special thanks go out to Griffin Barber and Chuck Gannon for reading the story and offering critiques and suggestions. Thank you guys!

And finally, thanks to Paula Goodlett for buying my story–my first pro-paying short fiction sale!

Well, it’s been awhile–again.

I’ve had a couple of very difficult months work wise and in the middle of all that some difficult moments personally that I won’t go into here.

The writing has been up and down with weeks where I am on fire and then others (when work has me running ragged) where the words come close to a halt. I can go from 2,000 words/day down to a measly 250 words/day.

On the plus side, however, I have a story at the Grantville Gazette that has a great chance of being picked up, but it has a hurdle or two to clear. But a few people on the editorial board there like it and if Eric Flint gives the thumbs-up I may just have a sale there.

Also, I received another Honorable Mention in the Writers of the Future Contest. I thought the story had a great shot at Finalist, but even in receiving the Honorable Mention I received a one word critique–pacing. I can’t help but agree, and it seems two other first readers agreed as well. The problem was that I wrote the story in six hours on the day of the deadline and submitted it without editing. I should have given myself more time, but I was very pressed for time. So, a six hour story receiving an Honorable Mention is pretty darn good. The coordinating judge of the contest, David Farland, mentioned that he gave out less Honorable Mentions this quarter.

So now the contest is in Quarter 3 judging and I have what I think is a great story entered, but we’ll see, a writer is a lousy judge of their own work. Submissions for Quarter 4 are open and I’m in the process of finishing up my entry.

I reached a milestone at 11:10pm on May7th. I decided to check my email one last time before turning off the lights and wham: a rejection notice.

And this wasn’t just any old rejection, it was my 100th. In the end what does this mean?

You might think this depressed me, but honestly, at this point after 100 rejects I’ve become somewhat immune to the process. I’ll make this more clear. I haven’t been rejected 100 times for one piece of work. I haven’t submitted any novels yet, only short stories to many markets.

I spent a solid year simply writing and not worrying over submissions. However, the following year I began submitting, hesitantly at first, and by the end of that year and up to the present, I have on average ten short stories out on the market looking for a home at any given time.

I won’t lie and say that for certain stories at markets where I feel they’re a great fit, I allow myself to be angry for about a minute, and then shoot the story off to another market. I have a story that has been out consistently for consideration since 2009. Writing requires patience.

Luckily, I always have another story or two in the works so I do not hinge my success or failure on one lone story. I have too many stories inside me fighting to be written that focusing on one story seems silly to me now.

So, back to the original question I asked: does 100 rejections mean anything? Yes, it means:
* I submit a lot.
* I write a lot.
* I’m not afraid to show first readers/slush readers/editors my work.
* 100 rejections dedication and resilience.

Those are all positives, and I’m probably leaving off a few. I suppose I’m lucky in that throughout my life I’ve been rejected at every turn. I adapt, and I learn, and eventually I overcome the obstacles placed before me (whether they be my own limitations or the roadblocks others place before me).

Are there negatives to rejection? Yes. Being rejected! There are others, but over time they do not even matter if you’re dedicated and you keep writing. That is the key here: keep writing. Keep your butt in the chair and produce new words as much as you can.

So, I had hoped to get published before #100, but it didn’t happen and now that I’m there I realize it’s just a number. Kind of like when I turned 40. Really, it’s just another number and is what you make of it. Everything in life is what you choose to make of it and how you choose to handle it.

So, I post a blog update yesterday, and today I receive my results for Quarter 1: an Honorable Mention.

This is my second Honorable Mention in the contest to go along with my one Finalist nod. Not bad. Where a Finalist means you were in the top 8 out of over 1,000 entries (typical # of entries per quarter), an Honorable Mention is somewhere around the top 10% of all submissions. Not bad at all. Overall I’m very happy with the HM, but after a Finalist in Q4 of 2012, almost anything would be a let down. To be fair, my entry in Q1 was a re-worked story that was over a year old. There is no doubt that my writing had improved since I first wrote that story (hence the finalist story that was much newer), and I suspect after taking Dean Wesley Smith’s Character Voice & Setting Workshop in March, the stories I write now will be even better.

Anyway, writing is a pursuit that can never be truly mastered, and for someone like me that is very appealing. Boredom sets in very easily with me and with writing I never feel that way. Writing is a daily challenge that pushes me and I love that sort of stimulation. Anyway, my Quarter 2 story was submitted on March 31st and I suspect that it’ll be a while before anyone receives those results. Right now I have a few stories done that could be good for Q3, but that deadline is the end of June so I have plenty of time to pick the story I feel is best for the Writers of the Future Market.

Until then I have a few stories to work on that have deadlines as well as novels to write.

Good luck to all my fellow WotF submitters who have not heard anything yet!

However, I’m not going to perform self-flagellation over it either. Life, family, work, writing, and just about everything else seem to overshadow my social networking. Oh well.

Many things have happened since I’ve last posted:

First: I was very saddened to learn that the coordinating judge of the Writers of the Future Contest, K.D. Wentworth passed away last week. I never met Kathy, but had always heard such wonderful things about her and only interacted with her on the most superficial level on her SFF.NET forum. Her passing really hit me and I found myself thinking about her quite a bit this past week. Kathy was the first editor that looked at my writing and said it was good enough to be published. She told me this by making one of my stories a finalist in the contest, and in doing so said that it was a publishable story. I had always hoped to meet Kathy, but only got to know her a little more by reading some of the wonderful tributes that have been posted as well as her obituary. Of course, she’s touched so many lives in so many ways, but I’ll always know her in only a couple of ways: her writing and her discovery of so many writers and their works. Perhaps many of those discovered writers would have made it anyway, but they definitely got a nice shove forward when she chose them as finalists.

Second: In March I attended a wonderful workshop taught by Dean Wesley Smith out on the Oregon Coast in Lincoln City. The workshop was devoted to Character Voice and Setting. Wow. I cannot say enough good things about Dean, the workshop, and the workshop attendees. Dean is a wonderful instructor and just a great guy. His wife, Kris Rusch (you may have heard of her) dropped in from time to time to assist as well as just to sit around and chat. Dean and Kris craft workshops really make you produce. In that one week we had to write two complete short stories (between 3k-6k) as well as writing exercises that ended up being another 2k words a day, and read everyone else’s short stories. A ton of work, but it was glorious. The two short stories I wrote while I was there are as good or better than short stories I spent a week or two on at home. I spent an afternoon on each short story: the first one was about 4k words, the second about 6k. Not bad at all. A tiring, but rewarding week. I could go on and on about their workshops, but I came away from that week a much better writer than I was going into it.

Third: My day job has been absolutely brutal of late and really saps my energy. Despite all that I’ve been managing a decent word count every day. On a bad day it’s simply 250 words, but hey, it’s something. On a good day I’m averaging over 1k. Great word counts considering the 12 hour days I normally have at the day job (that includes the commute though, about an hour each way).

Fourth: I currently have two stories under consideration as Writers of the Future: Quarter 1 and Quarter 2. Judging for Q1 was probably either completed by Kathy before she passed, or was very close to being completed. Results have been coming in for over a month now, but very slow. I believe we’re at the end of the Q1 judging period, and so far I’ve not gotten a rejection. Of course, there haven’t been any Honorable Mentions or Semi-Finalists yet, which also probably means that Finalists have not been called. So…I’m obviously hoping for another finalist, but an HM or a Semi would be nice as well. I feel pretty good about my Q1 and Q2 stories, but we shall see, it’s almost impossible to guess, and a writer is never a good judge of his/her work.

That’s enough for now, and for any fellow WotF submitters reading this: if you’ve gotten a rejection keep on submitting! I have many, many WotF rejections under my belt, and if you haven’t heard results yet, then good luck to you!

Well, it took a long time, but they’ve finally posted the results. WotF Q4

My story, as I’ve posted before did not make top 3 and was not chosen for the anthology as a published finalist.

I have an entry in for Q1, but this time it’s a fantasy story. I don’t write too many fantasy shorts, but this one was critiqued by Jay Lake at World Con last summer, so I feel pretty good about it. But, we’ll see as every editor has different tastes.

So, I found out last week that my finalist story will not be used in the upcoming Writers of the Future (WOTF) anthology. For those of you that do not know, each quarter the WOTF coordinating judge combs through over 1,000 entries and chooses the top eight stories as finalists (my story was a top 8 story, hooray!). She then forwards those eight stories to four judges who narrow them down to the top 3 (my story did not make top 3).

Where did that leave me? Well, if there is room in the anthology, or it needs a certain type of story, the coordinating judge can pick one of the non-winning finalist stories for publication. So, where did that leave me? My story wasn’t chosen for publication. I was assured by the contest administrator that it had nothing to do with the quality of the story, since the coordinating judge wouldn’t have chosen it as a finalist if she didn’t think it was publishable. The choice came down to length of story and/or the need of the anthology. My story was near future science fiction, so it’s very possible they had a lot of that, or that it didn’t quite fit the overall theme of the anthology this year.

Hey, at least I made finalist though! That made me (and still makes me) feel really good about my writing! I have another entry in for Q1, and soon I’ll be submitting for Q2, hopefully I make finalist again this year and win!

On a side note, this has freed me up to attend another Dean Wesley Smith and Kris Rusch workshop being held in March. This one is the character voice and setting workshop. I’m looking forward to it since after attending the short story workshop last year I felt that my writing took a major leap in quality.

First: I am a finalist in the Writers of the Future Contest!

Today a list came out announcing Finalists and Semi-Finalists for the Writers of the Future Contest, and I’ve known my status for over a month now. My finalist call actually came on Thanksgiving Day, however, that call went to my voicemail at work. I dragged my butt into work that Friday (I almost took the day off), and there in my voicemail was the message that my story was a finalist! I was so glad that I’d gone to work that day. It’s been very difficult to not blurt it out to people, but now that the coordinating judge let the names loose, I’m free to at least talk about being a finalist!

So, what does all this mean? The Writers of the Future Contest (WotF) is the best known contest for writers in the science fiction and fantasy genre looking to turn Pro. The contest is judged blind (meaning only the contest administrator knows which manuscript is yours, the judges do not). The manuscripts (I’ve heard that over 1,000 entries are submitted each quarter) are read by the coordinating judge who chooses 8 finalists. Those 8 stories are then sent on to 4 judges who rank them. The top 3 out of those 8 stories are called “winners” and definitely published in the yearly anthology. If there is room in the anthology there is a chance that a “non-winning” story could be published in the anthology.

So, my finalist story is now being looked at by four more judges (these judges are all huge names in the sci-fi/fantasy world) and I just have to hope that they like it enough so that I place in the top 3.

What does winning the contest mean besides the obvious professional publication?

1. Money. WotF pays more than almost any other short story publication, and even more if you’re the Gold Award winner. The Gold Award is about the same as many advances for a full novel!

2. Workshop. The contest pays for all its winners to attend a week long workshop followed by an awards ceremony usually held in Hollywood. They pay for the airfare, limo from the airport, hotel, and the workshop.

3. Networking. Not only the other winners, but one-on-one time with professionals during the workshop and I’ve heard at the bar after hours.

4. A wonderful professional writing credit that will help when I submit other short stories and novels to publishers.

So, at this point I have to wait and see if my story made top 3, hopefully I’ll know soon. And one more thing: I can’t thank Kris Rusch and Dean Wesley Smith enough, since I wrote my finalist story after taking their short story workshop!

2012 Writing Goals

This post is way easier to write than the life goals I just posted. Here I can really put some numbers down, and shoot for some quantifiable results.

Production:

1. Write daily with an average word count of 2,000 words. This isn’t too difficult for me, but may be ambitious depending on how crazy the day job gets. Other factors include those days when I’m trying to plot, or life happens. Maybe I’ll go for this then: 2,000 words/day, or 10,000 words/week. I know they aren’t the same, but at least with 10,000 words a week it gives me some leeway.

2. Short Stories – complete 12 short stories. This should be workable, and I would have set it higher if I didn’t want to concentrate on novels this year. In 2011 I stopped working on novels (the closest I came was a novella, but a short one really).

3. Novels – complete 3 novels. This too, shouldn’t be too difficult as I already have the ideas put together in my head or already somewhat plotted out. This gives me 3 months to write the novel, and 1/2 month planning in the beginning, and a 1/2 month for revisions at the end. This may be ambitious, but it’s something to aim for.

General:

4. Workshops and Conventions. I almost feel like I’m cheating here. I’m already signed up for World Con in Chicago as well as World Fantasy in Toronto. I’d love to attend the Kris and Dean Character Voice and Setting Workshop in March, but depending on how something else works out I may need to axe that one. Hopefully I’ll know soon if that work shop will be feasible for me this year. So, I think this goal is attainable one way or another, meaning: attend at least 1 workshop and 2 conventions.

5. Submit. Everything I start I must finish and then submit until the appropriate markets are exhausted. At that point, I’ll dive into e-publishing, but only once I’m satisfied the pro markets and select semi-pro markets are done.

6. Social Networking. Keep the website, blog, and Facebook up to date as well as Tweet a little more. This also means that I need to link these things so they update each other. I will also comment on other people’s blogs a little more. This is more of an ambiguous goal, but I’ll try to be better!

So, these are the writing goals I can think of right now, but it’s a starting point and now it’s been written down so I’m stuck!