Discussion: Q1 Volume 38

I'm in. My first readers say this is their favorite story of mine. We'll see if Dave agrees.

And I'm in. One of these days it would be nice to have something done a bit before the deadline ... Oh well. I'm glad that I got a new story in!

I'm in. Best of luck everyone.

I'm in. Spent all day trying to address the issues from the critiques while staying true to what I wanted. Good luck everyone!

I'm in, with time to spare. Ignoring the voice in my head that's telling me I should have done one more pass. Good luck to all, and Happy New Year! 2021 has got to be an improvement.

I am in too. Again I say some of my best writing I think anyway. Better than good-

Glad to see you made it, LouisD!

Submitted. I knew I was going to be cutting it close, but I didn't think it'd be that close! I'm so glad I got it in, though.

Just submitted - good luck to everyone!

Submitted and can finally close out all my research tabs. Good luck to us all!

I'm in, but not in here. I submitted four stories today, and I'm done before the midnight deadline! You see? Working to meet deadlines never ends. The training in here will serve you well. : )

My very best to all of you this quarter. I've seen a bunch of the stories being submitted. You guys are great writers. I wish more than three could be acknowledged each quarter, but lines have to be drawn somewhere.

Now take a few days off and go write your next! To never miss a quarter, you have to keep writing each quarter. : )

I talk about you guys in the WotF Podcast! Tune in next week. Same bat time, same bat channel!

All the beast!

Wulf Moon

I'm in! Thanks to everyone who helped me with this one. And good luck all! Please have a Happy New Year! (please please please...)

Submitted for the first time ever. Feels good.
At this point I'm not even particularly concerned about placing, I just feel happy I had the balls to send it out into the universe.

I'm in Huge thanks to Moon for the KYD exercises! I edited off five thousand words of my 13k monstrosity that got rejected last quarter

I subbed a story with hours to go. Best to everyone that's in this quarter.

I submitted! I don't have any expectations for this one, but it feels good to have gotten another idea on the page and met the deadline. Onward!

Submitted for the first time ever. Feels good.
At this point I'm not even particularly concerned about placing, I just feel happy I had the balls to send it out into the universe.

Hey, congratulations on your first submission! That's a great way to think of it.

Best of luck to everyone!

I'm in Huge thanks to Moon for the KYD exercises! I edited off five thousand words of my 13k monstrosity that got rejected last quarter

Good for you! That’s the secret power of training in KYD. You can apply the skill to your larger works and trim the fat. Well done and much success, Hemoine!

This year has been the best and the worst. It started looking routine, then came the lockdown. I "Worked From Home" with no responsibilities every other week for six weeks. I wrote three stories and for the first time started submitting to various markets. My very first submission, which was for non-professional pay was accepted. All three of my submissions to The Contest received HM's. By the end of summer the party was over. I was sent home for two weeks because most of the USA Pacific Northwest was in flames. It was so thick here that management didn't want the entry doors opening and closing, letting unfiltered smoke into the buildings. I didn't write anything. I've been lonely for too long, it's affected my creativity. I swore I'd never submit a rewrite to The Contest but the best I could do this time is tack a new and hopefully better ending onto my Q3 entry. So I'm in Q1 V38. I have ideas for Q2, we'll see how that goes. To all who read this, may 2021 be a bumper year!

This year has been the best and the worst. It started looking routine, then came the lockdown. I "Worked From Home" with no responsibilities every other week for six weeks. I wrote three stories and for the first time started submitting to various markets. My very first submission, which was for non-professional pay was accepted. All three of my submissions to The Contest received HM's. By the end of summer the party was over. I was sent home for two weeks because most of the USA Pacific Northwest was in flames. It was so thick here that management didn't want the entry doors opening and closing, letting unfiltered smoke into the buildings. I didn't write anything. I've been lonely for too long, it's affected my creativity. I swore I'd never submit a rewrite to The Contest but the best I could do this time is tack a new and hopefully better ending onto my Q3 entry. So I'm in Q1 V38. I have ideas for Q2, we'll see how that goes. To all who read this, may 2021 be a bumper year!

I'm sorry things have been so hard. (Believe me, I've felt it too--just in different ways. Twin toddlers and no babysitters with the exception of a few careful months in the summer... boy oh boy, it's been hard to find time to myself.)

For the record, there's nothing wrong with submitting rewrites. I know some people who won with fresh stories, but I know other people who won after revising stories they'd previously submitted. As long as you're entering, you've got a chance. I hope things go better for you in the year to come!

I hope things go better for you in the year to come!

I appreciate the kind words.

My goal is to improve as a writer. My gut says that reworking old stories is the slower path to mastery. This is one market where there's no slush pile. Once a story is submitted it will be read and ranked. Plus if it gets a mention of some sort, that can go in the cover letter when submitting elsewhere which might get it read, an important consideration for a 64 year old rookie like me. I take comfort in the fact that the ending is a complete departure from the original. We'll see.

After some light edits and touch ups (thank you, reviewers) I eleventh-hour submitted last quarter’s SHM. I don’t feel like I got it to publishable quality, but perhaps elevated it enough to get personalized feedback? :shrug:

Either way, better than nothing, I hope.

From what I've read, if they read it through completely, it's typically at least a HM.

So, if you didn't get a placing, it may not be the end that's the issue, because they probably never got that far.

Mr H, I appreciate that you're trying to help me.

The story in question was an HM in Q2. I rewrote the ending after reading a short story by David Farland. My story was originally pretty upbeat but David's was a straight tragedy. Hopefully my new ending is more emotionally engaging.

In the last five years I've spent a lot of my free time in critique groups, taking adult ed classes, reading published stories in magazines, and studying books like How to Write Short Fiction by Damon Knight.

I'm committed to the idea of submitting something new every quarter. That's only four stories a year, an extremely modest goal. The current situation has been hard to deal with emotionally and my creativity has suffered. Hopefully I'll figure out a way to get back to my usual volume of 'words in a row' soon. My unexpressed story ideas are rioting.

Good for you! That’s the secret power of training in KYD. You can apply the skill to your larger works and trim the fat. Well done and much success, Hemoine!

Thanks
Hoping to break that darn streak of rejections...

Glad to see you made it, LouisD!

Thank you. Even though I was offline for this forum I did enter the last two quarters. Plus a large number before them. At least I got a compliment by one of the critiquers this time.

Agathon,

I am now following you on Amazon (does that make me a stalker?).

Here's the link for folks to check out your antho:
https://www.amazon.com/Escape-collectio ... 08N1RXP72/

I submitted at 3am on 1st January. Don't worry, that was UK time! I submitted later than planned given I thought my story was pretty much finished going into the last couple of days. But I ended up making a few small changes on my final readthroughs. I'd lost all creativity by December and probably spent more time writing this story than any other, though I feel positive about equalling my best or levelling up, or equally that I could get a straight R. Exciting times!

I didn't get a confirmation... oh dear. That's never happened before. Should I email Joni? Or... just submit it in the next quarter....

Uh oh. I would email Joni--definitely.

Might be it just didn't go out yet, though. Since I'm paranoid, I usually go back into the site and click Enter Writers of the Future Contest, and if it tells me that my submission has been processed, I relax. I advise you to do that; also, check your spam mail.

I submitted at 3am on 1st January. Don't worry, that was UK time! I submitted later than planned given I thought my story was pretty much finished going into the last couple of days. But I ended up making a few small changes on my final readthroughs. I'd lost all creativity by December and probably spent more time writing this story than any other, though I feel positive about equalling my best or levelling up, or equally that I could get a straight R. Exciting times!

Good luck, Alex! I ended up submitting on the 30th. I'm never sure whether the very long or very short ones will go over well, but I figured I may as well mix things up a bit. So short for me this time. I hit an exact 350 during edits, said, "that's fate" and made that my stopping point. LOL

Here's to 2021 being a great year with lots of forum winners!!!
--Tracy

Update - Joni says she hasn't sent out all the confirmations yet. Phew. Fingers crossed I get one soon haha