The Writers Aspirant Accountability Thread

@jason Thank you, and thank you so much for this information!

A quick check in. I have 12 short stories out on submission, including my Q3 and Q4 entries, one held and my Q1 ready to go. I have a handful of agent queries out and am just over 8k into the next novel. I'm averaging a tad over 1k a day.

Posted by: @ease

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Following your lead, my goals for July are:

1. Don't go insane 
2. Finish first draft for Q4
3. Resubmit the three stories I have out, assuming they are Returned in time

In light of recent developments, my goals are shifting a little.

1. No longer as much of a concern (ish).
2. No longer destined for Q4, but will still be written for other markets.
3. Submission Grinders says they're due back, but I'm still waiting. Fingers crossed.
4. Query a dozen (or two) agents with my fantasy novel.

I know I have a unique opportunity here: nine months to do something that benefits from the release of Volume 40. But I'm flailing a little. Current plan is: write and send out a couple short stories, using what I've learned over the last couple quarters and related to my finished fantasy novel, while pitching that same novel in a naive hope there's some synergy. I also have another novel (or three) that I want to write, but I don't think I'll have the time. Personal life has chosen an inopportune moment to become busier than usual (including, but not even slightly limited to: my in-laws and nephew visiting for a whole month).

Any suggestions on projects that consume less effort/energy than an entire novel would be greatly appreciated!

@gideonpsmith, I noticed you put yourself out there for some critiques. Good on ya. I genuinely thinking critiquing is one of the only 'shortcuts' on improving as a writer. How are your other goals going?

@writhmic, on track to have Q4 plotted this month? Good aim with BCS: my favorite publication, by far. Great to read, and great to submit to.

@clfors, hope you haven't, and continue not to, sink! And hello from a fellow member of the four-kids club! They may make life wonderful, but they certainly don't make writing easy.

@joel-c-scoberg, made that decision yet? Any temptation to write a brand new story? 

@pdblake, fantastic work. Did you check out www.reddit.com/PubTips for any info on querying? Or have you queried before/done your research already?

@ajschultz6, @annax, @kz_richards, @toddjones, @storysinger, @physa, @pegeen, @kent, @jeschleicher, @sconn, @ericstallsworth, what are we writing this summer?

Posted by: @ease

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what are we writing this summer?  

Life, and family, are my priority right now. Nov last year my dad passed and that messed with my mind, which messed with my writing. Recently, my father in-law was in the hospital three (3) times in a couple months. He is doing better and at home. Now, my mother has been in the hospital for 12 days and she is touch and go.

I do have 70% of a story for Q4 written, but unsure if it right.  I did have a couple good ideas to fix up a HM, but want that to be Q1 submission.

So, not sure what I'm doing from day to day right now. 

Posted by: @toddjones

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Life, and family, are my priority right now

As they should be. Sorry to hear about all you've been through. Don't beat yourself up for stepping away from writing for as long as you need: the contest will still be here next quarter, and the next, and the next...

Posted by: @ease

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Posted by: @ease

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@gideonpsmith, I noticed you put yourself out there for some critiques. Good on ya. I genuinely thinking critiquing is one of the only 'shortcuts' on improving as a writer. How are your other goals going?

 

 

 

 

@ease

good question. What were my goals >> looks back at previous page<< ok right...

1. Am doing Clarion West flash fiction workshop so producing new flash every week.

- this has been a success. Well. Kind of. I *have* produced flash every week and had multiple people critiquing it. I'm not sure all of its been good and its been pretty hit or miss with people in our critique group participating but as far as the things I have control over - working really well - I have 100% shown up, I have done critiques others have asked for, and I have written a new 1500 word flash piece every week and offered it for critique.

2. First draft of Q4. I'm pretty certain I know what I'm doing for this. Unless it doesn't work once pen hits paper. 

So, yes and no. I have 100% completed a first draft of a 8000 word fantasy story which was originally intended to be my Q4 submission. I'm actually kind of happy with it, though it definitely still needs some work/polishing. Thing is, I think it might be not right for this competition - in fact one of my critiques even said that too. So Im waiting to see what the other person says, and if they, unprompted, also say that... time to go back to the drawing board as I like this one enough to prefer to submit elsewhere than change it at such a fundamental level to make it competition appropriate... so yes. I did a draft of Q4. But I think I'm back to square 1 with that and need to draft a whole new story from scratch. I still count that as a win as I like what I did.

3. Get some stuff critiqued as I am an underachiever in terms of letting other people see my work and I think I really need the wisdom of others to get anywhere in this contest (or elsewhere)

Oh I definitely did this. But I still definitely need to do more of it. Specifically I need to whip out a different Q4 contender and get someone to critique that.

Posted by: @ease

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Any suggestions on projects that consume less effort/energy than an entire novel would be greatly appreciated!

 

 

1. Add a writers bio to your web page.

2. Have you written your novels query letter?

3. Have you had people critique your query letter for your novel?

4. Have you worked on an elevator pitch or a twitter pitch for it?

5. If you do well with competition induced deadlines, how about finding some to keep you moving eg the monthly Apex flash one.

6. Remember you don't *always* have to be doing something. You do deserve to breathe and celebrate once in a while. Winning WotF sounds like as good a moment as any for that, at least to me.... ? 

@toddjones I just needed to give you my condolences on your loss and the health struggles in your family right now. A year isn’t a long time to be grieving. I lost my Dad in 2012 and it was crippling for a long time(and it is still acutely painful) I’m so sorry you know that same loss. 

Please be gentle with yourself and do what will help as opposed to adding more stress.  

@ease I have not sunk but I’m just barely doggie-paddling, lol. I think I’m going to see if I can get some critiques on the last piece I edited.

You have already gotten some great suggestion for new goals! And you definitely deserve to rest and celebrate too. I know I’ve already said it but congratulations again!

I haven’t jumped on here yet, so here’s some goals:

1. Finish draft one of my Q4 piece. I was so psyched about my Q3 piece, which had been in the editing cooker for almost a year, that after I submitted it I was like… right… I need a Q4. I have a plot, but my characters are eluding me.

2. Keep chipping away at my latest novel draft. This one has been fun to write, I just need to not let it drop.

Posted by: @clfors

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@toddjones I just needed to give you my condolences on your loss and the health struggles in your family right now. A year isn’t a long time to be grieving. I lost my Dad in 2012 and it was crippling for a long time(and it is still acutely painful) I’m so sorry you know that same loss. 

Please be gentle with yourself and do what will help as opposed to adding more stress.  

 

Thank you for your thoughts and kind words.  No matter how old you are, and I'm (cough ... cough) 52, losing a parent is tough. We are on the verge of losing three. This is the cycle of life and children are supposed to outlive their parents. 

@toddjones I’m so sorry. Anticipated doesn’t make it easy and being there for a struggling family member, especially while grieving, is all-consuming.

@toddjones ((hugs)) Yes, it is as it is supposed to be but it doesn’t hurt less because it’s the natural order. 

when I was a child I assumed that once you were grown up and your parents died it wasn’t as bad and would seem normal. But I was very wrong. Sending love to you and your family through this hard season.

@ease Thanks for the bump. 

Six gut-wrenching rejections this month had me off my feed for a couple of days. You'd think they'd take it easy around a guy's birthday.

1. Editing a backlog of stories after reading Libbie Hawker's Take Off Your Pants: Outline Your Books for Faster, Better Writing. I gained quite a bit of clarity as to recognizing what should be included/disincluded in stories.

2. After applying ^, and notes from a personal rejection, removed 2200 words from an SHM and sent it back out. Fingers crossed (so I'm having a hard time typing this).

3. Outlining fourth novel. Getting used to Hawker's method. Chapters, but nothing completed.

4. Got a sparkly bright idea for Q4 nearly outlined.

Posted by: @ease

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what are we writing this summer?

I have two stories out to pro-markets at the moment and about to edit an RWC for a third pro market which opens August 1 [looming closer every day... what happened to July???]. After contemplating the pattern I saw regarding a certain art piece and getting HM for IOTF, I finally revamped and submitted 3 new pieces for IOTF Q4. We'll see if I figured out why that one piece when included earns me an HM and when not included I get an R. I submitted a Q3 story for WOTF [new to the contest] and have a fall back for Q4 unless I can write a new story that's better for Q4 [still have time]. I had hoped my Q2 story would place higher than HM but... Based on the stats for how many HMs and SHMs it seems like Q2 was an especially competitive quarter. I've been reading an anthology of best sci-fi stories for 2018 and am hoping that it will improve my plotting and immersion of reader into character. My July KYD and new 3K story is in progress...

I don't have much else to add to what folks have been saying about losing a parent other than it sucks to be an orphan. Some of the energy I could be devoting to writing has been sucked into dealing with what my parents left behind [three years ago] in the house, associated buildings, and yard. It seems to never end [projects related to the fact my parents left so much stuff behind and us having decided to move in to their old house and make it ours]. But it is a good way to keep their memory alive. And we are working towards improving the property value for when we can no longer keep it going. Anyway hugs to @toddjones... I know how it is. It's tough to lose your best cheerleaders who love you unconditionally. It will have a deep effect for the rest of your life. For me, I seem to be writing stories about losing a parent more often than before 2020.

Posted by: @physa

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Anyway hugs to @toddjones

Thank you and to everyone for their best wishes. Losing my dad was tough, but I know it was the best for him not to suffer. My mom is getting better and if things go well she could be home in a few weeks. I'm in the hospital with her now and she wants me to read to her. Well, I guess I will start on that, "read your story out loud before submitting" task.  That made her smile.  She is thankful I found this group and didn't give up on writing. She is enjoying reading my stories and how much less red ink is needed during the edits.  haha 

@ease I'm querying UK agents only and I think the rules are a bit different to what most tips say for US agents. 

I've followed the info at absolute write and Jericho (?) Writers. 

Now two chapters into the next novel. Already forgotten about those subs, honest.? 

Not checking my email at all  

@toddjones I am very sorry to hear of your loss. It sounds like you are making special memories with your mum through your writing, and bringing joy to each other.

@ease thanks for the prompt (and remember us when your name is in lights ). I think I've made my decision...

My Q3 was a redraft of my Q1 HM because I ran out of time on a new story. I don't think my Q4 should also be a rewrite of my Q2, it would be only two stories this Vol (albeit my Q3 was quite heavily changed). I didn't want to resubmit the same story in the same volume, so don't want to do so again. I am refining my Q2 and am thinking of submitting it to Baen if it hasn't found a home before that opens. Otherwise, I can always have it up my sleeve should a future quarter need a submission. So, I'm going to finish a story I started many years ago and have never submitted to WotF. Versions of it have been submitted elsewhere, but looking back the drafts were pretty rough and I have grown a lot as a writer since then. Hopefully I now have the skill to deliver the story I have in my head. Time will tell.

@ease

Kudos to you for planning and hopefully fitting the writing into your busy schedule. You'll be happy later for the efforts you make today to keep writing. I know it's hard with family and work demands.  If there's a way to set boundaries so you have a chunk of time to shut the door and write, I bet everyone will survive. If nothing else works, send them out for ice cream. Get balloons so they can all go outside and throw water balloons.  Anything! Me? I'm doing three things. 1.) I'm cutting down on volunteer work. 10% of the volunteers in a group end up doing 90% of the work. I escaped one group after many years and I escape another one in 4 months.  I still will do a little. Boundaries! 2.) I am getting organized. Tonight I entered a lot of stuff on the Submission Grinder. I swear I will find every darn thing I ever wrote and figure out what to do with it.  I must make backups, and do rewrites, and keep a record of what I have. 3.) I'm starting to submit things. The more organized I get the easier it will be to keep up with submissions. On the naughty side, I got into a good library system so my Daniel Silva novel addiction took over my brain and I read 11 in the past month. (I already read half a dozen) So editing my novel went down the drain thanks to Daniel Silva.  On the bright side, there aren't that many more Daniel Silva novels, so in August I will be more productive.

Sorry @toddjones to read about your loss. You have my sympathy. (I was in a similar situation.)

Posted by: @ease

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@writhmic, on track to have Q4 plotted this month?

Plotted may be a strong word, but I do have an idea of where I want the story to go and how it *should* end. I'm not sure if it's a great fit for WotF so I'll probably write another story after instead and keep this one as a backup. I do have another idea half-plotted anyways.

As for my other goal, I got that story edited and submitted to BCS today so hopefully that goes well.

For August,

1. Get the rough draft of the story done

2. Finish editing my HM and send that somewhere

Thanks for this thread! It's really helped me track my progress - as slow as it seems week to week, seeing it month to month has been great. 

- The 6 week flash workshop I joined is almost at an end so that'll free up some time to write for WOTF. I'm really proud of the work I've done in it and have gotten some good feedback. 

- I'm still slogging through a story I thought I'd have ready for Q3. Instead, I ended up using a revised story from a few years back. I'm not sure if it'll get a RWC or make it to HM. But it's worth submitting every quarter! (at least that's what I tell myself)

I think I need to plot out my Q4 since it's been a struggle. I rarely plot. Q for those that do - do you just do bullet points? or the first sentence of a page, etc? Just curious what works. 

Posted by: @sconn

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Q for those that do - do you just do bullet points? or the first sentence of a page, etc? Just curious what works. 

I always plot out with bullet points. I do the beginning and the end first just so I know where I'm trying to go. Then I come up with the try fail cycles and that climactic plot twist. Minor details I usually don't include unless they're things I'm really excited about and know I will forget. Sometimes if I'm day dreaming, I end up thinking of some cool sentence and I jot that down as well.

Posted by: @sconn

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I rarely plot. Q for those that do - do you just do bullet points? or the first sentence of a page, etc? Just curious what works. 

Hey @sconn, I think there is every level of plotting possible and it depends what you are comfortable with, and by comfortable, I mean "find most useful". I've had this conversation with a few writers I exchange manuscripts with and some people's idea of plotting is ts exactly what you say bullet points, but some people take those bullet points to the level of acts (beginning, middle, end) some to scenes and some all the way down to paragraphs.

For me with short stories I will say I want to know the beginning and end points just like @writhmic does, but I tend not to plot the middle I just...write. And that generally works for me if I have a launch spot and a target, just because I tend to find it mechanical/not so much fun.

For novels I do it down to the chapter level, so much more involved plotting but that's because each chapter is like its own short story.

The biggest variation I have seen is in *what* people plot. Some peoples plotting is writing the actual sentences. Some people just plot out plot descriptors. And then there are those other weird ones of us who don't plot 'plot' so much as "whats the goal/conflict". That last approach works better for me, as it keeps me from filling in scenes which "happened" but just didn't carry the story forward

Happy August!

Are you all satisfied with what you got done in July?

I'll be the first to raise my hand and say I'm not! My wife started a new business, so I had to up my share of parenting our four hellions, and I then spent my limited writing time fussing with writing-adjacent activities, mostly listening to @gideonpsmith's suggestions. Query letter is ready, bar the 'comps'. I'm reading a potential comp now, and have another ordered from the library. I also took a little time off.

For August, my goals are:

• Finish they query letter and actually send it out.
• Rewrite the first two chapters of my novel (two of my wonderful beta readers, @storysinger and @physa, made me realize the main character doesn't appear in them for zero reason whatsoever... so now he's going to be the POV).

And that's it. Pretty reduced, but we have family visiting for the whole month and I'm still building a 50ft+ long wall that I started in June...

What are all of your goals for this proto-autumnal month?

On the subject of plotting, here's what I want to do:

• Write down character and character flaw and personality and most important relationships (subject to change)
• Write down conflict that presents opportunities for character to work on flaw and fail repeatedly
• Bullet point each inflection point of the arc
• Expand each bullet point to scene descriptions
• Triple check that it looks good/sound
• Expand each scene description into scenes
• Line edit

But here's the plotting I actually do:

• Think of a character with a flaw and a conflict that challenges them and their flaw
• Think of a setting
• Daydream about the two combined for hours on end (usually while driving: yay to driving 10-30 hours a week for work)
• Place self at keyboard and try to write down the most fun daydream as fast as possible, losing myself in the dream and completely forgetting all the writerly things I should be considering
• Revise many many times, fixing one or two writerly subjects with each revision

I believe the first method should enable a story in a day or two. The second method means each story takes 2 - 20 weeks. And that's for ~5k words. It might also be why my first novel has taken 21 years... I don't recommend method two.

Posted by: @ease

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mostly listening to @gideonpsmith's suggestions.

@ease

Glad it was helpful, but GOOD LORD DON'T LISTEN TO ME!! My two thirteen year old boys will happily tell you I'm a complete idiot. A fact they 'discovered' on becoming teenagers ? 

@ease 

My July goals went well!

1. I was doing the Clarion West Flash Fiction workshop so both writing and exchanging/critiquiing and getting critiques on lots of manuscripts so it was pretty productive I felt.

2. I planned drafting a new q4. I thought having to do a flash piece every week would push WotF work out the window. But actually, I was so focussed on short pieces (versus my novel) that though I *did* lose all focus on the novel, one of the pieces I tried to make a flash story ended up too long, and so, to me, seemed good for my Q4 and so that got critiqued and submitted already.

Hopefully, that means the extra bandwidth I will have until V41 Q1 can be used for re-focusing on novel writing. 

Goals for August:

I'm going to slow down in August. I have a family vacation and some work-stuff coming up which is going to make it a tough month for writing. Nevertheless:

1. Re-write the novel query letter. This one clearly isn't working.

2. Finish outline next novel. I have beginning and end, but the middle is still in a hazy mist right now. And not a good atmospheric mist. Just a soupy, no idea where I'm going haze.

3. Painfully, I also have a commissioned non-fiction piece I have to write and have been procrastinating on. Its deadline is August 24th, so somehow that *has* to get done. 

Thanks! Really helpful to know how everyone prefers to plot. I plotted my novel using bullet points but have always written shorts just by feel and I think that’s what’s holding me back. 

New goal for August to try plotting ?