The Writers Aspirant Accountability Thread

@gideonpsmith No worries, the title got me there.  I read through the first shift.  I know you said 3rd POV, but I had shifting firsts in my head.  Faulkner's As I Lay Dying came to mind. More recently I read the Red Rising series.  I believe the last 3 were all written in shifting 1st Person.

Fantastic work on the self-reporting, all. It feels contradictorily good to stamp an objective with FAIL, doesn't it? Like you're hammering the last nail of the coffin home, sealing that failure away in last month and allowing yourself to move onto more success this month! But for those few fails that have cropped up, I'm seeing so much writing being done, so who gives a frick! I'm glad we're all on this path together.

@ajschultz6, @clfors, @writhmic,  @annax, @kz_richards, @toddjones, @storysinger, @physa, @pegeen, @kent, @jeschleicher, @sconn, @ericstallsworth, @olivia-ava, how did your February go? What are you doing in March?

Bear in mind, there's one month left of this quarter. Plenty of time to plot, pen, and polish another wonderful story. My inbox is always open for opening critiques, pro bono.

For my own accountability, I had but one simple goal: write 6000 words. I did this (~12,500 fiction, plus ~2200 non-fiction) and submitted my full manuscript to a publisher. I should've submitted to some short stories too, but I was too 'busy' (read: lazy). I did get all the immigration paperwork sorted, though. Now to wait for either a pretty green card or an angry ICE agent to show up at my house.

For March, the same uninspired goal. 6000 words. I'd like to do more, but I have family coming to stay for two weeks.

And @tj_knight, I think there is a POV switch in mine. Transhumanists might disagree, but Purists would definitely say so.

I met my February goal to finish the story I was working on and start Q2. As an added bonus, I also revised two older stories and sent them back out (any excuse to not work on Q2 it seems). My goal for March is to finish Q2 and send my novel out to some beta readers. 

Posted by: @gideonpsmith

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Posted by: @abeona

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@gideonpsmith Thanks, I'll check it out.  Looks like it's Vol 33 though, for anyone else interested.  Moonlight One

right! first story in volume 33.  not sure why i said 31. age no doubt

 

Or because 31 is awesome and you wanted to draw people to it, even subconsciously.  

My goal for March is

Write a short children's story that popped into my head in the middle of the night and kept me awake for a couple hours.

And, I am resigned to the fact my Q2 won't be ready to submit, so I'm going to just focus on finish the first draft of my intended story for next quarter.  Inspiration finally struck.  My revised/shortened story will still be longer than average submissions, probably.  Plus, I want to explore a couple new things that some say are challenging for new authors to do well, flashbacks and breaking the 4th wall.  My current vision also violates the suggestion that it should be in 3rd person so I expect to tread carefully.  If I can put the first draft on the shelf before April, I'll consider it a success.

Posted by: @tj_knight

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Posted by: @gideonpsmith

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Posted by: @abeona

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@gideonpsmith Thanks, I'll check it out.  Looks like it's Vol 33 though, for anyone else interested.  Moonlight One

right! first story in volume 33.  not sure why i said 31. age no doubt

 

Or because 31 is awesome and you wanted to draw people to it, even subconsciously.  

 

Right again @tj_knight ! 

They are both currently loaded in my kindle so dissecting the stories from that excellent volume probably is where the braain cross-wiring came in 😉

Posted by: @abeona

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@gideonpsmith No worries, the title got me there.  I read through the first shift.  I know you said 3rd POV, but I had shifting firsts in my head.  Faulkner's As I Lay Dying came to mind. More recently I read the Red Rising series.  I believe the last 3 were all written in shifting 1st Person.

It opens "Gwen Kennedy dreamed that she lay on white sand..."

Second paragraph is

"Isn't this perfect?" she asked.

So we are being told about Gwen, and she is referred to as "she" so that's why I said 3rd person.

If it had been first person, shifting or otherwise, I would have expected 

"I dreamed that I lay on white sands..."

Second paragraph

"Isn't it perfect?" I said.

If I'm wrong would welcome where I am misunderstanding POV. I certainly don't claim expertise.

@gideonpsmith No,no, I wasn't correcting you.  Your post was spot on.  When I read your post, I totally spaced out where you wrote "3rd" So, when I read the Moonlight it was a shock as I was mistakenly expecting 1st.  I had to read to that first shift where the POV became clear to me.  It's nuanced.  I did some reading and learned that there is something between 3rd limited and 3rd omniscient.  They call it "deep third?"

I got to learn something new.  I love it. My gratitude to you.

<edited for clarity>

Posted by: @abeona

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@gideonpsmith No,no, I wasn't correcting you.  Your post was spot on.  When I read your post, I totally spaced out where you wrote "3rd" So, when I read the Moonlight it was a shock as I was mistakenly expecting 1st.  I had to read to that first shift where the POV became clear to me.  It's nuanced.  I did some reading and learned that there is something between 3rd limited and 3rd omniscient.  They call it "deep third?"

I got to learn something new.  I love it. My gratitude to you.

<edited for clarity>

 

hell, we're all just learning 😉   I know I'm certainly here to swap ideas and learn. Thanks for dialoguing on this one

(I also just learned 'dialoguing' is not how I would have spelled it...!)

1. Read 3 short stories (I fully expect myself to fall into a BCS reading binge, but hopefully I can read at least one from some other magazine)

A partial fail. I read a little of a bunch of stories but never quite finished any of them. And most were from BCS.

2. I recently loaned a copy of Wonderbook so I'd like to read at least half the book

Fail. I looked at the cover of the book every day (its sitting next to me right now, too), but never got around to actually opening it.

3. Critique a forumite's story

Done! It felt good to get back into critiquing. Oddly enough, I forgot this was one of my goals, but I did it anyways! If anyone wants a look at their first 450, I'm happy to give it a read no swap needed.

4. Plot a story for Q2

I have ideas. Most of them are just titles. But this was a huge fail. Though I have many places to jump off of, none of them excite me enough to take that leap. At this rate, the cliff will have to crumble beneath my feet (a metaphor for the deadline?).

5. Write the first 450 if I'm feeling frisky

Well #4 was a fail so...

This month, my goal is to just write and submit a story for Q2 but I know even that will be a challenge. Worst case, I'll just pull something from the back of the closet where the monsters hide and submit it.

My March so far is much like my February. I will have to admit I read more about how to write than actually writing this past February. Hopefully I'm at a place where I can really concentrate on my Q2 story starting tomorrow. Today is Wednesday and Wednesdays are long days this semester. Why did I agree to teach an intro bio class with two labs as an adjunct? After this semester I swear, no more adjunct work. I shall remain retired. 

I think my role as contest director and registrar for southeastern writers association has calmed down a good bit now. January and into early February there was a lot of fretting that our new website wouldn't be ready in time for us to have a successful June meeting. February there was a good bit of activity regarding contest submissions and registrations, but I think I've got the hang of it now and when new stuff comes in I'm all over it, very organized. All in all, I'd much rather be working on contest submissions to SWA instead of managing the submissions coming in. So much more fun.

Anyway the other things I've been working on is getting my author website up and running [I went with Squarespace because of the SWA website so I can better understand how to update things there]. It went live February 29 [see signature line for link if you are curious]. I'm anxiously awaiting a shipment of an anthology my Baba Yaga story is in so I have something for the bookstore at the SWA meeting. I have plans to get a novel or two self published in time to bring with me, too [as soon as I get my Q2 story written and submitted I intend to do some editing and such on those novels]. I figured out how to make and print bookmarks [back and front, 4 to a page on card stock]. 

I do have a rough idea for my Q2 story which is somewhat inspired by Fawty Towers [we just finished watching all of those episodes on DVD].

I'm still using the professional edits I received from my Q1 story [after I submitted it I sent it to 2 pros to see where my writing is]. It's nice to know what I need work on in order to improve my short story writing game. I've decided based on what they pointed out that I should focus more on quality and less on quantity. So many things a short story needs to have to be competitive. So many things! To work on: experiential POV action, emotions leading up to and during climax scene, double checking the verisimilitude of the background details. Things like that. So... I've been doing a lot more thinking about writing than actual writing. 

Anyway, starting tomorrow [Thursdays are free days for me], I intend to really get cracking on my Q2 story. We'll see what I can come up with by the deadline. I will have a lot more time to craft a solid Q3 story [there will be a Spring break and the semester will wind down, pshew!].

@writhmic sorry February didn't go as planned. But good news, March is 2 days longer! I believe you can get a fresh Q2 written in time, but if not, definitely grab one of those trunk stories and send it in. You can't win if you don't enter!

And lovely website @physa. How wonderful that your first blogpost can be about a sale! And I'm envious of those pro edits. I hope they enable you to really elevate your writing.

Okay, this is about 9 months late, but here's the latest update of the V39 analysis, now featuring length, POV, tense, and more, all wrapped up in a convenient spreadsheet format.

Voume 39 Analysis

And if anyone beta read V40, please get in touch! 

Posted by: @ease

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Okay, this is about 9 months late, but here's the latest update of the V39 analysis, now featuring length, POV, tense, and more, all wrapped up in a convenient spreadsheet format.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1pGeQWCduC52j-p42igU3mlrZYt8K4Q8bzgpONdolT9I/edit?usp=sharing

Wow! that's amazing @ease! Pretty soon we'll be reading your story in Volume 40. Can't wait!

@ease This is so cool and interesting! Thank you for putting all this information in one place. Quick way to see what my favourite stories have in common.

Posted by: @ease

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Okay, this is about 9 months late, but here's the latest update of the V39 analysis, now featuring length, POV, tense, and more, all wrapped up in a convenient spreadsheet format.

Voume 39 Analysis

This is awesome! Thanks for doing this!

@ease Thanks for the data compilation.  Any way you could add each story's Q and place?  ie Q1-1st, Q3-Grand etc?

@abeona great suggestion! I'll be sure to do that soon.

@ajschultz6, @clfors, @writhmic, @pdblake, @annax, @kz_richards, @toddjones, @joel-c-scoberg, @storysinger, @physa, @pegeen, @kent, @sconn, @gideonpsmith, @ericstallsworth, @hannya, @tiinag, @olivia-ava, @abeona - how are we all doing with our Q2s?

Two weeks left

That doesn't sound like a lot, but it can be! Moon finished his winner in a day. Many of the WotF workshop 24-hour stories sell to pro-paying markets.

As always, my inbox is open to a pro-bono critique of your first 450 words. Make sure to say it's for Q2 so I shift it to the top of my reading list. 

The very best luck to all of you!

@ease ugh! I'm trying, I'm trying!

@ease Still a lot of work ahead of me. Quite honestly, I am unsure if I have have the skills yet to write this story the way I want to write it, but I'll keep trying to mould it and see where I am in two weeks.

@ease  already in. Plus I've got a good idea for the next one.

@ease I ran out of creative juice on this one, but I have a 14-hour drive next weekend, and my plan is to polish it up then and hope for the best.

Another R for me from a HM resubmit.

I need to shake that off and keeping editing/writing my Q2 new story.

No more resubmits for me.

@ajschultz6, @clfors, @writhmic, @pdblake, @annax, @kz_richards, @toddjones, @joel-c-scoberg, @storysinger, @physa, @pegeen, @kent, @sconn, @gideonpsmith, @ericstallsworth, @hannya, @tiinag, @olivia-ava, @abeona 

Do not resubmit prior stories unless: you have significantly rewritten them (especially the beginning, and anything that may have checked one of the RWC comments) OR you really really have nothing else to submit.

Consider this Ease's second rule of WotF, superceded only by my first rule: submit every quarter. (Hence why it's okay to resubmit if you have nothing else... but only if your really really have nothing else).

The water churning in the rumormill burbles that one submitter last quarter received a letter explicitly telling them to retire their resubmitted story or wait at least six months after editing, and this was a previously well-awarded story. Yes, this is a departure from previous thoughts on resubmitting. But we shouldn't be surprised, the coordinating judge has changed and the slush team has grown.

WotF is a market, just like anywhere else, and that requires some aim. Is that ideal for our fragile artist writer hearts? Not always. But it is how it is. 

@ease thanks for this update: "one submitter last quarter received a letter explicitly telling them to retire their resubmitted story or wait at least six months after editing, and this was a previously well-awarded story". That is certainly something to consider going forward.  

I really, really recommend writing a new story.

I don't think it's a matter of quality over quantity.

I look back at the stories I wrote when I was first starting, and I can tell you, after having written many stories since (and, of course, taking tons of classes and incorporating what I've learned), my craft now is so much better.

One of the things that really jumpstarted me was a story-per-week challenge. One finished story, per week, for a year. A few of them--that I wrote for specific markets--did sell. The rest I bundled as collections.

Would my writing have improved so much if I'd revised and revised just one story? I sincerely doubt it.

Write the best story you can at this point in your craft, and set it free. Move on to the next.

@stephcat Wow! A story of week for a whole year? That’s very impressive. If I survive my year of one story per month, I may have to try that.

I’ve never resubmitted a story to WotF, and I agree that I wouldn’t learn as much from doing so. I’d also hate to waste a quarter on something I’ve already sent them when a fresh story might have a better shot. 

Posted by: @kz_richards

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@stephcat Wow! A story of week for a whole year?

It's the Ray Bradbury challenge! I thought about it once. But I also know I did a summer workshop where I wrote 1 flash per week for 6 weeks and at the end my brain was fried and I was writing stories that were...hmmm. All were just first drafts too, so not usable for submission anywhere in their day 7 state. I love the concept of a new story a week, but for my process at least, that's a *lot*

@gideonpsmith I seriously might have to try it. I participated in a writing contest two years ago where we had to write a story to a prompt every weekend for several weeks, and mine got better each time. Sure, it dominated the weekend—Friday plotting, Saturday writing, Sunday polishing—but it was a good forcing function for me. I’ll have to keep the Ray Bradbury challenge in mind.