Hypnagogic State

I ended up very short of my 50,000 word goal for November but I’m relatively happy with the progress I did make. Three stories completed- one of them now in final edits. And if I counted all the writing I do for my day job and the end of the semester writing explosion for university, then I hit the 50,000 mark the first week of November.

I’m going to leave the word tracker in the side bar because I’m hoping to have the 50,000 words of fiction goal met by the end of this month. I would like to have a solid dozen stories to send out at the beginning of the year.

This has been a quicksand week. The more productive I’ve been, the further behind I’ve fallen. At least there are no R.O.U.S. around. Yet.

The biggest time suck this week has been academia. I’m in the final stretch of a Journalism degree (got there from Biochemistry- my transcript looks like a Choose Your Own Adventure book) and am doing it via independent study. Independent study is lovely and accommodating but it also requires a great deal of tactical strategy, which I lack outside of FPS games. I’m currently finishing up a draft of my degree plan that is so rough I may need to provide an apology to my adviser.

On the writing front, I banged out most of another short story the other night and did quite a bit of research for it yesterday. It is set in a culture that I’m borderline familiar with and I want to be as accurate as possible both for the story and to quiet the heckler in my brain.

I have one story currently sitting with an editor at one of my favorite genre magazines. The editor emailed me this week asking to keep the story for a couple more weeks to give it a second read. I, of course, gave permission and I’m thrilled my story was considered worth a second read, especially at a time of the year that has to be absolute chaos for editors and slush readers.

And now back to work for my “day” job…

Five days into PaBeShStMo and I am, after a brief misstep, mostly on track regarding word count goals. I started yesterday horribly behind but pulled through with a 5,000 word short story written between the hours of one and four am.

That makes a bit over 9,000 words so far and three completed short stories. If I can keep up the pace without breaking my brain, November will have been a very productive month. Then it will be on to the editing blitz of December.

The review I mentioned here came out last night. I spent about five seconds licking my wounds before I got to work examining what I could do with some of the suggestions. I’m feeling pretty good about it today because the notes in the review made my mind go in directions it might not have without prodding. It finally dawned on me that there is a relatively simple way to fix a problem that in the story.

I’m tossing the edit of this piece in with my other PaBeShStMo projects. We’ll see how it goes.

NaNoWriMo is the still lengthy nickname for National Novel Writing Month. Writers all over the country (and some overseas strays) sign up to pledge that they will write 50,000 words of a novel between November 1st and midnight on November 30th. Entry is free, prizes are naught, and enthusiasm is high.

I signed up for NaNoWriMo  but realized as I was hitting the submit button that I have no need to write a novel now. I don’t have an idea at the moment that I feel I can carry through 50,000 words without losing quality or my mind. But what I do have is a fuckton* of short story ideas that keep piling up on top of each other. Story ideas that are fully mapped out in my brain but just need to get onto paper.

So I decided to do NaNoWriMo my way- as PaBeShStMo (Parker Betz Short Story Month, though it might also be the name of an imported ale). I will still write 50,000 words. At a rough estimate of 4,000 words per story, that gives me a loose goal of 13 stories (rounding up).

Am I missing out by not participating NaNoWriMo in the way it is intended? Possibly, but doubtful. I’m very sure that having thirteen short story drafts at the beginning of December is going to be more useful than having a novel I’m going to chuck into the virtual recycling bin.

I have three days to finish up the two drafts I have near completion now so they don’t get mowed over during PaBeShStMo. Then it is off onto a madcap race through dirigibles, yellow fever, brittle bone disease, and Tennessee Williams references. Not in the same story. (Yet.)

*SI unit equivalent to 1000 kilofucks.

Based on a recommendation from Christopher Green, I submitted my story “Nomenclature” to the crit group Online Writing Workshop for Science Fiction, Fantasy and Horror (or OWW). I’ve had the story at OWW for exactly three weeks and have received four critiques, two of which were very helpful.

I received word today that “Nomenclature” will be an Editor’s Choice story for this month’s OWW newsletter, which comes out on the 20th. I’m ashamed to say that I actually had to look up what that honor meant:

The Editors’ Choices are chosen from the submissions from the previous month that show the most potential or otherwise earn the admiration of our Resident Editors. Submissions in four categories–science fiction chapters, fantasy chapters, horror, and short stories — receive a detailed review, meant to be educational for others as well as the author.

I’m nervously excited to see who my reviewer is going to be. Last month’s Resident Editors included an editor from Strange Horizons. But I am more anxious to see what they have to say. The EC reviews are fairly detailed and it seems a rare opportunity for a writer on the bottom rung (such as myself) to have a chance at that sort of feedback.

My first rejection was fairly recent (early August) so I am adding it as the beginning of my 100 Rejections Project.

This one was very swiftly received from Clarkesworld. Form letter sent within a few days of submission. Choosing Clarkesworld for your first submission is akin to jumping into a whirlpool to learn to swim. You might succeed, but the chances aren’t in your favor.

Christopher Green had the brilliant idea of aiming for 100 story rejections in a year:

When I started out, I was even more naïve than I am now.  Why, I can still remember the look on Dan’s face when I confided to him that my goal for 2007 was to get twelve stories published.  Well, he didn’t slap me, and a lesser man would have.  I now know how silly that was, on a few levels.  My thoughts at the time went something along the lines of “I’m confident, I’ve “proven” I can write a workable story in a week, there are tons of markets out there, so how hard could it be?”  Well, apparently it’s very hard, especially if you only send in one story that year.  J

So, I have chosen to set my sights on other goals.  Peter’s also well known, at least to me, for being happy with rejection (submission wise.  Okay, that sounds wrong too, but you know what I mean…)  Now, I respect the hell out of this guy.  He’s extremely generous with his time, brainy as sin, and his stories sell because they’re friggin’ awesome.  Rejections for him are really feather in the cap stuff.  Dan too.

All this made me see how dumb it was to shoot for a given number of acceptances.  After all, my job is to write and send my stories to the appropriate markets.  I can’t control whether or not they get accepted.

So, here’s the deal, and you’re welcome to join in with me if you like.  Tomorrow is the first day of March, which leaves 10 full months of 2009.  So, here’s my challenge.

In 2009, I will get rejected 100 times.

Green started his tally in March and is currently at Rejection #53.  He wants to hit #100 by the end of the year. Talented as I may be at attracting rejection, my late start date to this game makes that deadline unfeasible. My “100 Rejection” deadline will instead be September 11, 2010.

Saturation is my primary goal in this project. To amass 100 rejections, I will have to put a large number of stories  in consideration circulation. With a month being the average response time of short story markets- and many of these markets not accepting simultaneous submissions- the publication process is not a stealthy one.

I differ greatly from Green in the fact that I have yet to be published. So this blog could either document my beginnings as a published writer or my utter failure to launch.