Tag: gods & fathers

On writing, rejection, and Pitch Wars (warning: maudlin)

I’ve been writing a lot more lately. You probably noticed.

A funny thing has happened — I’ve turned into one of those people whose happiness seems to be dependent on how well their writing is going. To be fair, I’ve always had a bit of this; it’s just that in the past, there were three states: “not writing,” “writing going well,” and “writing going poorly.” I seem to have collapsed the waveform since VP, for better or worse.

Matt has always pointed out that I have a lot of self-worth tied up in my writing, and it’s true. Probably too much. I don’t feel like I have much value if I’m not writing.

So I end up in these maudlin states where I’ve just gotten the fifth form rejection in as many days and everyone on Twitter is selling stuff except for me, and my non-writer friends are just looking at me like I’m this strange beast who doesn’t want to spend time with them.

I feel alienated from non-writers, and shabby next to writers, and universally unheard. Staring at social media only reminds me of this.

Up until now all my writing struggles have been internal — believing in my ability to tell a story, finishing a novel, editing a novel, etc. Now I am facing external obstacles, and positive attitude can only do so much.

I know I need to keep submitting if I ever want to be published. I know it’s largely a numbers game. I know (thanks, Kameron Hurley), that writing is “persisting in the game after you know what it’s really all about.” I know there are a million reasons why your story might not be accepted, even if it’s good.

And yet every time I wake up to a form rejection sent at 1am, probably from a first reader, I feel like I’m being punched in the gut. I feel like maybe my writing sucks, and no one will tell me straight up.

That’s the acute pain. The chronic, gnawing pain — or worry — is that I’m trying to sell stuff that’s not ready. That I should stop trying to sell it and do more revisions, instead.

I feel this most with Gods & Fathers. (The short stories I have out there, while certainly flawed, are basically to the point where I don’t know what or how to fix — truly they’ve escaped more than being released). I don’t query it much any more, because when you’ve queried something like 25 agents without even a single request for more pages, you begin to feel it has no worth. I know there are things I would do differently if I were writing this novel today; the beginning probably could benefit from some editing along these lines. Hell, it could be completely rewritten.

So I’m stymied, torn between sending out something that I am 90% certain won’t get a response vs. holding onto it for edits/rewrites I might never do. That, honestly, I don’t want to do. I kind of want to trunk it and move on.

And yet… I’m pretty sure that’s fear talking. And the stage of being a writer I’m at is all about feeling the fear and submitting anyways.

Which brings me to Pitch Wars.

You might remember I participated in this last year. My experience was… mixed. I met a lot of really, really cool writers, who I traded critiques with, and thus it was valuable in terms of creating community.

But honestly? I think the mentors didn’t give my MS a fair shake. (To be fair, I really only had about six mentors to pick from who accepted adult SFF; there might have been more appropriate choices if the field were larger). I only received comments from one mentor, and it was pretty clear they didn’t read more than the first page, and misunderstood what I was doing.

And yeah, mentors are busy volunteers, they don’t have to give comments, agents won’t give your MS a second glance, etc, etc. But it rankled. Once again my words had no value, and if they have no value, I have no value.

So Pitch Wars is here again. Despite my qualms, if Lioness were ready, I’d be trying with that, but it’s about 25k from being done. Maybe next year with that one.

A lot more adult mentors have been added this year, though, including at least one who might be a better fit for G&F. It’s tempting to try to go over that first chapter yet again, make it better, and submit.

But. Eh. I feel the same malaise here as when I think about querying. Why should I spend time on this when writing Lioness is so much more pleasurable and rewarding?

At least for now. At least until I try to sell it. At which point I’ll probably also encounter radio silence and realize that this isn’t going to be my breakout piece. I’m probably going to have to do this X more times, where X is a number between 1 and never.

Part of the reason this hurts so badly is because I keep hoping. Hope is a hell of a drug.

Look, I’m going to keep writing. I can’t not. But I often feel like being a successful writer is a game where the house always wins.

The State of the Writing (July 2015)

I’ve set various writing goals this year, and this post is to check my progress on them, since it’s now about halfway through the year.

In January I said I wanted to do something writing-related every day — at least 50% of the days. It looks like my current percentage is 42%, after some rough months (March and April, for example). Thankfully, I’m out of larp season now, so I hope I can be more consistent.

Let’s look at my novel projects:

Gods and Fathers. I’ve revised my query so many bloody times now I’m not even sure what this book is about, but still no bites from agents. I’m tempted to trunk it (or self-pub it, since there’s at least some interest among my friends), but I also feel like I haven’t queried as many agents as I could. And I haven’t sent it directly to any publishers, certainly.

I think if I started this novel today, it’d be exceptionally different, and I’d handle certain cultural/ethnic concerns better. I don’t think it’s offensive or anything, but I suspect there are parts people could squint at and say, “Really?”

Maybe that’s the signal I should put it aside. I don’t know. I’m a terrible judge of my own writing.

Lioness Embarked, on the other hand, is going very well at the moment. I just passed 63k yesterday night. At the end of April I decided to participate in the Codex Novel Contest, setting a goal (roughly) of 10k words per month until the contest ends in December.

However, in May I logged only 3k words, and in June about 5k. (Thanks, larp season!) To try to get back on schedule, I’m doing Camp NaNoWriMo this month. I have to write about ~700 words per day to make up for May and June’s missed words and get July’s done — a total of 21,600 words.

Of course, this is assuming a book of about 110k words, which may be more than I need. It may be less than I need, too, though, which is the concern.

So far, a week into the month, it’s been challenging, but I remain more or less on track! We’ll see it this can hold up through Readercon and the Shadows one-day, which are my big time-sucks this month.

Eventually I am going to need more alpha and/or beta readers. Right now I have my writing group, and EB, basically. These folks have valuable feedback, but I’d especially like some transfolk as readers, since there’s a character who identifies that way in this novel, and I worry I’m doin’ it wrong.

If you’re interested in trying on the role of alpha reader — reading as I produce pages — but aren’t sure if you can commit to 100k words of my deathless prose, let me know, and I’ll send you the first chapter. You can decide from there if you want to continue. I’ve been pitching this novel as “a fantasy genderqueer retelling of The Three Musketeers from the perspective of the series’ antagonists,” so if that sounds like your cuppa, let me know.

If you’re interested, but want to wait until the novel’s finished, let me know, too, although I’ll probably forget between now and then and ask again later 😉

Short Fiction

I just submitted “Powder of Sympathy” to Lackington’s for their Dreamings issue. This is the second place I’ve submitted it — it’s only a semipro market, but the theme fit, and the submission window was closing. Given pieces I know were rejected, I suspect I’m going to get the “how is this connected to theme?” rejection (because it requires somewhat of a careful reading to see).

This story is flawed. (Every story is flawed). But dammit, my Dunsanian imitation is pretty dang good, and I wish someone would appreciate it.

I had a few people read the flash pieces that came out of the Codex Weekend Warrior contest–“Remember to Die” and “Handedness.” The consensus seemed to be that “Remember to Die” was the stronger piece, and “Handedness” felt a little too derivative SF.

Given that, I decided to focus on “Remember to Die.” I’ve made some edits which I think strengthened the beginning, but probably botched the ending even worse. I need to take another pass at that, but I’d like to get it out to DSF this week.

Codex is doing its summer flash contest this month, but pretty much all the dates conflict with larp and fandom commitments.

I have three sad, half-finished short pieces in the world of Gods & Fathers and Lioness which I will not be focusing on any time soon. They’re the kind of things that are only interesting if you’ve read the novels, though, and I don’t think they can stand alone.

Other than that, the other short fiction I’ve written this year has been a couple of Fifth Gate ficlets and “The Little Dutch Boy,” the purposefully terribad historical smut I wrote for a burlesque show.

Poetry

I’ve written a few poems since the start of the year, but still no idea what to do with them. Mostly I write poetry because I can’t not, rather than to do anything with it.

Executive summary

I’m behind on my goals. No surprise there. I need to have more reasonable expectations for larp season, it seems. On the up side, my year-over-year “doing something writing-related daily” percentage is up 6%.

I am still optimistic about finishing Lioness this year. I’m less optimistic about… well, everything else.

I still struggle with submitting my work. A lot. This topic has got me thinking about the “gates of writing,” the obstacles one has to overcome on the path to being a published writer. I’ll probably have a post on that in the future, but suffice it to say, that is the gate I am trying to pass through now.

Pluses and minuses, February 18, 2015

– Winter is seriously depressing me. We’ve gotten more than six feet in just the past month, and it looks like Snowpiercer outside my window. (Regrettably, I don’t even get Chris Evans as a consolation prize).

– As I’ve posted elsewhere, snow canceled my trip to Boskone. Poop.

+ Melatonin seems to be working well, which means that I can actually get up at a decent hour again.

+ I reached 48,000 words on Lioness, and revealed one of the Big Reveals of the novel.

+/- Received a rejection on another G&F query/partial I had sent for #PitMad, back in December. On one hand, rejection; on the other hand, it was personal and very kind, and this after I had forgotten I even had it out there.

– In about a month, I will have been querying G&F for a year, on and off. At some point I suppose I have to give up. But at the same time, I’ve only queried like twenty agents over that time, so.

– I’m still really not getting much out of reading A Game of Thrones. Sorry, fans. If I had come to it earlier in life, I might have, but at this point I don’t want any more fantasy worlds where women are this marginalized.

It’s funny, because I LIKE the female POV characters, and they don’t lack agency, at all. I have nothing but good to say about Catelyn, Daenerys, or Arya. Even Sansa!

But then there are the bit parts for women, which seem limited to “serving wench,” and “whore.” There’s the constant use of “slut” and “whore.” There’s the constant threat of rape and child mutilation thrown around for funsies. And sure, yeah, we’re clearly SUPPOSED to have our skin crawl around Viserys, and his use of same, but… it’s just tiresome. Really fucking tiresome. I keep rolling my eyes and wishing for [SPOILER] to happen quicker.

And maybe it gets better in later novels, but… I just don’t care enough to find out? If I’m going to read gritty and grimdark, I’ll go back to reading Joe Abercrombie, because at least I’m pretty sure he’s doing trope reversal.

+ I finished listening to The Broken Kingdoms, at long last. Sorry it took me so long, but that middle section, where Oree is with the New Lights, just draaaaagged for me. That said, the ending was exciting, and the novel is a study in how to do multiple ending beats well.

And yeah, it’s utterly ridiculous that there is no audiobook for The Kingdom of the Gods. Booooo.

+ I started listening to Laini Taylor’s Daughter of Smoke and Bone yesterday, which was recommended to me by… I don’t remember who. So far, I’m enjoying it. The narrator, Khristine Hvam, is just superb.

Is this supposed to be YA? I find it hard to believe, with all the talk of dicks in the first few chapters. And yet, YA certainly is edgier than it was when I was a teen… Anyway, Karou is clearly a female wish fulfillment character, and I am totally okay with that. More than okay, actually — I think there need to be more of them, so long as they are interesting characters in their own right. And Karou is! The only weirdness is when she displays a very… external view of her physical body, describing herself like a third-party would describe her. That sort of makes me frown. But we’ll see where it’s going…

+ I have tickets — in the third row! — to see the live Night Vale show in March.

+ Writing group this Thursday. Assuming it doesn’t get snowed out…

+ I’ve gotten Falanu nearly to 50 in TESO.