Wastin’ away again in submissionville

Heh. Sounds like a song about bondage. Really, though, it’s me pining about submitting my manuscript to agents. For all my hand waving about not caring, I’m holding my breath while opening my email. Yep, I’m a sucker, waiting for that fateful “yes.” And I love those agents who say they’ll only respond if they’re interested in the query. So, I’ll never know if a non-response is a “no” or an email that got blocked by the agent’s spam filter. Of course, I tell myself it’s the spam filter… ^_^

In the meantime, I am comforted by my sparkly pencils and my netflix. Here, let the pencils comfort you as well.

So colorful…so sparkly…they make the waiting bearable. So, tell me, are you waiting on anything? Doesn’t have to be submissions.

And because I care about all of you, please take a gander at this article about drowning.

Speaking of waiting

I’m doing a little bit of waiting right now. There’s a contest I entered last month. The winners will be announced this weekend. I’m still waiting to see if IGMS will accept my story (pleasepleaseplease), and I’m waiting for the Writers League of Texas to update their 2010 conference page so I can sign up for an agent consultation. I have to make sure the one I pick takes my genre, after all.

I stopped going to conferences for a while. We didn’t really have the cash, but the WLT conference is a big one in Texas, and I don’t want to miss it. My first experience there was two years ago, and I still look upon it as a good one. My project was ultimately rejected by the agents I sent it to, but it was good to meet them in person just to prove that A) they’re real people and B) they’re not heartless banshees. Meeting agents in the flesh drove home the surety that they were just people doing a job.

If you ever have a chance to attend a conference at which agents are present, I highly recommend you go, so you can see for yourself. One tip, though, don’t follow them into the bathroom. ^_^ Not that I ever would, but I’ve heard stories. Spooky, spooky stories.

And look at that! Right as I made this post, the WLT updated their 2010 conference page! THE UNIVERSE OBEYS MY COMMANDS! Or not. Probably not. ^_^

Pretty cool

So, the winners of the Backspace Writers Conference scholarships are supposed to be announced today. I really hope I get picked. Wannnnaaaa goooooo! ^_^

In better news, I found out why IGMS never responded to my submission. Their editor had some extreme bad luck last year. Like, surgery followed by computer crash bad luck. They tell me my story is still under consideration, so fingers crossed! I would really love to be in that magazine.

In news of about the same level, the bridge building I spoke of in my last post is going well. I’ve decided to use action scenes to hurry the reader toward the ending. Plus, I’m adding a bit of much needed humor to break a little of the tension. I hope to get any readers very relaxed before I drop a bomb on them. ^_^

Anyone else have any good news? Feel free to shout-out here.

I completely skipped yesterday

Sorry about that. I know I meant to post, but I was too busy reading other blogs!

I took a class once on marketing oneself via the internet, and they recommended starting a blog, but they also warned about spending so much time reading other blogs that you did nothing else. I have to remember that one and not put internet time before writing time, even if that’s just writing my own blog.

I spent quite a bit of yesterday submitting, and I was amazed by the number of agents that still demand paper queries and still others who don’t have a website. I was leery of submitting to several who only had Agent Query or Publisher’s Marketplace entries, but as always, the Absolute Write Forums were my guide. An excellent source of information on agents or editors. Together with P&E and Writer’s Beware, they sniff out many a scam.

I was very surprised to learn that one of the biggest sci-fi reps, Spectrum, only takes paper queries. So many agencies have gone paperless, why not one that accepts queries about space age technology? Maybe they use this as part of their weeding process. If you’re too lazy to mail a letter, we don’t want you? Save a tree, I say, and not just because I AM lazy. ^_^

Haven’t heard back yet from IGMS about my story, but I got a rejection from Crossed Genres. But I still love them and will do so forever. ^_^ I got a request for pages from one agent one day after I sent the query and was rejected the next morning. Some of them have truly awesome turnarounds, and some will probably never respond. I’ve become almost sanguine about the whole thing, especially after reading this.

Waiting for the holidays to be over

So that I might begin submitting again. I know that editors and such are usually swamped at this time of the year, and I’ve read that quite a few of them try to clean out their massive pile of submissions before year’s end, so I think that, barring an immediate need to submit (such as a contest or a themed magazine that I have a story for) I will hold off until January and just work on my new project. I have some short stories that are so old, I don’t know if I’ll brush the cobwebs off ‘em or just shelve them. They may need too much help.

Sorry about that

I was feeling a little bad, and I had a lot to do over the weekend, so I didn’t post anything. Going down to Houston this afternoon. My husband gets his braces off tomorrow. Woo!

Anyway, I’m moving right along on my current project. I’m going to be out of town in early December, so you won’t hear from me for a week unless I can score some internet access in Seattle. I’m trying to get enough done on my project so that I won’t be way behind when I come back, either on my own schedule or my writing group‘s schedule.

I haven’t heard anything more from IGMS or the agents I’ve sent my work to. Maybe they’ve just slowed down for the holidays, although the agent who requested a full has had my MS for about eight months now, so I’m thinking about sending her a note. Of course, every single time I’ve done that, I’ve gotten a rejection immediately. It always makes me wonder if the agent or magazine editor in question had a pile she hadn’t gotten to yet, but when she got my query about my query, she dug mine out of the pile and stamped no on it, for whatever reason. I’m sure that even a polite “excuse me, it’s been eight months” can put an agent or editor out of sorts.

I don’t know for sure. I mean, plenty of them say they don’t mind, but is that really the case? When they’re overworked already, putting their speed into question is probably not a good idea. Whatever. She didn’t request an exclusive, so I’m free to keep sending it out.

A nibble in my inbox.

Eww, that sounds dirtier than I expected it to.

Anyway, here’s what I’m talking about. After Crossed Genres, I started submitting my short stories again, and I got a response to one this morning:

‘Thank you for offering your story “Presence” to IGMS. Our initial reader has read it and passed it on to our editor [...] for further consideration. You should be hearing from him shortly whether or not your story has been accepted.’

The original email has the name of the editor included, but since you sort of submit to all the editors at the magazine initially, I didn’t include it. IGMS stands for Orson Scott Card’s Intergalactic Medicine Show, and I’ve only submitted to it once before. I’m pretty excited about the prospect of getting in, but I’m trying not to get my hopes up too much. Keep your fingers crossed for me.

New novel is still going well. I’m still surfing on relief at being done with nano. Ahhhh.

And so, we’ve reached the waning

That’s mid-nano, for everyone who doesn’t know. Mid-nano is when everyone begins running out of juice. Luckily for me, I’ve reached mid-nano in the first week. Bragging? Maybe just a bit. Moreover, I’ve got the mid-nano blues, but instead of a “this is too hard” kind of blues, I’ve got the “why am I bothering” sort.

Don’t get me wrong. I like my new story. It was one I was going to write anyway. It’s the third in a trilogy. No one’s bought the first yet, no one may ever buy it, but I really love the universe I’ve created, so I’m going to keep writing books in it, even while writing other things.

I had an epiphany while writing it the other day. I’m working very hard right now, both to keep up with the nano (my goal is two weeks to 50K) and to edit my other novel that I’m submitting to my writing group. For a week, it felt wonderful. I could almost fool myself into believing that I was writing for work. (I call writing my job now, but most people that I’ve run into only use the word “job” if it includes the word “money”.) And I could pretend I was busy-busy because I had a publisher somewhere who was waiting for my draft. I imagined that I had deadlines that weren’t arbitrary, that weren’t created by me. Nano has a definite deadline, but I’m playing with that one, too, making it arbitrary.

I guess the fantasy is the thing that’s waning, and it’s making me a little melancholy. Not to worry, I’m sure I’ll be back on the horse again soon. At the moment, I’m mourning the loss of the fantasy more than anything.

Back from the Renaissance Festival

Which is what I was doing yesterday, instead of editing and blogging. ^_^ We had a lot of fun, despite the bit of sunburn. There was a man dressed up as one of the Spartans from 300. It was worth the price of admission.

Anyway. ^_^

Editing is going slower than I thought. I had forgotten that I included a completely different villain in the beginning. I lost interest in him halfway through. I remember thinking that if I lost interest, what chance did anyone else have? So I’m having to edit the ex-villain out, which is slowing me down a lot.

On the story front, I got a rejection today. No big. There are other magazines. Still hoping to hear good news from the agent who requested a full. Never say die, and all. Thanks to everyone who read my story in Crossed Genres. You’re aces.

Waiting *sigh*

Waiting to hear from the agent who requested a full. (And hoping for a yes!)

Ahem.

Waiting for my check and contract from Crossed Genres. I think I might cash the check and frame the money. I have a great amount of sentimentality for someone so sarcastic. But this one is a good kind of wait because I know it’s coming. ^_^

The agent thing is sort of a good kind of wait. I mean, it’s stressful, but it’s not a no. Waiting is better than a no, unless it’s waiting forever.

How do you handle waiting? Do you tear your hair out? Do you ignore it completely? Are you so busy working on your newest project that you forget you’ve even sent anything out? Or are you like me where you work on the next thing, but waiting is always there in the back of your mind?