Marian Allen's Blog, page 487
February 26, 2010
Filing Off The Serial Numbers.... My Journey To Publication, Part 2
Filing Off the Serial Numbers....
The next step was to put everything I'd learned to use in writing original fiction. I wrote a novel. It started out being a take-off on romantic suspense novels--what used to be called "Gothics"--with deliberately stereotyped characters and situations. As I wrote, though, I got interested in the characters and they started to develop. I got interested in the plot, and it started to take its own twists and turns. I got interested in writing the dialog, and the ...
The next step was to put everything I'd learned to use in writing original fiction. I wrote a novel. It started out being a take-off on romantic suspense novels--what used to be called "Gothics"--with deliberately stereotyped characters and situations. As I wrote, though, I got interested in the characters and they started to develop. I got interested in the plot, and it started to take its own twists and turns. I got interested in writing the dialog, and the ...
On To Publication.... My Journey To Sales, Part 3
Once I understood how short stories work (limited number of characters, limited duration OR telescoped time passage, limited backstory, larger proportion of text devoted to climactic scene), I felt more comfortable writing short fiction at the same time I was working on my novels.
A friend and fellow writer--the late, great Violet Windell--invited me to go to a Midwest Writers mini-workshop, a one-day local deal. It changed my life. The also late and also great Dick Stodghill presented a talk ...
A friend and fellow writer--the late, great Violet Windell--invited me to go to a Midwest Writers mini-workshop, a one-day local deal. It changed my life. The also late and also great Dick Stodghill presented a talk ...
Have I Got One Of Those?
First, write a lot of stories. If you only have one story in you, that's fine. Write that story and, if you believe in it, keep learning how to be the best writer you can be, keep improving that story, keep submitting that story to any market that looks good for it. Tell editors about it at conferences. Buttonhole people and tell them about it, like The Ancient Mariner did (If you haven't read Coleridge's looonnnng poem, "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner", I highly recommend it). Don't lose fa...
Tracking Submissions and Why
You're writing. You're writing and writing and writing and finishing the stories--that's important--and polishing them and having them looked over by people who can tell you the truth and you're not getting your feelings hurt or your ego slain. You have what we call a backlog or an inventory of pieces to submit. You can see that you would need to keep track of what is where.
You've written one story. It's polished as shiny as you can polish it. It's totally ready to send somewhere. You think i...
You've written one story. It's polished as shiny as you can polish it. It's totally ready to send somewhere. You think i...
Tracking Submission--Another Way
I'm told there are programs available for tracking submissions, but I'd rather waste time fiddling around making my own than do the smart thing and go find one. So here is what I did:
It's simply a table made in Word (or OpenOffice). I guess a program would be cooler and more elegant, but this works for me. It's just a table. Across the top are 12 columns for Story title, Type (f for fantasy, h for humor, etc.), Word Count, Publisher, e or p or a (electronic or print or audio), Date Sent, Date...
It's simply a table made in Word (or OpenOffice). I guess a program would be cooler and more elegant, but this works for me. It's just a table. Across the top are 12 columns for Story title, Type (f for fantasy, h for humor, etc.), Word Count, Publisher, e or p or a (electronic or print or audio), Date Sent, Date...
