Aeryn Rudel's Blog, page 14

Aeryn’s Archives: Dragon #427 (My D&D Swansong)

Looking back over my published credits, there’s one that sticks out, a bittersweet entry in my 15-plus years of professional writing. It’s the final article I published with Wizards of the Coast for Dungeons & Dragons, and it happened in September of 2013, in Dragon #427.

My article in this issue (which is also the cover image) is titled “The Lost World.” It’s described in the table of contents thusly: We brush away the dust of ages and reveal primordial beasts that lived before the rise of din...

The Rejectonomicon – I Need Your Questions

Hey, folks, short update today. I just want to highlight my new Q&A column, THE REJECTONOMICON, over at Dark Matter Magazine and invite you to submit questions about submissions, rejections, and writing in general.

The first article is up already, and we’ll be doing these on a bi-monthly basis. You can check out that first article by clicking the link below.

The Rejectonomicon Volume I

So, how do you submit questions to me? Easy. Here are the submission guidelines.

Email your question to questi...

Submission Statement: January 2022

The first month of the 2022 is in the books, and it was a good one.

January 2022 Report CardSubmissions Sent: 10Rejections: 8Acceptances: 2Publications: 8Further Consideration/Shortlist: 2

January was an all-around good month, and a great way to kick off the year. I sent ten submissions, which gives me a head start on my goal of 100 submission per year. I received eight rejections, which is about average against the number of submissions I sent. I had two story acceptances, and that’s fan...

The Way I Write Part 5: Novels & Stuff

I’ve explored my writing as it’s developed these past twenty years through a series of posts titled The Way I Write. I largely used the Flesch-Kincaid readability scores to get an idea of how my work has progressed over the years. Basically, I went from super-wordy and dense to spare and streamlined. Once I started making that transition, I got published. This is not to say you can’t get published with a wordy, dense style, just that I couldn’t.

Anyway, I focused primarily on short fiction in t...

A Week of Writing: 1/17/22 to 1/23/22

Another week come and gone. How’d I do?

Words to Write By

This week’s quote comes from French novelist Gustave Flaubert. 

“I am irritated by my own writing. I am like a violinist whose ear is true, but whose fingers refuse to reproduce precisely the sound he hears within.”

– Gustave Flaubert

Jesus, I feel this one in my SOUL. Every time I sit down to write, no matter how clear the idea is in my mind, what ends up on the page is like a halfway decent photocopy of what’s in my brain. This is why ...

A Week of Writing: 1/10/22 to 1/16/22

There goes another week where I was supposed to be writing and submitting stories. Let’s see how I did.

Words to Write By

This week’s quote comes from science fiction novelist Joe Haldeman. 

I think any writer keeps going back to some basic theme. Sometimes it’s autobiographical. I guess it usually is.

–Joe Haldeman

Saw this quote a few days ago, and I’ve been thinking about it a lot. There are definitely themes I return to in my writing, and at first blush, they don’t appear to be autobiographi...

A Week of Writing: 1/1/22 to 1/9/22

The first week (and a bit more) of the new year has come and gone, so it’s time to start documenting my writing endeavors for 2022. Here we go.

Words to Write By

This week’s quote comes from playwright and novelist Larry L. King. 

“Write. Rewrite. When not writing or rewriting, read. I know of no shortcuts.”

—Larry L. King

This quote pretty much sums up my goals for 2022. I have a novel to revise, and I’ve jumped back into the the thick of it. My goal is to write and rewrite it until it becomes ...

Submit or Surrender? A Tale of Three Publishers

A popular topic in writerly circles is if and when a writer should give up on a market after multiple rejections. The idea being that if an editor rejects you a certain number of times, it’s likely they are not interested in your work because of style, taste, etc., and you should stop submitting to that publisher. Of course, opinions vary on how many rejections indicate you should wave the white flag, and some writers believe you should NEVER give up on a publisher, no matter how many rejections...

Rejected Stories: When to Revise or Resubmit

When I get a rejection on a short story, my first thought is do I need to revise this piece? Often as not, the answer is no, and I send the story right back out. I don’t come to this decision without due consideration, though, and the rejection itself is often the biggest determining factor on whether a story gets revised or resubmitted. So let’s look at some different rejections and how they influence my decision to revise or resubmit.

Below I’ll list various types of rejections, the chance I’l...

2021: A Writing Rearview Review

Well, a new year has dawned, but before I really find out what 2022 has in store for me, I’m gonna take a look back at 2021. Spoiler alert. This was not my best year, but I’m all about that transparency, so lets look at some numbers.

Submissions & Publications

Okay let’s start off with short story submissions, rejections, and acceptances, plus fiction and articles published. That last group includes freelance fiction I was commissioned to write as well as Rejectomancy articles at Dark Matter Mag...