Aeryn Rudel's Blog, page 57

Acts of War: Aftershock – Week 9 Update

The first draft of Acts of War: Aftershock is complete. Well, complete-ish. More on that below.

Here’s my report card for week nine.

Progress: I wrote 5,864 words and ended on chapter 35. As I said above, the first draft of the novel is complete, but this is what I call my first, first draft. What that means is I still need to go back through the manuscript line by line, clean it up, fix the issues I know are there, and get it into shape for the handoff to Privateer Press. That’ll take me a w...

Writing Acts of War II – Week 8 Update

Eight weeks of steady writing has nearly brought me to the finish line on the first draft of Acts of War: Aftershock. One more week ought to do it.

Here’s how I did for week eight.

Progress: I managed 11,282 words and ended on chapter 33. My total word count was just shy of 90,000 words, and I feel pretty confident saying the first draft will be about 95,000 words total. I’m very pleased with the pace I’ve maintained, and I’ll beat my deadline by a couple of weeks minimum. That’ll give Privat...

January 2017 Submission Statement

The first month of the new year has come and gone, and it was a fairly average submission month for me. I always feel like I should send more submission out, you know, because I totally should, but half a dozen ain’t terrible. Let’s dive in.

January 2017 Report Card

Submissions Sent: 6 Rejections: 5 Acceptances: 1 Publications: 1 Rejections

Five rejections this month. Two of them are for “Story X1,” a story whose journey through the submission process I’m documenting in the series Real-Time...

Writing Acts of War II – Week 7 Update

Seven weeks on the board, and the first draft of Acts of War: Aftershock is in the home stretch.

Here’s how week seven breaks down:

Progress: I wrote 12,040 words and ended on chapter 29. My total word count is near 80,000 words, and I feel pretty confident the first draft is going to be somewhere between 90,000 and 95,000. So, with a good push, I should complete the first draft by the end of this week. That’s about a month ahead of schedule, which will give me plenty of time to go back throu...

Writing Acts of War II – Week 6 Update

Six weeks down, and I’m starting the third act ofActs of War: Aftershock. The epic conclusion is in sight, and, well, they don’t call it “WAR” MACHINE for nothin’.

Progress: I wrote 11,062 words and ended on chapter 24. Some of these chapters got a little long, so they might get broken into multiple chapters in revision.My total word count is justover 66,000 words, and we’re targeting between 90,000 and 100,000 for the book. In other words, the end is in sight, and a finished first draft is s...

Flash Doom & The Molotov 10

Let me start this post by announcing my first acceptance and publication in 2017. My story “An Incident on Dover Street” received an honorable mention (7th) in The Molotov Cocktail’s Flash Doom contest. You can read it right now along with a nine other great stories in the Flash Doom mega-issue.

This publication also marks a fairly momentous occasion,asit is my tenth (10)publication with The Molotov Cocktail. Most of those publications have come in their various flash fiction contests. The th...

Writing Acts of War II – Week 5 Update

Five weeks have come and gone, and I’m past the halfway point in the first draft of Acts of War II. Before we get started, though, I’m pleased to announce the book now has an official title, Acts of War: Aftershock.

Here’s the skinny on week five:

Progress: I wrote 10,149 words and ended in the middle of chapter twenty-one. I’ve passed the midpoint in the book, and though it’snot exactly downhill from here,it’s a good milestone, and I feel like I’m right where I need to be.

The Best Part: Se...

4 Reasons for the Same-Day Rejection

Here’s the scenario. You fire off a short story submission, fully prepared to wait the two weeks or one month or however long it takes for them to read your story and make a decision.You check your email a couple hours later and BAM!They’ve already sent you a form rejection. Yep, it didn’t take months, weeks, or even days for the editors to decide your story wasn’t a good fit. It took mere hours.

Cue the alarm bells.

Was your story that bad? Are you a terrible writer whose work is such monume...

Real-Time Rejection II: The 6th Rejection of “Story X1”

Six rejections down, four more shots at fame and glory. Yep, the 6th rejection of “Story X1” has arrived.If you’d like to see the previousrejections,go here.

I’m a little late with this one–it actually came in on 1/6/17–but some computer mishaps made it impossible to post right away. Here it is in all its form-tastic glory:

Thank you so much for thinking of XXX. Unfortunately “Story X1” is not quite what we’re looking for at the moment. Best of luck placing it elsewhere.

The only thing that...

Writing Acts of War II – Week 4 Update

I’ve completed week four of the first draft of Acts of War II, and I’m well beyond the one-third mark. Here’s the details on week number four.

Progress: I wrote 11,185 words, completed act one, and ended in the middle of chapter seventeen. I’m pleased with this number, though it should have been closer to 15,000. I was hobbled a bit by my primary computer going down, which cost me about aday of work. Fortunately, I’m very diligent about backing up my work and no progress was lost in the melt...