Aeryn Rudel's Blog, page 6

Writing Challenges: The Four Brain Weasels of the Apocalypse

It goes without saying that writing and publishing is a tough gig. To make matters worse, the writerly brain is beset by a myriad of doubts, insecurities, and plain old fears that make it even tougher. Speaking from my own experience, there are four primary fears and doubts I battle on a regular basis. I like to call them the Four Brain Weasels of the Apocalypse. So let’s talk about them, and, more importantly, how to fight them.

1) The Brain Weasel of I’m Not Good Enough

Often the first of the ...

The Regularly Rejected Story: Give Up or Keep Submitting?

Although most of my recent submission efforts have been focused on querying my novel, I have sent out the occasional short story submission. Admittedly, I haven’t written much new material over 1,000 words in a while, so I’ve been grinding away at the stories I haven’t managed to sell yet. In today’s post, I want to discuss three of those stories, which have, by far, accumulated the most submissions and rejections. Is it time to give up on these three? Let’s discuss.

First, let me give you the s...

Query/Submission Statement: October 2023

October was another busy month, and I sent a fair number of queries and submissions. That said, queries are winding down as I wait for replies to those still outstanding. Anyway, here’s how I did in the tenth month of the year of our lord 2023.

October 2023 Short Story SubmissionsSubmissions Sent: 5Rejections: 3No Response: 0Acceptances: 0Further Consideration/Shortlist: 0Withdrawals: 0

Five submission is the most I’ve sent in a single month in 2023, which is kinda sad. In years past, th...

Query Quest: Who Should I Query? (Redux)

Recently, someone asked me what my process is for vetting agents before I query them. Since the question was asked on a social media platform (Bluesky), I could only answer briefly, but I think a longer, more in-depth explanation could be educational. I’ve previously covered this topic on my blog, but that was earlier in my querying journey, and I’ve since refined my process. Now, nothing I do is revolutionary, unique, or even uncommon, but if you’re getting ready to query agents for the first t...

Short Story Subs vs. Agent Queries: Two Big Differences

In the last four months, I’ve been querying my novel SECOND DAWN, and while querying a novel is a new to me, submitting my work to publishers is definitely not. I have sent well over 700 short story submissions, so it’s fair to say I’m familiar with sending my work out to be judged. Even so, I was still somewhat surprised by some huge differences between querying novels and submitting short stories (yes, I’m just that naïve) , so I thought I’d go over a few of those here. It should be noted that...

Query Response Round-Up: Week of 10/6/23

Another three weeks of querying gone by, so it’s time for a another response round-up. After a few weeks of crickets, the responses have started coming in more regularly. All rejections, but what are ya gonna do? Anyway, there are a couple of interesting rejections I thought I’d share. Let’s jump in.

First, here’s my overall query stats as of today.

Total Queries: 44Rejections: 17Full Requests: 3CNR: 3Pending Queries: 21Pending Requests: 3Rejections

I received six more rejections since I...

Query/Submission Statement: September 2023

September was another busy month, as I fired off more agent queries for my novel SECOND DAWN. I even, somehow, managed to find time to send a few short story submissions. (I know!). It was a productive month, but not necessarily a fruitful one. That’s just how it goes in the query/submission trenches. Anyway, here’s how I did.

September 2023 Short Story SubmissionsSubmissions Sent: 3Rejections: 1No Response: 0Acceptances: 0Further Consideration/Shortlist: 0Withdrawals: 0

Still not exactl...

Query Quest: What Are My Chances Part II

I started querying my novel SECOND DAWN in earnest back in early June, and since then I’ve sent a total of 40 queries, netted some full manuscript requests, and racked up a fair amount of rejections and CNRs. In July, I posted some stats from QueryTracker, detailing the chances the agents I’d queried would respond to my queries, how often they asked for full manuscripts, and so on. Well, I’ve got more data points now (and I’ve learned a thing or two about the process), so it seems like a good ti...

Query Response Round-Up: Week of 9/15/23

It’s been another twenty days or so of sending queries and waiting for responses. Things have slowed down a bit–I’m kinda running out of agents to query–but let’s take a look and see how the last three weeks have panned out.

First, here’s my overall query stats as of today.

Total Queries: 34Rejections: 11Full Requests: 3CNR: 3Pending Queries: 17Pending Requests: 3

As I said earlier, I’m running out of agents to query. There are some good reasons for this, and those reasons are almost wort...

Query/Submission Statement: August 2023

August was a busy month in submission land. Most of my time was spent sharpening up my query package and sending queries for my novel SECOND DAWN. I won’t lie; short story submissions have fallen by the wayside of late. Anyway, let’s have a look.

August 2023 Short Story SubmissionsSubmissions Sent: 1Rejections: 0No Response: 0Acceptances: 0Further Consideration/Shortlist: 0Withdrawals: 0

Exciting, huh? One submission and no responses. I’ve sent a grand total of 25 short story submissions...