Aeryn Rudel's Blog, page 9

One Author, Three Styles

I’ve done a pretty exhaustive series of posts on my writing style and how it developed, but as I was working on a freelance piece recently, it occurred to me that I have three different styles I use on a regular basis. I thought it might be fun to take a look at those styles, give you some examples, and then see what kind of readability scores each one produces.

I’ll be using the Flesch-Kincaid readability scores to get a statistical idea of how the styles differ. As a refresher, Flesch-Kincaid ...

Hot Topic: Dialogue Tags

In this series of posts, I’m going to cover writing topics that are often hotly debated and tell you where I stand on that particular issue. The goal here is not to try and persuade you that my view is correct, and more to tell you why I do the things I do and why they work for me. In general, I don’t believe these issues have a single right answer, so if you’re looking for me to espouse the one true way, you might be disappointed. Still, these topics are always fun to discuss, so let’s get star...

Submission Statement: January 2023

Well, the first year of 2023 is in the books, and it wasn’t exactly a barn-burner. More on that in a bit.

January 2023 Report CardSubmissions Sent: 6Rejections: 5No Response: 0Acceptances: 0Publications: 3Further Consideration/Shortlist: 0Withdrawals: 0

I didn’t exactly hit the ground running in 2023, and six submissions is somewhat disappointing. I need around nine per month to reach my annual goal of one-hundred submissions. To tell you the truth, I took a bit of a break in January, a...

2022 Writing Rearview Review

Well, 2022 is in the books, and, as usual, I’ve put together a quick roundup of my writing endeavors and results for the past year.

SubmissionsSent: 83Accepted: 14Rejected: 61Withdrawn: 6No Response: 2Accept %: 15.2/17.1

My goal is always 100 submissions per year, and I clearly fell short of that. I just kind of ran out of steam in late November. I also ran out of good stories to submit, which is something I need to address very soon. Still, overall, I’m satisfied with my numbers. My acc...

Which Is It? Criticism or Feedback?

As a writer, you hear the terms criticism and feedback a lot. The first carries a (sometimes undeserved) negative connotation, the other, a more positive and constructive one. The truth is, feedback and criticism are both necessary and helpful to a writer, as long as the writer understands the context in which each is given, and, more importantly, the context in which they should be given.

This’ll be reductive, but here’s how I look at the two terms. Feedback is given to an author while the work...

The 700 Club (No, Not That One)

Recently, I sent my 700th short story submission. That number spans a period of ten years since I started tracking them religiously (hah!) on Duotrope. Whenever I hit a big milestone like this, I like to break down all numbers, get WAY too analytical and then inflict the result on my readers. So, here we go.

First, here are the basic stats for the 703 submission I’ve sent since April 16, 2012.

Acceptances – 97Rejections – 569Non-Responses – 5Withdrawals – 26Pending – 6

I’m closing in on 1...

Submission Statement: November 2022

November was a very slow month in submission land, but it wasn’t a total bust.

November 2022 Report CardSubmissions Sent: 3Rejections: 2No Response: 1Acceptances: 1Publications: 0Further Consideration/Shortlist: 0Withdrawals: 1

Pretty terrible submission numbers despite the acceptance. November was a rough month in a lot of ways, and I got a little off track with submissions, focusing more on other aspects of my writing. Anyway, I’m sitting at 79 total submissions for the year, and it i...

Writerly Wonderings: What’s My Brand?

 

I think it is important for a writer to have a brand to some extent, so they can more effectively and precisely market to potential readers. This doesn’t mean an author can’t stray from that brand a bit, but if it gets too fractured, then it’s possible to alienate readers. I have a more specific problem with my own brand(s), and that’s because I have four that are somewhat at odds with one another. Let me see if I can explain.

Brand One — Rejectomancer

If you follow this blog, then you most ce...

Evolution of an Author Bio III

This is the third post I’ve done about my ever-changing author bio. The last post was in 2020, and a lot has changed in the intervening two years. So, I find myself once again in need of a new bio. In this post, we’ll take a look at how I construct an author bio, what’s changed, and my thoughts on how to best implement those changes. First, here’s the bio I was using in 2020.

Aeryn Rudel is a writer from Seattle, Washington. He is the author of the Acts of War novels published by Privateer Press...

Submission Statement: October 2022

October was another solid month. Details below.

October 2022 Report CardSubmissions Sent: 6Rejections: 2No Response: 0Acceptances: 2Publications: 2Further Consideration/Shortlist: 0

Although I didn’t send as many submissions as I would have liked, I still managed to nab a couple of acceptances. Two publications (one BIG one) and only two rejections made this a pretty excellent month. I’m at 76 total submissions for the year, which puts me behind pace for my goal of 100. I’d need 12 subs ...