Sam Knight's Blog, page 13

Adventures in NaNoWriMo Land!

National Write A Novel Month starts tomorrow! And I am off to a great start. My kid has puked twice today and I’ve been running a fever off and on since … Tuesday? I can’t even remember anymore.

It doesn’t matter. What matters is NaNoWriMo!  Yay!

Okay. Seriously. There are some people who really feel that way about it. It is a great thing for them on many different levels. Socially, productively, emotionally. Meeting that 50,000 word goal can feel pretty darn good!

But not everyone does so well with it. NaNo is not for everyone. The pressure to write that many words in that short of a time can be overwhelming.

It is for me.

I don’t do well with it. After failing to complete a “novel”  the last two years, I wasn’t going to do it this year. But then, I realized there are a lot of other writers out there who might benefit from seeing how I fail.

You see… As I make my way through my REAL job of taking care of my kids and family, I lose the time I would need to do NaNo.

“But, Sam! That’s the whole point! To prove you can squeeze in a mere 1,666 words per day and write a whole novel by the end of the month!”

Yes, you’re right, of course. But guess what? That is what I am already doing to try to make my career take off! Squeezing all the time I can out of my day for various projects that I hope will move me along. NaNo actually takes away from that for me, and for a lot of other writers who are on deadlines and under contract.

So, for the benefit of everyone who is interested, I plan on giving a (nearly) day by day blow of my activities for the next month. I hope this will help show people who are struggling with that looming word count that they are not alone.

If you sign up for NaNoWriMo, and you want to include me on your “Buddy List”, I can be found at http://nanowrimo.org/participants/sam-knight.

I plan to keep updates on my progress and failure going on my Facebook Page, https://www.facebook.com/AuthorSamKnight/

“Progress and failure? Sam, what are you talking about?”

Well… I have things I contractually am obligated to get done, I have things I feel I have to get done for friends and associates, I have things I want to get done, and then, I have NaNo.  And all of that takes place after I clean up the puke.

On an average day, after I take care of family stuff, I get around three and a half hours of time to myself to really get work done (except for the damned telemarketers, which I have to answer because maybe my kid puked at school, too). Any other time I get, is already “squeezed out”, leaving very little for NaNo.

So… Let’s see what happens.

I’ll keep you posted on my Facebook page, and I look forward to hearing your comments on how you are doing.

By the way… I still have no idea what to work on for NaNo. Not a clue. No outline, no research, no idea. No clue.  I’ll figure it out when I start.

Hardcore, baby.

So You Want to Be in An Anthology: The Sequel – The Aftermath

**If you weren’t at the panel at MileHi Con on October 24th, you CANNOT submit.

Don’t bother. I have a list of the great people who were there and this information is for them! If you are not one of them (or one of the three people I spoke with at the con who couldn’t be there at exactly that time), please feel free to keep reading, but try not to feel too excluded.

I have been told in the past my webpage can be hard to read. If you have this problem, you can copy the text out and paste it into Word (or whatever you use) to read it. If this doesn’t work for you and you really need to read this, send me an e-mail and I will paste it into the body of the e-mail and send it back to you. Sam@samknight.com

First, thank you for coming to the panel, I hope you enjoyed and got something out of it! If you are looking for one of my co-panelists, I was joined by Dana Bell and Tonya DeMarco.  My thanks to both!

Second, Guy Anthony De Marco was unable to attend the panel, and he was missed greatly (especially by me, as I had to guess at a few things he will now have to live with!). His Villainous Press will be publishing the anthology. This is a charity anthology, and therefore we are donating our time and efforts to this. **I have not had the chance to finalize all of the details with Guy Anthony De Marco, but they will be important to you when you sign a contract if your story is accepted. I will update this page with information as I have it. At this time, I believe you will receive an e-copy of the book as payment. Why so little, you ask? Because, again, this is a charity anthology.

*Side note from your friend Sam Knight*  Make sure you read and understand ANY contract you get from ANYONE!  Get a disinterested third party to explain anything you do not understand. Make sure you are happy with what you understand before signing it!

Third, here are the guidelines we discussed:

**PG-13 rating. No sex. No erotica. No graphic violence. Cussing to be limited to hell and damn. If you’re fond of the F word, your story will be rejected. Not opposed to faith based stories, just as long as it’s important to the character or story line. If they’re preaching on any belief system, the piece will be rejected. (Thanks to Dana Bell for letting me swipe this from her guidelines!)

Formatting:

Times New Roman size 12. Double spaced with indents for paragraphs. DO NOT use Tabs to indent paragraphs! (That messes everything up. If you don’t know how to set formatting to auto indent on MS Word, follow this link. If you still can’t figure it out, send me an e-mail, and I’ll do what I can to help.) Single space after punctuation, please.

Please submit in .doc files or .rtf files only. No .docx files, no PDFs, no text documents. These will be sent back to you with a request to change the format.

You can go to the Guy Anthonly DeMarco’s website for downloadable templates to help with formatting. I would look this over even if you don’t think you will use it. Personally I have a couple of files labeled as Short Story Template  or Novel Template  that I open up and off I go writing and I don’t have to think about this stuff anymore.

There are a lot of webpages out there that will tell you how you should format your story. And they all start out the same and then get different. Which sucks. So here are the basics for what you need to do to submit for this:

On the first page of your story, please include: Name, address, phone number, email address, and approximate word count. This is very important! The editor has to contact writers and without this full info, your story will be dropped if you can’t be reached.

The first page should look a lot  like this:

Sam Knight                                                          Approx. 3,777 words

1234 N. First Main Street

Happyville, CO 90210

(555)-123-4567

sam@samknight.com

 

 

 

The Offspring

by

Sam Knight

Colorado 1895

“Looks to be a killin’ snow.” Joel commented as he looked out over the wet rocks and dripping pine trees dotting the hill around them. Fat, wet flakes slapped him on the cheek and stuck to his eyelashes. If they got wet and temperatures dropped below freezing, they would be in trouble. He gave his older brother a worried glance. The top of Harold’s hat was already soaked with white splotches impacting and melting, and his horse’s mane was matting with the damp.

 

If you use a pen name, you still need to give your REAL name for legal reasons. That should be done like this:

Jane Doe (writing as Sam Knight)                                        Approx. 3,777 words

1234 N. Main Street

Happyville, CO 90210

(555)-123-4567

sam@samknight.com

 

The Offspring

by

Sam Knight

Colorado 1895

“Looks to be a killin’ snow.” Joel commented as he looked out over the wet rocks and dripping pine trees dotting the hill around them. Fat, wet flakes slapped him on the cheek and stuck to his eyelashes. If they got wet and temperatures dropped below freezing, they would be in trouble. He gave his older brother a worried glance. The top of Harold’s hat was already soaked with white splotches impacting and melting, and his horse’s mane was matting with the damp.

 

Some places want page numbers and info on the top of each page. That usually goes on the top right hand corner in the format of   name/title/page#    and looks like this:

Knight/The Offspring/3

 

 

Fourth! I think. I’ve lost track.  What we decided to do! Not nearly as close of a vote as last year, so I’m hoping we hit a sweet spot.

Our theme: Adventures in Zoo keeping.

We had a few questions about this. Middle school classroom, prison, and the like. My answer was “you have to convince me it’s a zoo.”  In other words, don’t write the sequel to The Shawshank Redemption and think it’s okay to slip in the phrase “the prison was a zoo”.

Here is Google’s Definition:

zoo

zo͞o/

noun







an establishment that maintains a collection of wild animals, typically in a park or gardens, for study, conservation, or display to the public.




synonyms:
park, menagerie, game farm, wildlife park, safari park, zoological park


“observing apes at the zoo”













informal
a situation characterized by confusion and disorder.
“it’s a zoo in the lobby”

What I want are stories that use the term zoo as stated in the first definition, not the second.

Also, please note, the theme is Adventures in Zookeeping, not Adventures in the Zoo. Please don’t send in an expanded version of Dick and Jane: At the Zoo.

This is open genre so you can write science fiction, fantasy, steampunk, and even romance if you so choose. The only limit here is no erotica. (Remember the guidelines! PG-13 rating. No sex. No erotica. No graphic violence.)

Story length: between 500 words (flash fiction) and 7,000 words

Try to keep in mind, the longer or shorter your story is, the better it has to be! The average stories are 2,000 to 6,000 words. If you want to write a flash fiction story, it will have to be able to stand up against stories that use more words. If you go long in your story, the story has to be good enough to justify the space in the book it may be stealing from someone else’s story.

Submissions will be accepted through January 31st 2016.

Submissions will not be accepted after January 31st unless you have contacted be beforehand and gotten permission for an extension. (You will need a really really really good reason. Really.)

I believe Villainous Press is working on setting submission up through Submittable, but I am not positive. I will update here when I know, or you can submit directly to me at sam@samknight.com.  **Warning** If I do not respond letting you know I got the story, then I did not get it.

Finally (I think), remember the editor’s job (my job in this case) is to make your story better. I mentioned my editing style in the panel, even if you get rejected, you will get some feedback. If you get accepted, you are likely to look at the red on your story and wonder what kind of dull knife I attempted to perform surgery with. Don’t take any of this personally. None of it is personal. When we talk at the conventions, we are being friendly and having fun. When we start writing and editing and accepting and rejecting … that’s business. It is separate. It has to be. Don’t take it personal.

Remember, I WILL NOT CONTACT YOU! I collected your contact information ONLY to verify that you were at the panel IF I receive a story from you. I will not abuse the information you gave me.  If you send me something, I will reply to confirm I received it. If you do not get a confirmation from me within 2 or three days, I didn’t get it. Follow up and make sure I do get it!

Currently, plans are to release the anthology at MileHi Con next year, just as we did with Sidekicks this year.

If you have any questions, please e-mail me. Chances are someone else has the same question. I will add any updates to this page. My apologies for anything I have forgotten to include here. If it gets pointed out, I will fix it!

 

 

So You Want to Be in An Anthology: The Sequel

So… What is this Sidekicks anthology thing I keep posting about on Facebook? Well, here it is in a nutshell. Last year at MileHiCon​ we held a panel about getting a story into an anthology. Only attendees were allowed to submit, and, if their story was accepted, their only payment would be a copy of the book. Proceeds (after costs) go to support MileHiCon.

 

Some people missed it last year and were a little disappointed.

Well, here is their, and your, second chance!

So You Want to Be in An Anthology: The Sequel will be held at 12 noon on Saturday Oct. 24th in Mesa Verde B

If you want to submit a story, you have to attend the panel…

If you want to see how things progressed last year, here are the original posts about it:

So You Want To Be In An Anthology?

So You Want To Be In An Anthology -The Aftermath

So You Want To Be In An Anthology – The Due Date

Links to Sidekicks:

Kindle               Print

 

 

Not Your Typical Editor For Hire

Looking for an editor? I may be the person you are looking for. Or not.

I am not interested in being a “typical” editor. I don’t want to collect money by the word, or the page, or the hour, and I certainly don’t want to argue with people about their story content, marketability, or anything else for that matter.

What I want to do is help.

Specifically, I want to help other writers get a leg up on what they need to be doing, or are doing wrong. I wan’t to offer things that “I wish someone had told me when I was starting out.” I want to save you months or years of hard, stumbled upon lessons. And I want to do it in a way that is personal to you, so that they apply and you understand them.

So, how do I feel I can help you? One short story at a time.

With stories between 4,000 and 7,000 words, there is plenty of room for me to be able to point out what you are doing wrong — and right. It also doesn’t tie me up for days or make you wait for weeks. Overall, I feel this is a good place to be.

What can you expect from me?

While I don’t wear brass knuckles, I don’t pull any punches either. If you are looking for someone to pat you on the head and tell you that you’re doing a good job, you probably don’t want me.

Then again, if you are looking for an honest opinion from someone, I may be who you want.

Notice I said ‘opinion’. Not many editors use that word. I do. I think it is very important. When I read someone’s writing, the only things I have to offer are my opinions. Just because I don’t like the way you do something doesn’t mean it’s wrong, only that I wouldn’t do it that way.

I will gladly explain why I think it should be done my way, and I am not at all concerned with whether or not you take my advice. Many great authors got to where they are by ignoring editorial advice.

Be warned though, many many more got there by taking the advice of an editor. It is much easier to be be objective about someone else’s story than it is your own.

I will not be reading your story to change it to the way I want it to be. I will leave that for the editor who is willing to pay you. (That is a different kind of editor and would be the one you want to sell your story to.) I will be reading it to try to help you improve the story the best I can, while trying to keep it the way you want it. This means I will make suggestions, but it will be up to you to implement them or not. I will not make the changes for you.

An editor is NOT a ghostwriter. Seriously. That’s taking things to a whole different level and you’ll need deep pockets to lure me there. If your story is not finished, don’t ask me to help finish/re-write/fix it unless you are ready to talk serious money up front. Seriously.

I am not too picky about formatting, but if you want to sell your story, you will need to learn how, and I will point it all out to you.  If you don’t know how to properly format for a submission, here is a great place to start. *Remember* every place has their own guidelines you must follow to submit to them, or you will likely be rejected without anyone reading your story. This means you might have to adjust something, but still, this is a good place to start. If you need extra formatting help (like you want me to fix it for you), I can do that, but it won’t be free.

If you need something formatted for publication (such as you want to self-publish), I can help with that also, but again, we will need to talk money up front and I would need to know exactly what you want. This is not an area I often delve into for other people, so I don’t recommend you come to me as your first choice. Possibly not even your second.

Which brings me to actual editing rates…

I don’t like to charge hourly, because you don’t really know how long it took me, or if I ate cookies and milk for half of it. Not that I would do that, I wouldn’t, but still, it crosses my mind when others charge hourly rates, so I don’t like it. Plus, I’m really slow, so you wouldn’t beleive me anyway. So I am charging $50 per 4,000 to 7,000 word story, payable via PayPal.

That may sound like a lot (especially for a short story) unless you have shopped around and looked a the prices of other editors. Then it starts to sound reasonable. I hope you also take this into account: Unlike other many other editors, I am not going to quickly edit it, marking mistakes in red without explanation, and sending it back for you to change and send to me again. I will explain what I am marking and I will make myself available afterwards for anything you need help understanding.

I am NOT interested in seeing the story again to charge you more money. 

Really. I only want to see it the one time and point things out to help you learn. I want to answer any questions you have. After that, changing the story is up to you. After that, you won’t need an editor, you’ll need a proof reader. I don’t want to do that, and I certainly don’t want to charge to do that. So unless we have talked and you have strong reasons why you really, really want me to see your story a second time (and are willing to pay again), I don’t want to see it again.

In fact, if I do my job the way I intend to, you won’t need to send me more than one or two stories before you will be ready to move on to other editors who are less explanatory. Why would I recommend this?

Once I have gotten you past the rough spots, there are many things to be learned from other people. It goes back to the opinion thing I mentioned before. You might find some you really like and understand. You might also spot some you really dislike, which can help guide and influence your choices just as strongly in the future.

And all I really want to do here is help other writers get a good start.

Okay. So am I the one you want to talk to?

Before you contact me, or any other editor, I recommend you read this first.  Brian Klems makes some very good points. These do not all apply to me and what I am offering, but you should really know them nonetheless.

FAQs:

Can you do longer things (novels)?

Yes, I could, but I really don’t want to.  The basics for a short story are very similar to a novel. If you are going to have problems with one, you will probably have the same problems with the other.

What did you mean by “ghostwriting”?

A true ghostwriter is someone who writes a story and allows someone else to put their name on it and take credit for it, usually as a work for hire. Sometimes people have an idea, but haven’t written it or written it well. Or they have a vignette, but no story. When this happens they often approach editors to “fix” it. That is not really what an editor does. At least not most editors. Some will tackle that problem. I’d rather not. It would take a living monument to convince me. I have my own things I want to write already.

I know you said you only wanted to see one or two stories from me. Can I send you more stories anyway?

I suppose. Be aware that your “value received” will begin depreciating. Unless you are making all new mistakes for me to point out with each story, you will get less and less out of what I have to say.

I know you said you didn’t want to see the story again after you edited it, but I really want you to. Can I send it again?

Only if you are willing to pay the $50 again. I will make myself available to you for for questions about the story the first time, so why would you want to make me read it again? Did you do a total re-write? If so, that would be a total re-read for me.

Do you guarantee my story will get published?

Not only no, but … No. No one should ever promise you that. Ever. If they are, you are paying for it, I promise you. Either in cash or rights. I will do my best to tell you what I think you should do with your story, but in the end, I have no say over what another (purchasing) editor will or will not like.

After all that, if you still think perhaps you would like to have me edit your short story, you can contact me at sam(at)samknight.com. (You will need to replace the (at) with @. This is to fend off spam bots.)

If you are on the fence, and would like to see what other people have had to say about me, please go to this link: Editorial Testimonials

 

Ahi’s Story – Free on Wattpad

Ahi’s Story

As with Bernardo’s Story, this was cut from the final revised draft of Lucid Nightmares, and I just couldn’t stand to see Ahì fade away. She, too, is a minor character in the novel whose story has been reduced from nearly a thousand words to less than a few sentences. I hope that if you read Lucid Nightmares, you’ll keep her backstory in mind as you encounter her.

Available for free on Wattpad

 

 

Bernardo’s Story -Free on Wattpad

Sometimes, as a writer, you have to edit your work. Or, as Stephen King says, murder your babies. This is one of those times for me. But I love my baby, so I will use Wattpad to keep it alive. Bernardo is a minor character in my novel Lucid Nightmares. But he has a great story to tell. In revisions and edits, his voice is being shrunk from almost four thousand words to less than 500. Here, I am allowing him to tell his full story, along with bookends from the text of the novel to give him his proper context. If you ever read my novel, and I hope you do, I hope you’ll keep Bernardo’s Story in mind as does his quick cameo in the finalized version…

Hey Sam, How Do I Get My Short Story Published?

That is a question I get all the time.

The answer is easy: Perseverance.

The implementation is the difficult part.

In order to get a story published, you first have to submit it for consideration. Crazy, I know, but until your pen name is a house hold word, people don’t come looking to you to give them stories. Even then, most still won’t.

Currently I have 10 short stories under submission to various places. (Actually, I may have more. Sometimes I lose track of them for a month or two. *sigh*) If one gets rejected, I turn right around and submit it somewhere else. It does me no good if it is just sitting on my hard drive.

The exception to that is when I get a personal note on the rejection. These are good! Trust me. An editor who does that liked something they saw in your writing! (Unless it is really just a freaking nasty note, in which case you didn’t want to be doing business with those people anyway.) Always take any personal note sent to you seriously. Pay attention to it. Weigh it. Decide what it means. If it applies, you might want to re-think and re-work that story.

Then, send it out again! There will always be new markets to find somewhere, and you never know which is being edited by someone who sees that story exactly the way you did– Perfect!

But where to send the stories? Where to submit?

There are many different ways to do this. Two of the most popular are DuoTrope and Ralan. You can use these to search for markets to submit to. You can also use Google, Yahoo, or whatever your favorite search engine is. Not everything ends up on a list, so I recommend doing that occasionally.

Also, be in touch with your local writing community. Watch for local publishers/authors who are doing anthologies and try to get in them. This is where you will start down the path of people asking you for stories!

My personal commendation is to start with professional rate paying markets (6¢ per word or higher) and work your way down the list. You don’t want to give away a story for free when you could have made $2,000 on it! (2k! Really? Are you kidding? — Chances are seriously against it, but there are some markets that pay that well. If your story fits what they are looking for, what have you got to lose? Here is an example at Tor books.) The exception to this, for me, is when I write  the story for a specific anthology. I really want to give people I know the best story I can even if they aren’t paying pro-rates. They are the ones who have helped me build up my career, and I want them to keep going in theirs!

Getting published with a short story is not hard. It just takes time and effort. Getting published at a pro-rate is a bit harder, but you can do it!

 

 

Art as Inspiration 4

I don’t have much I want to ramble on about that I haven’t already said before, but I thought maybe it was time to share some of the art I have been playing with lately. Some of these have inspired ideas for stories that I hope to write soon…

Win a Sam Knight Book courtesy of the Fictorians!

Yay!

The Fictorians are getting ready to celebrate their 1,000th post! (Hey, a couple of those posts were mine!) In all of the excitement, a bunch of free gifts have been shaken loose, and one of those is an e-copy of A Whiskey Jack in a Murder of Crows. If you want to get in on all of the goodness, head over there and do some mouse-clicking.

Start here with the directions and then enjoy a few posts while you are there.

Thanks for checking out their webpage (and mine, too, while we’re on the topic!)

-Sam

Free Stories on Wattpad

Wattpad is a website where many writers share their works in progress with the public for free.

I have to be completely honest, I haven’t made my mind up about the platform yet, so this is not necessarily an endorsement.

But meanwhile, I am trying it out. Come visit and read the three stories I have posted.

http://www.wattpad.com/user/authorsamknight