Until you sell it with the awesome query idea I gave you and an editor says, "Okay, Conkers, let's get started."
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WritersEra |OT| Publish before you die, writing writer writes
- Thread starter weemadarthur
- Start date
- OT
I hope!
Though speaking of which. There's a publishing house that's read two of my books. Editor there has liked but not loved either and basically encouraged me to keep sending. That was like a year ago though. If i send this one, should I mention that, you think? Or just send it like I got no contacts there. I imagine she's forgotten about me.
Don't mention it. I thinj it would come off too strong. If they recognized your name once they'll recognize again.
Thanks, some great advice there. I do need to get out of the comfort zone and start going to writing groups and making those sorts of connections. I also had plans to submit it to one of those critic websites - cant remember the name off the top of my head - for some good beta reader feedback, but I think I'm struggling with the "cleaning up" phase.
So, I probably need to read through the whole thing and take loads of notes.Then sketch out the plot/outline/characters and probably rewrite the whole thing by scratch. I suppose this is where the real discipline is needed.
I don't think its out of bounds to gently remind them that you have submitted before (mention the names) and gotten some encouragement to submit further etc..
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I think it's okay to mention this. Unless you've got the direct e-mail of the editor that made that comment, it doesn't hurt to mention that a particular editor liked your work. If someone else is handling e-mail inquiries, this may even get your submission read faster, since they can pass it up along the chain to see whether you're telling the truth, and the editor remembers your stuff. At the literary agent level, agents like to be reminded when they've said they want to see more of your work, and they TOTALLY need the reminder since they go through thousands of queries a year. But once you get the memory jogging, they'll often go back and look at what you submitted in the past, just to refresh themselves. When I got my literary agent, she went through her inbox and realized I'd submitted to her three previous times in past years, so as long as you're not obnoxious and aggressive with your reminder, I don't think anyone will be offended.
I totally saved the email chain :P
The way it happened was last year I sent her one book. She read it, liked it, but not quite enough. Asked me if I had more. I sent her my first book and she read it, didn't like it all that much, but the conversation at least ended amiably. So now I have book three and figured I should send it her way again, but she isn't an agent; she represents a publishing house. I don't want to overstep anything or come off as creepy that I saved this email from a year ago.
I doubt it would be regarded as creepy if the discussion ended on a note of "I'd still like to see more from you."
Just remember that the publishing industry--like so many others--still works off of connections, personal, professional or otherwise. It's one of the reasons why agents and editors, even if they say they're not looking for things right now, will make an exception, for example, if you've met them at a conference. In instances like that, they'll usually tell you to send a query/sample/whatever, and make sure in the subject header you stress you've already made that personal connection. Or how some literary agents will actually say they only accept queries that are referrals from people they know/trust.
In your case, it sounds like you already made some decent headway with this editor. You've got that connection. No harm in using it in a proper way, such as pitching a new book, as long as you're not rude or abusive about it. Also, you make it sound like you sent her your second book first, she kind of liked it, asked for more, then you sent your first novel which she didn't like as much, possibly because you were less skilled as a writer at that time. If this is your third book, in theory, it's an even stronger book than your second. So this one might actually go over better with her since she like the writing in your second novel more than your first.
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Definitely mention it if she encouraged you before. She probably won't remember unless you do, and as long as you aren't distorting what she said, nothing bad will happen.
All of the advice I've been given has been good, but this one made me laugh real hard.
<3
I usually just vomit something onto the page and if I like it it stays and if I don't it's a placeholder. It's a detail I try to not let me get stuck, even though ti's super easy to just halt and go "shit how should I name this city?"
Sometimes I'll even put [temp name] and keep going.
Edit: not to keep harping on this, but the end of the one email reads:
"As such, this will be a no for me again. And again an invitation to submit again. I will be waiting for the one we can finally connect on.
Kind Regards and a lot of luck! "
Should I just continue from this email chain, ya think, or start a new one and mention the old one?
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Depends on how hardcore you want to go with your world building. If you're the really in-depth fantasy writer type, you'll create the entire culture and language for the name of the place, and this may take weeks or months before you even arrive at the name, but all that world building will help you when your characters finally meet the people of that culture. If you don't want to take it that far, then just think about what kind of impression you want to make on the reader/character when they hear the name, whether you want the name to evoke a mood like, "Sounds mysterious," or "sounds serene," and then play around with syllables and consonants that evoke that.
The other thing, depending on how far you want to take it, is to mess around with other languages, so that the name you come up with doesn't sound too obviously English-based if you want it to sound like it comes from an entirely different culture, but this has its own hazards. Especially if you try and be cheeky and do something like sneak a swear/curse word in from another language as the name of your place, so there are cultural sensitivity issues to contend with if you do go that route.
Anyone here ever took their Nano story in a completely different route after it was all over? Doing that now with my story thanks to a bunch of ideas I somehow couldn't pull from my brain during last month.
Welp. Sent Toyland off to that one publishing place I had an "in" with. Just the query though; didn't want to presume anything. Though now that I think of it, I probably should have attached sample pages.
Oh well.
Oh well.
Just make something up and put it in square brackets. Worry about the details after you've written the actual story.
It's okay, you don't want to attach pages unless you're asked to.
Right, but I bypassed their normal submission form and just emailed the contact I dealt with last time, since she basically left it open for me to keep sending stuff her way. /shrug. See what happens.
BorkBork’s Published Works list
My poolside meditation on penguin courage, titled Brave Bird, was published today. Short 800 word thing.
Thanks! Swimming actually is very conducive to generating ideas for me, so it was a pretty neat one to put together.
I just got a reMarkable tablet for the holidays, and hoooooooooooly shitsnacks is this thing going to get a lot of use from me. I can write something, drop it in the app, then do handwritten notes/edits on the tablet rather than having to print out hard copies to do it. That's a game changer for me.
The screen and pen are kind of amazing; while it doesn't feel quite like writing in paper, it is absolutely close enough for jazz for me. The pen does a pretty damn good job imitating various writing implements, and is angle and pressure sensitive. The refresh rate is crazy fast for e-ink, what little lag their is I found to be completely inconsequential.
The price is stupid high for what you get, unfortunately. There's not a lot of bells and whistles on this thing, and the UI is super-plain. In five minutes I was already finding QoL issues for me, i.e. it'd be helpful to be able to bookmark page templates, or have them sorted by recency.
It's a first gen device though, so hopefully they'll work on the value proposition and get the price down.
The screen and pen are kind of amazing; while it doesn't feel quite like writing in paper, it is absolutely close enough for jazz for me. The pen does a pretty damn good job imitating various writing implements, and is angle and pressure sensitive. The refresh rate is crazy fast for e-ink, what little lag their is I found to be completely inconsequential.
The price is stupid high for what you get, unfortunately. There's not a lot of bells and whistles on this thing, and the UI is super-plain. In five minutes I was already finding QoL issues for me, i.e. it'd be helpful to be able to bookmark page templates, or have them sorted by recency.
It's a first gen device though, so hopefully they'll work on the value proposition and get the price down.
That looks really cool ... but yeah the price is a killer for something that will likely get one-upped pretty quickly. Still jealous though :)
Two scenes left to write in the Knight's Journal series. Then an Afterwords. Then edit.
Deep breath.
The big question in my mind at the moment is whether I add "Aidan and the monk will return" at the end. Because I like them and have left enough bread crumbs in the legend that I should go back to close them.
Deep breath.
The big question in my mind at the moment is whether I add "Aidan and the monk will return" at the end. Because I like them and have left enough bread crumbs in the legend that I should go back to close them.
It depends on what you're writing. Sites specifically designed for publishing (serial) fiction, such as Wattpad, make it easy... but they tend to have very specific audiences with very specific tastes, and you'll struggle to get noticed if you're not giving them what they want.
Alternatively, you can use something like WordPress and put a site together from scratch, catering everything to your personal needs, but it's more work all round and even harder to get noticed.
Thanks for the impressions. I really liked the concept but had to nope out on the price. Got a hobonichi cousin daily planner/journal so I can do up larger drafts on paper next year.
First off, I am so impressed by your ability to do this challenge for the whole year. Its really incredible. Is this the last book you're doing?
Thanks, will look into it. Have been interested into doing something like that for the longest time.
This 12th entry is the last for the Knight's Journal series. This completes the twelve tasks Aidan's father gave him to become a knight instead of a monk.
And thank you. Considering the previous 2+ years I wrote 30K words in the sequel to my first novel and was really struggling, writing 30K per month for 12 months is like a dam broke in my brain.
So I've decided to stop fucking around with side projects and actually start working on my novel. I have a long ass way to go before it's even remotely done, but you know what? Fuck it. It's something I really, really want to do. So I'm gonna do it.
Hopefully I can.
Hopefully I can.
so I haven't updated in a while.... so lets share a few things.
First of all in November I managed my goal of two separate nano projects totaling at least 50k words each.
Since then I have continued my streak of writing, I am up over 100 days straight of writing, and near that number for days that I have written at least 900 words per day. Too lazy to figure out the number right now.
The other major thing I have been working on is redoing the early parts of my series, as well as inputting stuff into scrivener. I am about 5% done with what I want do to in Scrivener.... this is what my project currently looks like lol (in the end all the data I want to extract from the story will add around 20% more words)
granted that was from the other day, so it's a little out of date... takes forever to compile anymore though so... yeah lol.
Anyways I am hoping to finish the arc I am working on this year, but it's likely not going to happen, just a bit to much left to cover. Next year I hope to get book 1 redrafted and then focus a bit on editing it to see if I can get it in a publishable state as I figured from the start I wanted a 5 book buffer before I even thought about such things... and right now I am working on finishing up book 5 (I think... might still be book 4, but last I checked book 4 was at 145k words and it has a decent spot to split it lol)
I hope others are having luck with their writing :)
First of all in November I managed my goal of two separate nano projects totaling at least 50k words each.
Since then I have continued my streak of writing, I am up over 100 days straight of writing, and near that number for days that I have written at least 900 words per day. Too lazy to figure out the number right now.
The other major thing I have been working on is redoing the early parts of my series, as well as inputting stuff into scrivener. I am about 5% done with what I want do to in Scrivener.... this is what my project currently looks like lol (in the end all the data I want to extract from the story will add around 20% more words)
granted that was from the other day, so it's a little out of date... takes forever to compile anymore though so... yeah lol.
Anyways I am hoping to finish the arc I am working on this year, but it's likely not going to happen, just a bit to much left to cover. Next year I hope to get book 1 redrafted and then focus a bit on editing it to see if I can get it in a publishable state as I figured from the start I wanted a 5 book buffer before I even thought about such things... and right now I am working on finishing up book 5 (I think... might still be book 4, but last I checked book 4 was at 145k words and it has a decent spot to split it lol)
I hope others are having luck with their writing :)
Finally finished my longest completed project of the year at 12,378 words. It's a dumb little fantasy story that became a novella I guess? Didn't win Nano, but I'm glad that I was able to finish this after starting and stopping over and over again(I think i started this 5 months ago?) I need to plan out long projects more, stuff I can just work on when I don't have any good short story ideas to do.
Ahhh! I finally found the writer OT. Now I have to read the thread, but I wanted to show my excitement at finding it.
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If you want to join the challenges, they live on the main etcetera page.
I've finished my first novel of the series which tops out at about 95k (it changes every time I edit). I've run it through critique and learned more in the last eight months of that than I had in the years previous.
I'm approximately 15k into the second novel. I have a cover designed and a partially constructed website. Later this week, an indie author friend is going to beta read what I have in the first novel to see if there's confusion or major issues that critiques and other betas haven't found. Then it goes to an editor and a proofreader.
I plan to publish the first three at one time, as well as a prequel novella that will only be available from my newsletter.
(My avatar is a joke. I'm writing Urban Fantasy, but not a Butt-shot katana sort of Urban Fantasy.)
I'm approximately 15k into the second novel. I have a cover designed and a partially constructed website. Later this week, an indie author friend is going to beta read what I have in the first novel to see if there's confusion or major issues that critiques and other betas haven't found. Then it goes to an editor and a proofreader.
I plan to publish the first three at one time, as well as a prequel novella that will only be available from my newsletter.
(My avatar is a joke. I'm writing Urban Fantasy, but not a Butt-shot katana sort of Urban Fantasy.)
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The 12th and final Entry in the Knight's Journal is written and edited. I am considering adding an afterwords to it before I hit publish, but I am essentially complete with the 2017 Writing Challenge. My thanks to all here on Writing-Era who have encouraged me and inspired me along the way.
You did great! Truly inspirational what you were able to accomplish.
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I meant just the etcetera forum and not the hangouts forum, but why don't I just link the story one right now! Poetry will be up momentarily for #2, we just voted. Of course not everyone is a poet.
https://www.resetera.com/threads/re...false-start-or-making-light-of-tragedy.12118/
But if you want to follow it, here you go.
https://www.resetera.com/threads/re-poetry-nook-002-premier-operas-earn-titanic-returns-yo.12797/
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My laptop died Christmas Day. Thankfully I have my projects backed up on OneDrive and since I handwrite before typing I didn't lose any work.
Does anyone use a Chromebook for writing? How is it? And if you do, do you use Microsoft Word or Google Docs to do so?
I can budget a Chromebook to tide me over until I can save for a new computer (tbh I've wanted a desktop for awhile, guess I'm forced into getting it now hahaha)
Does anyone use a Chromebook for writing? How is it? And if you do, do you use Microsoft Word or Google Docs to do so?
I can budget a Chromebook to tide me over until I can save for a new computer (tbh I've wanted a desktop for awhile, guess I'm forced into getting it now hahaha)
Ziltoidia 9’s Published Works list
I'm running a free promo for something I wrote 4 years ago, well I started writing it about 9 years ago, started as script (which I still have) but I liked the charactor so much I wanted to do a first person stream of thought prose with it.
Its relatively short, and if anyone was to read it, I'd appreciate an honest review on amazing.
I was never a great writer in school or anything, but I love to do it even though I have dyslexia. So make no mistake there are probably issues in it, even though I had help editing it.
If I went back and read it now I'd probably be really harsh on it myself.
Anyway, if anyone wants it, its got 1 more day left on the free promo - https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00EFU4232/?tag=era0f0-20
Its relatively short, and if anyone was to read it, I'd appreciate an honest review on amazing.
I was never a great writer in school or anything, but I love to do it even though I have dyslexia. So make no mistake there are probably issues in it, even though I had help editing it.
If I went back and read it now I'd probably be really harsh on it myself.
Anyway, if anyone wants it, its got 1 more day left on the free promo - https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00EFU4232/?tag=era0f0-20