ISBW #74 - Feeding the Beast Pt. 2
- I’m getting up early, and writing. 21 days to Dragon*Con, much work to do on Earth.
- Promo: 7th Son, Book 3: Destruction
- My agent hunt is an official failure. I am learning this. I am listening to the beast.
- Promo: James Patrick Kelly’s Free Reads
- Another interview coming!
- Voicemail: Motivation and closing off the interwebs.
- Email: Freelancing for Newspapers, adverbs, “Wouldn’t it be cool if”, Bob is writing a scene every day, Mini Blahs
- I was in an anthology: Voices for the Cure
About the Author: I am a writer and podcast producer, writing for magazines and RPGs. I am a wanna-be fiction writer with several short fiction, comic scripts, and one novel sale. Playing For Keeps will be out August, '08.
Shaun Farrell | Aug 13, 2007 | Reply
I love the new look.
Randy Noseworthy | Aug 15, 2007 | Reply
I want more Mur!
I want more Mur!
I want more Mur!
Oh no! MUR is like Kilroy 2.0 She’s everwhere! If I just stand still she’ll be there, doing a camaro, no it’s a Cameo? no, err.. UH.. Well.. She’ll show up. And we’ll all be happy she did!
I’ve found more MUR! It’s over on the Keek Fu GRip Show… No, that a Kunk Fu GEEK.
Now to DL and listen to stuff from two years ago and get caught up!!
- Seriously, Love your work, and hope to find your name splattered all over the web, in a NON Scot Siglar sort of way… Well, unless you consider the open letter to all males…. Well…
Jim | Aug 18, 2007 | Reply
If I listen hard enough….I can pretend that I’m writing!! Thanks!!! : )
Timothy | Aug 22, 2007 | Reply
Mur,
on one of the recent shows (I’m playing catch up on my iPod) you suggested that instead of writing when you don’t have the time, one could dictate into a recorder.
While I’m not exactly a tech ‘tard, I’ve always had trouble with those little portable recorders and then trying to get it to transcribe through speech recognition software. I was wondering if you knew of any successful set ups that work for people or if this is still pretty much a “wouldn’t it be cool if this actually worked” idea. Love the show!
Matt | Aug 23, 2007 | Reply
I can’t seem to download the MP3 from the “Download” link. (IE7 complains that the file can’t be found.) Do you have ny insight into this?
Matt | Aug 24, 2007 | Reply
Never mind… I tried again 24 hours later, and all seems fine now.
Rachel | Aug 27, 2007 | Reply
I’ve submitted my work before. So far I’ve received five rejections. But I seriously need more! I feel that I’m submitting too slow.
What happens is roughly this:
1. I finish the story and get it edited.
This can take a few months because people are slow to edit. (I’m also at a disadvantage because I can’t find groups of writers that are new, but serious about getting published and know the industry.)
2. I look at magazines in the stores. I get a sense of what they are currently publishing.
3. I look in Writer’s Market.
And this is where it gets tough. I read all these writing magazines and writing books, blogs that say… duhh… write to the editor like you read the magazine—which in most cases I have.
But I find as I read the magazines, go through writer’s market, that my field of submission usually narrows down to one or two. Oh look this one does horror, this one wants hard science fiction, this one doesn’t want light stories. And by the time I’m done I’ve eliminated basically most of the archive.
So I pick out one or two to send in the next month, continue writing, find myself writing the damned generic submission letter (after all my editors of the submission letter cut any mention that I actually read the magazine–perhaps I don’t know how to do it) wait for the rejections, and then spend time ruthlessly editing for no apparent reason because I go into self doubt that I’m any good and spend time listening to the various editors point out possible reasons why I probably got rejected.
So then I troll back to the magazines and wish I could write in the *other* genres they listed that they take. Spend a few days wallowing in my misery by naturally writing something in that genre, get completely stuck, feel like I shouldn’t be writing it and prepping my next story. (I figure wallowing by writing something is better than wallowing and writing nothing).
I was wondering if there is a better method of submission? To me all that research into the editors and petting their backs is limiting my submission field until I’m psyching myself out… and then believing that out of the *two* people that read it that my story will *never* be published.
I do wonder if this is some semblance of normal… or if published writers have been holding out. You with 41 rejections obviously are better at submitting than me with 5… so how do I collect rejections and feel like I’m not some hobbyist.