Writers' group meeting

Had a good meeting with the writers' group yesterday. We gained another member, putting us at 6 if we all keep coming. There were only four of us there yesterday counting the new guy, but the other two had excused absences.

The new guy is a little farther along than the rest of us. He has completed two novels, even though he's dropped the first in a drawer and is trying to forget about it.

He and I talked about outlines and he's a big proponent. I am coming around on using them. He goes with the full-fledged paper outline. Mine is more mental and I've talked about it before. I know where I want to start a story, where I want it to end and a few of the details in between. He has each chapter thought out in his outline. He knows, for example, that in a certain chapter he needs to get the heroes on a plane and to a certain location. He may know know exactly how he's going to do that, but if he does get the characters where they need to go then he's been successful. It's a method that I am going to try with the longer piece I've been working on. I need to make the outline for the chapters I have already written and then outline what's left to write. I know how I want this to end, just need to figure out the in-between.

My temporary handicap

Why is it that putting Band-Aid on your thumb makes the rest of your hand virtually unusable?
Gina and I each cut out thumbs last night making dinner. She was first and I did it moments later. We were making a salad. We quickly cleaned and bandaged our wounds then went back to work.

But just now I was opening my lunch to put it in the microwave at the day job and it was comical how tough a time I was having using my left hand.

Writers ADD

Is it possible to have writers ADD? If so, I think I have it. And I have it bad. I can never seem to focus on one project at a time. The last couple of days I have been writing on an idea that's new. Not one of the three that I set as a goal to finish, but something completely different. I'm sure that I will move on to something else soon, leaving me with something else half finished.

I realize that there is could be seen as complaining that my wallet is too full. Having too many ideas that I am excited about is not a bad place to be. I just wish that I could focus on one of them at a time and see it to completion. Then I could move on to the next.

Daily goals

So I guess goal Number 1 should be to post goals every day.

1. Write two pages. I've been getting better about writing recently and I want to keep it up. My production is still not what it was over the summer when I was writing about five pages a day, but I am definitely more productive than I had been over the holidays.

2. Edit. I had the day off on Monday and spent that time editing three pieces. I edit on paper so I spent some time yesterday making corrections to one of the pieces. I want to take another pass at it tonight. I think it could be tighter and some of the sentence structure is a little awkward.

Another submission

A story I started working on a few months back has been coming to my mind a lot lately. I don't know why, but since I have the day off today I figured I'd go back and re-read it. It's only a few thousand words long right now. I had originally planned it as a short story, but looking at it again I don't see how I tell the story in anything shorter than a novella.

Reading it again, though, I looked at the top and it could stand alone as a piece of flash fiction. It's just under 1,000 words and very self-contained.

I think I am going to try and trim it up some since it could use it and send it off for submission too. Then I'll start working on the longer piece.

My first writers' conference

Because I have a wonderful and supporting wife, I will be spending the weekend of April 10 and 11 in Grapevine at the DFW Writers' Conference. It's put on by a larger writers group in the Dallas area and, I'll admit, I am excited. They just recently posted a partial list of classes and there are several that interest me.

I let Gina know a week or so ago about it and that I would like to attend. She said she'd do anything to support me in this whole writing thing, and if I thought this would be beneficial then she'd be OK with me going despite the cost. It's not cheap, at least not to us, but I think it will be good to get some actual instruction in the craft of writing and to get a chance to network with other writers, especially those who have been where I am and have found success.

I don't know exactly what to expect, but I am excited. And I am grateful to have a wife who'll support my writing pursuit.

Paying market versus non-paying market.

There was a bit of a debate on some writerly websites on what writers should get paid for their work. I won't go into it in detail, but here is a link to a rather lengthy post with comments that gives you a good idea of both sides. If that really gets you going there's another post here with more.

If you don't have the time or desire to read either/both of those I'll boil it down. One side says writers deserve to be paid a decent wage for their work. The other says, I'll take publication where I can get it -- even if that means getting paid nothing or next to nothing for their work.

This is the internal debate I am dealing with right now. I am having trouble finding a market for the summer story. The one paying market I'd found didn't pay much but I liked what they published. A good mix of well-written stories. Well, I posted the other day that in the time I had decided on them and the time I was ready to send them my story they had closed to submissions. They don't have the money to pay writers right now so they were taking a hiatus until their financial situation could clear up. I respect that so I am not upset at them. It happens.

So I started the search again, and I can't find a paying market for this story. I can find some non-paying markets that I like. I like the stories they publish. They are well-written and by authors that have multiple publishing credits. But in the end they don't pay. And I'd like to get paid. Gina talks about making our millions and that can't start by giving away my writing for free.

On the other hand, and there is always an other hand, this story is one that I spent all of an hour on. The rewrites took about another hour total. It's only about 1,200 words long. It's not like I have a lot of time invested in this story. And it would be great to get a publishing credit. Of course, that assumes these free markets have an interest in my story.

So that's my little internal debate right now. I'd appreciate advice anyone has.

Welcome to the world, iPad.

I have been thinking about the future of publishing seeing how the future of what I do for a living now and what I want to do for a living in the future is in the middle of a massive change. I am going to work up a post on that later. For now, though, I wanted to post this on the day Apple unveiled it's iPad. There are many who are saying it will revolutionize the publishing world.

Honestly, I can see that. But it doesn't make this any less funny.

Workhorses

In the mood to flog yourself over lack of production? Read these. (A tip of the hat to Duane Swierczynski and his Secret Dead Blog.)

Change of plans

I had done my research. I had found my markets. And tonight I was putting the polish on my cover letter for the summer story, getting ready to hit send on the email. I figured I'd check the submission guidelines one last time to make sure that I hadn't missed anything. Click through the links to get to the details and what do I find?

Closed to submissions.

So it's moving down the list to the next market, but it's frustrating. I was excited about finally getting this piece out and read.