Jumping the gate

This is kinda-sorta related to a link Sarah sent me today (go read it - Sarah's comment on the post is excellent), via my usual leaps of illogic. The aspiring author's expectations seem to be set somewhere between "If I'm good enough, they'll see my brilliance and love me" and "They don't love me: they must hate me."

It's the same kind of thing that causes Joe Beginning Author to obsessively parse out rejection letters in the hope of divining some notion of the 'real' reason for the rejection (otherwise known as rejectomancy): we at the outskirts of the industry have no idea what actually goes on between when we send our story in and when we get it back. Some of us even harbor the quaint notion that we're going to get an unbiased read. We're not. (That's not to say there's a big hairy blacklist and if you put a toe over the invisible line you get smacked. It's more that slush readers have this humongous pile of unread stuff threatening to bury them, so they're looking for reasons to kick the story, not reasons to take it.)

Publishing does have a hefty image problem in the science fiction community, and deservedly so: as far as I can tell no-one really knows what happens between when a story is bought by a publisher and when it emerges sometimes years later as an actual book with cover art and everything, or if the people in the editing side of things know, they aren't telling us peasants slaving over manuscripts.

The result: we work on inference and observation. We see that everyone who's anyone in the field knows everyone else, and the obvious conclusion is that they pass information around and form a kind of quasi-monopoly, except for the designated pariah who dares do things differently. Naturally, writers being writers, the tendency is to leap from that to conspiracy and active collusion, and from there to an ever-growing blacklist and rumors of strange favors as a prerequisite along with the arbitrary "rules" like "thou shalt not commit prologue" and "thy urban fantasy shall be told in first person by a kick-ass female; mind thou that she be hot stuff"

Authors tend to be prone to conspiracy theory and paranoia anyway - a secretive cabal pulling the strings makes a much better story than random crap happening to some poor schmuck. Not falling into the conspiracy trap means finding out what I really can expect, and not letting myself fall into either the "They just don't understand my brilliance" trap or the "They hate me and I've been blacklisted" trap. Realistically, I'm not even on the radar - there's no way I'm going to be actively targeted.

On the flip side, I can expect that most places my manuscripts wind up, the first person who looks at it is likely to be an idealistic, poorly paid intern, and given the physical location I'm dealing with and the reluctance to move to electronic submission processes, probably one from a specific location and culture. If I start with something guaranteed to piss that sort of person off, I'm going to get bounced.

As to how to hook the poor sod reading the slush pile, who mostly wants to get away from the reams and reams of mind-bogglingly awful and is looking for reasons to cut the whole experience short and move to the next one, that I'm not so sure about. Sarah's advice yesterday helps, but what else is there?

How do we jump ourselves past that gate?

Chasing Geronimo

After Amanda's threat to sick Sarah onto me if I did not do some send outs, I guess it was time to grapple with this particular bugbear.

For some time now I have been a strict advocate of the Geronimo method. Here it is highly important to ignore all markets for as long as possible, allowing internal tension to build to breaking point. Now - by an extremely esoteric and mysterious process that shall remain a secret - a single market is chosen.

At this point a bolt of light from heaven strikes the aspiring writer in the forehead, filling them with glorious (and unrealistic) expectations. Here comes the vital element of the technique -- to shout 'Geronimo' at the top of your lungs as you send your little vessel of hopes and dreams out into the wide world to this market - which by now is gold-plated and hovering improbably on some cloud somewhere. Unfortunately, if the pearly gates should remain closed, then the writer is banished to a Purgatory for no less than two years, here to be fed on brackish water and the bitter unleavened bread baked from the pulped early drafts of their novels and short-stories.

Surprisingly, the Geronimo method does actually work sometimes. Unfortunately - and this could be a co-incidence - it has led to an embarrassingly large pile of manuscripts that have been sent to only one market. These manuscripts develop a thick crust of psychic cyanide, deadly to touch, and just a deadly to thoughts that stray in their direction.

Apart from probably revealing a little undiagnosed mania, the Geronimo method gives one possible (dysfunctional) approach to grappling with markets.

I'd love to hear how other people get their writing out there. Do you work to targets? What tricks do you use to overcome the emotional 'potential energy hill', or is it just down to sheer determination?

Do Not Want!

The other evening, Kate and I were talking on AIM about our current projects. No, to be honest, we were whining. Whining because the voices in our heads were being very loud and demanding, each one representing a different story or novel. I was particularly whining -- yes, I know it's hard to believe yours truly would ever whine -- because yet another novel had just dropped into my head and was yelling as loudly as those already there for my undivided attention.

So Kate and did what so many writers do when faced with too many plots demanding attention. We went to look at lolcats. Hence the picture and the topic for today's post.

Of course, since then the topic has morphed some. I was going to talk about how, as writers, most of us have several projects going at any one time, all at different phases of the writing process. In fact, I teased one of our regulars, Chris K, about just that the other morning. He'd made the mistake of posting on Baen's Bar the question of why the Grays (you know, those aliens everyone claims abducted them and did all sorts of things to them onboard their UFOs) are naked. In the course of our conversation, I told him to write the story and he started whining -- sorry, Chris, but you did -- about already having a story in progress. That's when I told him the facts of life for the writer trying to break into the business. You should have, in my opinion, a work you are researching or simply making notes on, one you are writing, possibly one you are editing and at least one out on submission. THAT is what I was going to blog about. Well, guess I already have. ;-p

Right now, I have an urban fantasy at a publisher and I'm biting my nails as I wait to hear if it's been accepted or not. I also have two short stories out. There's another novel I'm looking for an agent for. I am less than a week away from completing another novel. I have final edits to do on yet another before sending it out. Works in progress include three books at various stages, ranging from initial research to finishing the first draft. There are three short stories in progress. None of which takes into account the space opera, the fantasy, two urban fantasies and, help me, a romance that are all waiting impatiently to be written.

So, what do you think the proper writing cycle should be? How many projects are currently on your desk or hard drive? Also, as a writer, what do you do when you're attacked in the middle of the night by that screaming, maddening plot that just won't go away?