A spontaneous Kiss

In one of those strange synapse firings that are akin to the planets aligning, I decided to send Ghost Kiss off to an American agent called Donald Maass Literary Agency. They are apparently quite reputable and seem approachable. I'm not sure if my being Australian will put them off, but I guess that's the risk you run. No agents in Australia seem especially interested in horror or fantasy, so I think I'm going to focus overseas for everything but Loaded, which is too Australian to sell to a foreign market.

Climbing out of my funk

Less miserable today - keeping this blog has shown me what a moody job writing can be. And I'm not what you'd call a moody person.

I'm now 56 pages into my second draft of Loaded with more planned for this morning and perhaps this evening. I had a bit of a read over the early pages, and while the prologue is a bit flat and slow, I think the prose picks up in Chapter 1. Enough to keep a reader reading anyway - and that's what matters. I'm due to hear from Allen & Unwin in about a month, just before I leave to go to the US for two weeks.

Evil spirits

I've been pretty good about keeping my spirits up over the past six months, but this weekend just past has tested my mettle. For one thing, my laptop shit itself. Won't even boot up. Apparently one of the necessary Windows files is corrupted. Thank heaven and earth I've been assidious about backing my stuff up - in the end I only lost a morning's editing work on Loaded. So it could be worse, but I feel like the creative centre of my life has passed on. I'll have to take it to the local computer shop and see what they can do about solving it. If I have to replace it, I think I'll go down the Mac road this time.

Now, as if that wasn't dispiriting enough in itself, I got yet another rejection for 'Other Intelligent Life', from The Town Drunk. They made vague references to flaws in character and plot and then informed me my writing "showed promise". Maybe I would have got a kick out of that 18 months ago, but these days I just don't give a crap about such faint praise.

Those two blows, piled on top of life's other petty frustrations (illness, vet bills, car repairs etc), have left me wondering whether striving for full-time authorship is a fool's pursuit. The longer I slave away at it, the more it seems like a damned lottery. One where you slog your guts out for hours a day instead of just buying a ticket.

Well, that's my self-pitying rant. I thought it might make me feel better, but now I just hate myself for being such a whiner. Anyway, in a fit of aggressive affirmative action, I gave 'Other Intelligent Life' to a fledgling market called Yog's Notebook. If they don't take it ... I suppose I'll put it aside and come back to it another day.

The Whinging Writer

What a mistake-a the make-a

As I began keying in some more changes on Loaded this morning (I figure mixing that with marking pages up will help reduce the monotony of the process) I discovered a typo on the FIRST FRICKIN PAGE. Now, it wasn't even a spelling mistake as such - I wrote 'consulting' instead of 'consulted' - but it mucked up the grammar of the whole sentence. In any other situation that could be considered a piffling oversight, and a lot of professionally produced magazines on newsstands have proofreading errors, but ... gee. In the book world, I think this is going to cost me dearly. Readers are looking for reasons to say, "Next!" and stick your manuscript in its SSAE.

Another somewhat unpleasant incident on a message board has convinced me to back away from any further association with a particular small press publisher. The forum has developed a creepy, weirdos-at-a-Star-Trek-convention feel and I think I might have offended some nerd in Vulcan ears with my tell-it-like-it-is approach to life.

Oh well, some weeks are just going to be like this, I guess.

Cut it out!

Editing continues apace and I feel as optimistic about authorship as I have in months. No particular reason why I should - perhaps it's just an inflating confidence in my ability to recognise passive prose (thank you very much Spinetingler editors for that valuable lesson). The other reason might be that 52 pages in, Loaded still strikes me as a good read. The lottery aspect of this 'profession' has been getting me down for the past month or two, but I've lately been infused with hope once more - a necessary thing, since it is the uncontracted writer's only sustenance during the potentially endless journey ahead.

I'm tapping in changes to 'Buried Potential' during whatever scraps of free time I can scrounge up. It's funny to be working on both things at the same time, as they are set in the same fictional cluster of outback towns. Part of another novel, Poison, also takes place there. I'd love a wide readership to get to know Kangaroo Flats, Shingleback Valley and Snake Ridge, as well as their odd characters and incidents.

When 'Buried Potential' is submitted, I plan to try 'Level Two' - a story that tickles me a lot - at a market called Atom Jack, which claims to like humour. Of all my stories, I think the lack of interest in 'Level Two' surprises and disappoints me most.

Lots happening, nothing happening

It's been an eventful week or so, even if none of the events are cause for celebration. I received a nice rejection from Four Volts of the 'good story but doesn't suit us' type which certainly beats some of the insipid nonsense I've copped lately. The rejected story, 'Other Intelligent Life', is now with The Town Drunk who I thought I would never bother submitting to again after their dumb-arse rejection of 'Level Two' ... but who knows, maybe subtler humour will appeal to them.

I'm now hacking away at Loaded again; done about 48 of the 148 pages. As usual it's the descriptive passages that are time consuming, full of passive prose and unnecessary telling and exposition. In fact, if the page is largely description it can take 40 mins of brain-pain editing before I'm really happy with it. That adds up to many hours of work - but it'll be worth it if Allen & Unwin show any interest. They're due to reply in the next month or so.

Burnout is an ugly thing

I have just completed a new draft of 'Buried Potential' and was horrified to see it - like 'Displeasures' - marred by glaring errors and huge chunks of telling. It's almost as though I had a mental illness towards the end of last year and can only now see the absurdity of my thinking around that time.

Anyhow, once I've keyed in all the changes (probably this weekend, if I can find the time) I plan to send it off to Abyss & Apex. I don't know whether its Australian flavour will work for or against it, but I'm all out of Aussie options after sending that substandard version around. A pity.

Also coming down with my first cold of 2007 - these have been a forgettable couple of weeks.

Be careful what you wish for

Interminable response times are probably worse, but it's not great when a story is rejected before you have time to mention its submission on your blog. The Fifth Di told me what I could do with 'Other Intelligent Life' this morning, only a few days after I sent it off. Several readers now have offered some variation on "the story didn't grab me", but I suspect they are not reading between the lines. I'm going to persevere with this one - I plan to send it to a UK market called Four Volts who claim to like things that are a bit out there or experimental.

'Displeasures of the Flesh' is also in a new set of hands. I sent it to Fantasy Magazine, which is probably out of my league, but what the hell - no one else seems to dig it.

Morning/mourning

Okay ... it seems 'Displeasures' didn't even make it past round one at Andromeda. Nor did I receive a single word of feedback on why it was rejected. This one hurts a lot.

I'm beginning to wonder if it's the fantasy nature of the tale that people are rejecting out of hand. Perhaps a market more dedicated to the genre should be my next port of call for this story.

Work on 'Captain Crabb' is also foundering at the moment due to my ignorance of nautical terminology. It doesn't help the flow of prose when you're trying to remember how to spell bo'sun or recall what a mizzenmast is.

--ADDENDUM--

I've decided to abandon 'Captain Crabb' as well. I liked my characters well enough, but the pirate genre is a boot that just doesn't fit my foot. I also have a feeling my brain is tired of composition and wants to get back into the editing/submitting routine.

Uneasy times

'The Ridiculous Captain Crabb' is 1,800 words old. Considering my experience in pirate fiction extends to an aborted reading of Treasure Island and the book I'm devouring at the moment, Bloody Jack, it's really taken me outside my comfort zone (which is both intimidating and exciting).

Nothing's changed at Andromeda and I'm a bit depressed. The last time a story languished this long in round 1, it didn't make it to the second.

A Ridiculous development

'Soul Cargo' kinda sunk under the weight of its own cliches after a single page ... but soon after a better idea came to me and seems much more seaworthy. 'The Ridiculous Captain Crabb', is a humorous look ... almost a parody ... of pirate story conventions. It will be original, that much I know, but whether it's good enough for Black Sails to accept remains to be seen.

Of Souls and Displeasures

'Displeasures' still languishes in round 1 at Andromeda and I'm getting nervous. It suggests whoever read it first either gave it a 'no' or a 'maybe' and passed it on to another reader. Oh well, no point fretting about it.

Yesterday, I started writing a story for Black Sails called 'Soul Cargo'. I did my best to think outside the box of typical pirate fantasy ... but I think I've gone too far outside, to the point where it won't be 'piratey' enough. I like my narrator's voice and the idea is okay, but it's turning out to be more of a ghost story. It could do well at another market, I suppose.