Hello, dreamers. After a flurry of writing, last week I eased off the gas a bit. For the first time since the year began, I had a story fizzle on me. It was disappointing, but it happens. And in the end, I think I needed that; a reminder that this isn’t an exact science. Not every story pans out, and that’s okay. Instead, I ended up doing some much-needed editing, and worked on strategy for my upcoming query. That said, here’s what I’ll be working on this week:

Querying Pioneers

Over the past week, I did a lot of research, mostly on writing a synopsis. I have to figure out how to summarize not only a sci-fi novel but also a multi-POV work. And that figures to be…complicated. But I’ve found some good resources, and hope to get to work on the synopsis by the end of the week.

Before that, I plan to revise my query letter. As I said last week, it’s not anywhere close to being “there” yet, but I feel I started out much better than I ever have before. I plan to listen to a few episodes of “The Shit No One Tells You About Writing” this week to nail things down a bit more.

Over the course of the past week, I had one of what I call my “Come to Jesus” moments. I love writing (I wouldn’t still be doing it otherwise), and I love the feeling I get when I’m on a roll and the words are flowing. But now and then, I find myself staring at a mountain of completed works, and remind myself that I need to know exactly what I’m going to do with them.

I know that the query process takes time. A lot of it. I also know that the list of agents who specialize in genre fic is a lot shorter than those who rep gen fic. There is a very real possibility I’ll strike out this time around. Whenever I set out to do something big, I always start by asking myself what I’m going to do if it doesn’t work out. The first question I ask is “What’s the worst that can happen?” Once I’ve answered that question, I ask “How would I go about dealing with that?”

It’s my way of taking some of the tension and pressure out of stressful situations. Once I’ve actually stopped and considered my next steps after potential failure, it’s easier to put myself out there and try it. So this week, I spent some time asking myself what I’ll do if I query Pioneers and strike out. It was painful at first, of course. But after I thought about what I’d try writing next, what changes I’d make to Pioneers before it was eventually published (following a successful query of another future novel), I felt a lot better.

Even if my query for Pioneers fails, this isn’t the end. Not by a long shot. And knowing that helps me to look forward to the path ahead. This week, I’ll be back at work on my query materials. It’s time to take my shot.

Short Fiction

So this week I shifted gears on short fiction. I began work on a new short story, and while it felt like a cool premise, I never really felt it catch on. So instead, I resumed my daily sketches, and set myself to a week of editing and market research.

The market research, in particular, was long overdue. In addition to scouting publications and essays to submit my work to, I got a hold of a copy of Asimov’s, one of the top sci-fi literary mags. And reading it confirmed a suspicion I’ve held for a while: it’s probably not the content or writing of my stories that’s holding me back. It’s the length.

So for a number of years now, my short fiction has run on the long side. This has become more glaring as the formats of short fiction have both contracted and diversified. When I first began writing, most publications broadly defined a short story as running from 2k words through around 10k, with many going as high as 20. Since then, flash fiction has emerged, often comprising stories no longer than 1k (some as low as 500). Short stories have shrunk to typically no more than 7500 words, while the “novelette” format has slid in between the short story and novella, typically ranging between 7500 and around 15k. Over the past five years or so, most of my completed short fiction has run between 10k and 15.

That places most of my work within the novelette/novella ranges, and that may pose a problem. Take Asimov’s, for instance. They publish by-monthy, and each issue contains about six short stories (likely defined by them as no more than 7500 words; they don’t specify on their website). However, each issue contains only three novelettes, and only one novella. That means, if they consider my work novella length (and again, I don’t know), I may be vying to have each story I send to them be one of only six such pieces they publish in an entire year.

I have a longstanding rule I’ve mentioned a lot on here: a story should only be as short or long as it needs to be. So, my first reaction to all this was basically, “Well, that…sucks.” But I am undeterred. On the bright side, it’s encouraged me to work on condensing my daily writing, and revisit lapsed projects I’d turned away from because I just didn’t think there was enough story there to tell.

On the bright side, editing has gone very well. As of yesterday, I now have five polished manuscripts ready for sub, which is something I haven’t had since shortly after I began writing. I’m confident that at least one of these, regardless of length, will find a home somewhere. I’ve also begun something I’ve been meaning to do for a while: looking for ways to condense existing manuscripts. Just shedding enough words to drop below 9k gives me access to a much broader market to sub to. If I can get any of these stories down to 7500 without compromising the narrative, that would open things up even further.

As it stands, I’ve pared Saints of Armageddon down below 9k, largely by cutting away a brief side-story I’d been iffy on to begin with. While the story is still on sub with Analog (as I imagine it will remain for the next month or so), if it is rejected (which is likely), I have a broader market to work with. And I was able to cut some excess historical worldbuilding from Prishelets, dropping it below 15k. That allowed me to sub it to Fusion Fragment, a Canadian-based literary mag that says in their submission guidelines that they’re particularly interested in character-driven slipstream stories with a dark, reflective feel. Boy, do I have a story for them.

Over the coming week, I plan to continue reading Asimov’s, while also seeing if I can track down a copy of Clarkesworld or Analog (neither is available at my local bookstore; I may try the local libraries). And I plan to approach my daily sketches with a fresh perspective, seeing if I can start to pare down stories and produce a more concise narrative.

New Content

This week, I’ll be making another book-related “Sci-fi Reviewed” post, this time reviewing Caliban’s War by James S.A. Corey. Until then, dare to dream. – MK