Discussion: Q1 Volume 40

Oh lort, I thought I had messed up something fierce! Last night, I saw the conversation about BCS and I thought I had submitted to them, but I couldn't remember any feedback. So, I search my email, found the thread, re-read the feedback on the rejection, and then opened my submission spreadsheet. I've only been using it since last year, but I only had 1 submission to them. So, I sent them something. Today in the middle of a lecture I was giving, my brain insisted that I had subbed my WotF for last quarter and inadvertently simultaneously submitted a story. BCS says you can send in simultaneous subs so long as you let them know. I had not. So, I panic. And then I double-check my spreadsheet and see that I submitted a different story to WotF and thus, there is no problem. Long story short, that was a terrible lecture.

I’m sorry if this is not the right place to ask, but where do you all find beta readers for your stories? My Q1 could use some extra eyes. 

@kz_richards There's another board/sub-forum called Story Critique Exchange ( https://www.writersofthefuture.com/forum/story-critique-exchange/). Find someone there looking for an exchange, or create your own thread proposing one.

Avoid giving away identifying aspects of your story, because WOTF is blind judged and @karyenglish doesn't want to know who wrote what! But I recommend giving at least an idea of length.

I would offer to take a look myself, but I have a bit of a queue already and several 80+ hour work weeks ahead of me 😔 

@ease Thank you! I’ll check it out.

I’m deeply entrenched in NaNoWriMo right now and my traitor of a brain decided to start writing my Q1 short story in the shower in full detail. I guess I know what I’ll be writing in December. Gonna have to make a few notes in the meantime.

All set for QTR1, working on some ideas for QTR2.

Does anyone's home magically become a fun place to clean whenever you're stuck on a story? *picks up vacuum and headphones*  

Posted by: @writersaraho

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Does anyone's home magically become a fun place to clean whenever you're stuck on a story? *picks up vacuum and headphones*  

Ha ha. I feel this one.
"How can I properly write story when my bed isn't even made?"
"Eeww gross...I can't write now with the kitchen garbage smelling like that."

Ode to Volume 40

What makes a story sparkle?

What makes a picture sing?

What am I missing?

What wrinkles?

obstacles?

conflicts?

Must I iron, dodge, fling?

Emotions clench and constrict

Mashing together

to shine brighter than a star.

Posted by: @writersaraho

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Does anyone's home magically become a fun place to clean whenever you're stuck on a story? *picks up vacuum and headphones*  

LOL When I'm easily distracted, it typically means EITHER 1. There's something difficult to write and I don't know how to approach it, or 2. I'm not emotionally ready to approach it. (There are other things that could be happening, too.) Ways I get around this can include busying myself physically with boring chores because that frees my brain to think, but if that's not working, set a time to five minutes of stream of conscious writing. Doesn't even have to be about your story, but try to incorporate a character. Ask them questions. "How are you?" "Do you like how your story is going so far?" You might be shocked at the answers. If that doesn't help, type in the letters "TK" and go to the next scene. There are no words in the English letters with TK in them, so a search and find is easy to find that spot. What you might find is that the scene you struggled with was never necessary and your subconscious couldn't be bothered. LOL Good luck and I hope this helps. 

I don't know how I think I'm doing NaNoWriMo, finishing my novel cover art, writing a new WOTF submission this quarter, and making new IOTF entries but I guess we'll see by end of December where the breaking point is! NaNoWriMo is going swimmingly and everything else is crouched in the background whispering about whether or not they'll get their turns.

Posted by: @empressed

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Posted by: @writersaraho

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Does anyone's home magically become a fun place to clean whenever you're stuck on a story? *picks up vacuum and headphones*  

LOL When I'm easily distracted, it typically means EITHER 1. There's something difficult to write and I don't know how to approach it, or 2. I'm not emotionally ready to approach it. (There are other things that could be happening, too.) Ways I get around this can include busying myself physically with boring chores because that frees my brain to think, but if that's not working, set a time to five minutes of stream of conscious writing. Doesn't even have to be about your story, but try to incorporate a character. Ask them questions. "How are you?" "Do you like how your story is going so far?" You might be shocked at the answers. If that doesn't help, type in the letters "TK" and go to the next scene. There are no words in the English letters with TK in them, so a search and find is easy to find that spot. What you might find is that the scene you struggled with was never necessary and your subconscious couldn't be bothered. LOL Good luck and I hope this helps. 

 

 

Thanks for the advice! I really want to try the stream-of-consciousness writing you mentioned. It sounds like a lot of fun because even though I know my writing won't ever be *perfect* (even when I'm drafting), I still have this perfectionist in the back of my head that is critical of every thought before the words even hit the page.  

@craydimensional Awesome. Keep the stories and submissions coming!

Not sure if this is exactly the right place to put this, but it should work. I just wanted to leave a note of thanks for all the things I've learned from the board and the friends I've made along the way. This community is incredibly supportive and insightful and I'm forever grateful. Happy Thanksgiving!

@babooher Amen! Thank you to everyone on the forum. I've learned something from each and every one of you. Happy Thanksgiving!

Happy Thanksgiving to all, and to all a full belly.  

I'm in. Working on a fresh story. I'm not sure whether to use it for QTR 2 yet.

I hit a wall on story 2.  Well, not a wall, just a realization that this story I have planned will at it SHORTEST be a novellette.  Back to revising the original story.  I may also revise one that I drafted and sucked, as I had a revelation a month ago as to why it sucked, and what I need to do to improve it: I need to make my original idea a red herring.

Just waiting on some feedback for my Q1, but shouldn't have any dramas getting it in. I hope to submit around Mid-December or earlier

Right now, I'm tinkering with an alternate story, but one that in its current form wouldn't be a strong WotF fit. I like it, but it's deliberately going off down a different path than I would have chosen for a WotF contest submission. If it turns out particularly good despite that, I may consider it for Q2, but right now it's just a throw-away--something to write quickly, refine, and submit elsewhere.

It's looking to be fairly compact, likely 1.5k to 2k when finished, so it may well be out of the door sooner than my Q1 is polished and ready for submission.

Been a while since I've posted here, but not due to lack of interest. I haven't yet submitted to Q4, but it'll be the same story I did for for Q3—the DQ because I forgot to delete my byline! I will (of course) give it another pass of editing. I can ALWAYS find things to tighten, tension to add, characterizations to improve.

But what's really had me filled has been finishing my novel Not Like Us. I'm excited about it, should have it on Kindle by Christmas. In the final editing, I have deleted 3-1/2 chapters (Kill Your Darlings), about 8000 words, added about 3000 words, and made hundreds of edits. Pretty intense.

Posted by: @ehonour

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But what's really had me filled has been finishing my novel Not Like Us. I'm excited about it, should have it on Kindle by Christmas. In the final editing, I have deleted 3-1/2 chapters (Kill Your Darlings), about 8000 words, added about 3000 words, and made hundreds of edits. Pretty intense.

Good news on the novel front.  I have a horror one and a sword and sorcery one in the works. I set them aside to learn how to write short stories. Writing these short stories has really helped me grow as a writer. I expect I will be redoing many chapters in my novels after all I've learned.  Next year I plan to get back to the novels. 

Good luck on Q1 and the novels.  PM me with the link for Kindle when its published.

Posted by: @scott_m_sands

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Just waiting on some feedback for my Q1, but shouldn't have any dramas getting it in. I hope to submit around Mid-December or earlier

Mid-december is my goal too.

@aivanther oh my goodness, I feel you on that one. A few of my submissions in the past were planned to end by 10K words, and then I finish a draft and find the wordcount at 25K. However, sometimes a story will just be as long as it needs to be. Other times, it's a result of insufficient planning - or too much planning, I've gone both extreme ends of the spectrum. Either way, keep going.

For those who might be interested: this Tues. Dec. 6, 7 pm to 8 pm (Eastern time), Nebula award-winning author Premee Mohamed will discuss worldbuilding techniques for writers, with a focus on speculative fiction (Free-Online-Zoom). She is an Assistant Editor at the short fiction audio venue Escape Pod and the author of the 'Beneath the Rising' series of novels as well as several novellas. In 2022 she won the Nebula award and World Fantasy Award for her novella 'And What Can We Offer You Tonight' and the Aurora Award for her novella 'The Annual Migration of Clouds.' The talk is FREE from the Orange County Library System (Orlando), but you must pre-register. (If they ask for a library card number, ignore that and just put in your name and email.) Here’s the link: Worldbuilding for Writers - Orange County Library System (ocls.info) 

Posted by: @elainemidcoh

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For those who might be interested: this Tues. Dec. 6, 7 pm to 8 pm (Eastern time), Nebula award-winning author Premee Mohamed will discuss worldbuilding techniques for writers, with a focus on speculative fiction (Free-Online-Zoom). She is an Assistant Editor at the short fiction audio venue Escape Pod and the author of the 'Beneath the Rising' series of novels as well as several novellas. In 2022 she won the Nebula award and World Fantasy Award for her novella 'And What Can We Offer You Tonight' and the Aurora Award for her novella 'The Annual Migration of Clouds.' The talk is FREE from the Orange County Library System (Orlando), but you must pre-register. (If they ask for a library card number, ignore that and just put in your name and email.) Here’s the link: Worldbuilding for Writers - Orange County Library System (ocls.info) 

Thanks, Elaine. This looks awesome. I'll check the times and hopefully I can make it

Well, my Q1 entry is coming together. A lot of revisions tonight, and my alpha-1.1 draft is now essentially complete, with all the major holes, missing sections, and flow notes fully addressed. But there's still considerably more editing ahead!

I have one conceptual plot-hole, which I'm trying to work through. I'm not fully certain, yet, if it's an actual plot-hole, or if it's just that the rationale for the events is not fully explored in the text--I need to interrogate my character a little more, and make sure I understand how they would think about the situation they're in. Once I have that figured out, I have a handful of additional notes I need to review, then I can finally get onto the actual style and flow edits to try and pummel this thing into a proper beta form that I actually like.

This story is an unusual one, in that it's fighting me, but also being a ton of fun to work on. I think that's because it's not fighting me in the usual writer's block kind of ways, but more in needs lots of research and surplus of ideas ways, which means I'm now having to pare back quite a bit, because too many of those details just don't quite fit in the final version of the story, at least if I don't want it to read like a cross between a story and an informational textbook.

(Actually, sounds a bit like Moby Dick right there, now that I write that out. But I'm not trying to write Moby Dick. Honestly, I don't even really like Moby Dick, which makes me a philistine, I know--but I don't care, I like what I like. And that's not it.)

Anyway, it's a weird one, but a fun one. Actively planning to run this one a little closer to the line than my usual entries.

@elainemidcoh thanks!

Hello all! How are you managing writing your brilliant Quarter 1s while also juggling end-of-year activities out there? Are you wrapping up a draft while wrapping up gifts? Cooking up a great finale while you plan a holiday menu? Waiting for beta readers to get back to you while you prepare for loved ones to descend?

It's all about finding that balance, right? In past years I've made beautiful gift tags from vintage Christmas cards, embellishing them with ribbon and jingle bells. Well, this year it's to: from: stickers from the dollar store fam, because my prose is on point! 🤣 

Q1 is always — BY FAR — the most difficult of all quarters for me. My birthday is in October (Halloween!), Thanksgiving is November, and Christmas is December. Also, New Years Eve. Plus all the end of year activities at work. Definitely a rush, and I applaud everyone who still manages to submit on time, especially me sometimes.