R.J.K. Lee's Figments Blog: Q4 of WotF done and hit 100 submissions

How did everyone do in September? For me, writing was successful in terms of current short term goals (long term questionable), work on a side business has been extremely slow, teaching jobs have gradually picked back up though with some losses (suggesting a light at the end of the financial trouble tunnel, depending on how covid-19 proceeds in future weeks), and my kids seem to be doing well enough for the moment.

In September, I wrapped up revisions to my story that started as a 250-word KYD story, expanded out to about 13,000 words, and submitted it to the Writers of the Future contest, quarter 4 deadline, with about a half day to spare. Early by my standards. I had planned for a 5000-7000 word story, but after drafting, the story clearly needed the space for world-building and thematic development. I ran it by several readers and integrated their feedback into drafts while sticking to the essential core. While feedback is definitely essential for a quality story, I’ve definitely found I need to be careful not to lose the core story to conflicting feedback. I listen to all of it, but disregard what I feel destroys my vision. If multiple people say the same thing then I’ll be more likely to pay attention, but even then I’m careful about letting that mess with the original vision too much. It’s a difficult balance. Sometimes feedback will seem completely off target but still worth testing out as you can be surprised at what you find.

I finished the story and submitted while staying at a mountainside school for a 3-day elementary school program. I stayed overnight at a hotel the first night then at the school’s guest room for two nights. After submitting the story, I had time on the next afternoon to hike around the wilderness with one of the other teachers, a UK/German guy. We didn’t make it to the mountain itself, but we did find a surprisingly diverse landscape. From trails through bamboo that actually formed a tunnel in a few areas, down makeshift steps into the moist loam of a pine forest alongside a stream bed, up into a small tree fort overlooking a soccer field and lodge where the students had photos and lunch the first day, into trails leading to overgrown campsites, up alongside a new growth of dark pine tree groves, and eventually into fields of tall bamboo and grass and red berries. Later on we found another grove of trees along a stream with a bridge crossing. The UK guy said the pine groves reminded him of Germany. I agreed. They looked like this fairytalesque area I bicycled through from Netherlands across the border of Germany.

The hike reminded me of all the travel poetry I lost to a broken hard drive, written some eighteen years ago. I still draw on those poems at times, though my head is much more in the fiction writing game than the poetry one these days.

Anyway, enough of that...I just hit 100 hundred submissions for 2020. I stayed up late and sent out a few more stories and poems. So yay! I did it. Goal almost met. I imagine I'll hit 100 rejections by November. Doesn't mean I'll let up though...Still need to get at least one of these published at a decent rate in a good publication.

What's next? Not sure. I'll keep submitting regularly, but I want to do another revision of my novel, as I'm sure I can make it better after the past year of writing. I've improved a lot, at least so I like to believe. I need to make a post about that on the Writers of the Future forum to meet some of the last homework for the Wolf Pack over there. Was very motivating to join Wolf Moon's challenge, and to have formed a writing group as a result will surely motivate onward into the future.

Current Stats on 100 Rejections Goal

Rejections: 74 (46 short, 26 flash, 2 poems)

Pending: 26 (15 short, 8 flash, 2 poems, 1 novel grant app)

Total 2020 Submissions: 100 (to publications paying 5¢/word or more)

Edit 10/10: 80 rejections, 24 pending, 104 total submissions

As for the first two lists below, I added four to the deadlines and three to the publications without deadlines. EDIT: added a 10/19 deadline for Flame Tree contest, a 10/31 deadlines for Dark Matter Magazine, and a 12/1 deadline for Don't Touch That (anthology). EDIT: Cemetery Media Gates: Flash Horror Anthology "Campfire Macabre" is wrapping up submissions early with deadline now 10/31 and only a few slots left so get them stories in (see further details below or just click the link there).

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Monday, October 5, 2020

Q4 of WotF done and hit 100 submissions