Rejection

A new post?

A new post.

That’s almost two posts in a week, which would be impressive if this weren’t the first week of this blog’s life.

I’ve always had a slight problem with procrastination.  All throughout University, I would make things up as I went along.  Why do readings when I can make up answers well enough to pass?  Why actually research papers when I can write them at the last minute and then find quotes that fit my point three hours before the paper has to be handed in?

Why clean now when I can clean tomorrow, or the next day, or never?

If I leave plates out long enough, they’ll biodegrade, right?

Procrastination and getting writing done don’t go too well together.  The number of times I found myself distracted while writing my first book, well, it turned what should have taken me six months into a two year process.

And it did take me two years, after editing, to write my first novel, an 80,000 word ‘behemoth’ (that’s sarcasm, which sadly doesn’t translate well on paper).

So now, planning the sequel to my first book, I’m struck with more procrastination.

Character planning?  Drawings of locations, styles of dress, working out the economic trappings that move an entire continent?

Why would I work on that, when I could just watch TV?  Or clean?  Or cut my toenails?

Somewhere the procrastination will have to stop.  I just haven’t figured out where yet. 

It’s like the age-old depiction of good and evil, tiny figures standing on peoples’ shoulders, opposites eternally telling us to do the right thing, or do the wrong thing.  Well, procrastination sits in the middle, its feet covered in unchanged socks, lounging in a reclining chair in a half-open bathrobe, eating popcorn and watching the Discovery channel.

Or maybe the History channel.

Or maybe Fox.

Whatever procrastination is watching, it sits there, waiting and listening while good and evil battle it out and then, when one of them inevitably wins and says you should do something, procrastination chimes in, popcorn bits spraying out of its mouth like a fire hose while it says, with more whine than Italy, ‘fine, but do it laaaater’.

Right.

So, that was a rather long and unnecessary analogy.  Where was I?

Right.  I have a lot of planning to do, sorting out a new continent for a sequel, populating it, creating and drawing an assortment of secondary and supporting characters, really just creating a world.

And I just can’t bring myself to do anything but watch Brooklyn nine nine.

It’s terrible.

So that’s been the progress on a sequel this week.  Thinking about maybe starting and getting distracted by television.

There has been some progress on getting my first novel published at least.

And by progress I mean I got my first rejection letter.

WOOOO partyyyyyyy

I’m going to get it framed.

No seriously.  Framed and put on a wall.  This first one, and every one that comes after.

It came from Penguin/DAW, and was not bad, for a form rejection.  Thanks for applying, don’t give up, we can only take the best because of the failing market on books, you know.  The usual.

Or what seems like it might be the usual anyway.  I’ll find out when I get the next rejection letter, I suppose.

p.s. For anyone interested, below is what a rejection letter looks like.  Woo!  Rejection!  Party!

 

 

Of Beginnings

Where to begin.

Where to begin is something I often wonder, and I’m sure I’m not alone.

With something like this, a blog, where do you start?  Do you start at the beginning?  And if so, which beginning?

I have no idea where you start.

I start here.  Or…well I started up there.

That’s beyond the point.

The point is, I want to write.  I’ve wanted to write for a long time, almost as long as I’ve wanted to read.

Reading, that’s pretty easy, all things considered.  I feel like I’ve gotten the hang of it over the years.  Grab book, or newspaper, or fancy electronic device, or cereal box, then look at little squiggly lines as long as it takes, until hopefully words start making sense.

Writing; writing’s a bit different.

I keep hearing, very often, that the only way to learn to write is to write more.  Write until you’ve finished something, and then continue to write.  It’s pretty good advice, as far as I can tell, and so far I’ve followed it.

I’ve written one thing; one novel.  The Fire and the Fog.  A young-adult fantasy.  A fairly simple beginning, but a beginning nonetheless.

Now, I’ve begun working on a sequel. 

Write until you’ve finished something, and then write more, right?

I feel I may be using that word too much.

Right now, I’m doing character outlines, location planning, setting out the first ‘act’ of the second book.  I have some broad ideas, ideas of where to begin and where to end, and vague, nebulous notion that there should probably be words somewhere in the middle.

What I find myself wondering now though, is what do I do with the first book I’ve written?  What do I do with The Fire and the Fog?

I’ve put it up on Kindle independently, for $0.99.  I’ve had 125 copies printed, and I have sold ~75 of them so far.  I’ve sent the manuscript off to two different publishing companies, Penguin (through the DAW imprint), and TOR, and await answers from both.

So there’s the background, now we can get back to the beginning.  The beginning of this blog is, I suppose, a way to chronicle the progress I make on my second novel, and the progress I make trying to get published.

Where this blog might end, who knows.

But at least there’s a beginning.