Caroline M. Yoachim

Submission # 25 and random thoughts on revisions

Sub 25 – Did some light revisions to the story that came back from F&SF (mainly tweaking the opening), came up with a (hopefully) better title, and shipped it out to Writers of the Future. This is my sixth entry to WotF.

Holding steady at 5 stories out to market at the moment. I’ve got one more almost ready to go (a flash story), and a bunch of things that need revisin’. Some writers thrive on revisions. I am not one of those writers. Little revisions I can handle, no worries. Tweak this, adjust that. But when I have to …

And on the 8th day the Slushgod smote my story…

Rejection #19 – Alas. 8 day rejection from JJA at F&SF. I’m getting a lot of “no grab” rejections…need to work on writing catchier openings.

I am pleased to report that 19 rejections makes a stack that is difficult to push a pushpin through. (I impale all my rejections on a pushpin on my corkboard.) Maybe when I hit 25 rejections I’ll upgrade to a nail.

Productivity Resumes

So I had an idea that was rattling around in my head for a while, and I kept trying to mash it with other things, which wasn’t working very well. So instead of doing that I tried to boil the idea down to its very essence and write it as flash, which seemed to work. Flash is not really one of my strengths, so it will be interesting to see what other people think of it. Anyway, it was nice to get some actual writing done, as lately I’ve been doing photography and outlining, both of which are at least …

Submission #24 and stock photography

Well, after Connie’s workshop, I’d meant to revise a story AND get a new one written by Potlatch (tomorrow). I’m one for two on that. Got the story revised so I can mail it off today (Sub #24, my 8th sub to F&SF). No new writing whatsoever, though I did do some outlining on two separate story ideas. So post-Potlatch, I really need to settle in and get at least one of them written up.

Why so little writing? I’m working on breaking into stock photography. At the moment I’m selling pictures through dreamstime and fotolia. These are …

Workshop Tidbits

Went to a writing workshop with Connie Willis, part of the Hugo House series of one day workshops (http://www.nwmediaarts.com/2007Event-Workshops.html). Connie was wonderful, with lots of insights on plot. She gave TONS of examples from books and movies, which I always find helpful. And, in addition to all the tidbits I picked up from Connie, it was nice to spend the day with a bunch of other writers, talking about writing.

Assorted tidbits from Connie Willis:

Plot reversals change the direction of the story. The questions that the reader is interested in change. A reversal can come about by finding out …

Miscellaneous Stuff

Over the last week or so:
Submission #23 – to Strange Horizons
Rejection #18 – an 8-day “nice writing” but “no grab” from F&SF

After several days of not writing, I outlined a story today. It’s not ready to be written yet, it’s close, but it needs to be mashed with *something.* I’m hoping that it will become clear to me what that something is by Monday, so that I can devote next week to writing the story. On the other hand, it may be that I’ll have a whole bunch of shiny new ideas by then, since …

Rejection #17, return of the ducks

My mechanical ducks are back from Strange Horizons, but with a personal rejection, which was nice. (Well, as nice as a rejection ever is.) Feeling relatively encouraged, I went ahead and turned those ducks right around and sent them to Clarkesworld (submission #22).

No fresh writing today, or even revising. Instead I’ve been working on assorted crits. Tomorrow, though, I’ll get back to my own stuff. Really. After all, I have to have *something* done by the end of the week, be it a new story or a revision. (Or a novel chapter, I suppose, but since I’m not working …

WIP complete

Finished my story-of-the-week this morning. It came in at 5800 words, which for me is on the longish side of things. Sent it to my online crit group almost immediately, so now it’s out of my hands and I’m going to try not to think about it until a few weeks from now when the crits start rolling in.

Indoor Rain

There’s water seeping in through my ceiling. There’s little bulges up there, moist and swollen, one of which burst and dripped water down onto my kitchen counter. Fortunately, it seems to be a very small leakage–at the moment, it isn’t even dripping. Unfortunately, there is water, seeping in through the ceiling. And I’m not even on the top floor of the building. *sigh*

Writing-wise, I got my sub out to F&SF, and am closing in on the end of my WIP. It’s 4,837 words (1372 today) and I think I’ll only have to crank out one more scene. That’ll have …

Submission #21, WIP

Sub #21 – Packaged up a light revision of my backwards fairy tale, and it’ll go off to F&SF with tomorrow’s mail. If (knock on wood) I don’t get a rejection between now and when I mail it out, I’ll be up to 4 stories out in circulation, which is a new high for me.

My current project is up to 3465 words (598 words today). I think I’m about 1.5k out from the end, one or two days more if all goes well. Not sure what I’ll be working on next. I have a couple of things that need …