Author of LGBTQIA+ speculative fiction and poetry in English and Esperanto. Teacher of scientific writing. Lover of natural history. SFWA Secretary. (he/him)
When I wrote The Third Time’s the Charm (available via Water Dragon Publishing), I didn’t think too much about genre. That is, it was “just” a fantasy story. But when the story came out, my editor asked me whether or not it was “young adult” (YA). And I honestly didn’t know.
I’ve read about a number of authors, particularly women, who are angry that their work gets pigeonholed as YA. I admitted I didn’t really know, but that I was fine with whatever he wanted to go with. So it got marked as YA and I didn’t think too much about it at at the time.
I’m now working on sequels, some that have darker elements, and so I was a bit concerned that perhaps there are limits that I should stay clear of. So I followed up with my editor who said, “Personally, I think the boundaries are pretty wide.” And sent me a link to a SFWA post. I found a statement by Stacy Whitman about “Edgier YA” to be particularly helpful:
Some break down YA further into two fuzzy categories, young YA and edgy/older YA. […] Edgier YA won’t shy away from more graphic depiction of sex, won’t shy away from using strong language, and will sometimes be gory in violence. Edgier YA characters will often be older teens, but not necessarily.
A YA novel is centrally interested in the experience and growth of
its teenage protagonist(s),
whose dramatized choices, actions, and concerns drive the
story,
and it is narrated with relative immediacy to that teenage perspective.
Now that’s the stuff.
I’m not quite sure why “story” is on a line by itself. I guess to exclude some literary fiction — or maybe slice-of-life stuff?
But the key takeaway for me is the focus of the story: is the arc primarily about how the character changes? Or is it primarily about other events in the world changing in which the character is a player? It’s the role of personal transformation that seems key.
This really brought into focus some choices I had made (unknowingly) but that make the stories fit better in YA than other alternatives. This will help me situate the sequels so that they stay in the genre and don’t wander off.
Drinking Fountain in Shaw’s Gardens from Poŝtmarkoj el Esperantujo
As far as I can tell, I’ve never written a proper year-end wrap-up of my fiction writing. But I haven’t really done enough fiction writing previously to warrant it. My first fiction publication was in 2006 (Milos kaj Donos) and my first speculative fiction publication was in 2010 (Kion dio farus?). My 2016 story, Krespusko sub Fago, won an honorable mention in the Belartaj Konkursoj. But this year was basically the first year, I made a serious effort to submit fiction in English.
In 2021, beginning on June 12, I made 49 submissions of 10 manuscripts to 25 different markets. Four of the manuscripts were older (the oldest manuscript was started in 2004) though much revised. Six of the manuscripts were newly written in 2021 (including a 22,000 word novella, which was begun in fall 2020).
I received 39 rejections. Eight submissions are still outstanding, not including one “revise and resubmit.” And I received one acceptance.
Most of the rejections were variations on “Unfortunately, this story didn’t work as well for me as I’d hoped” or “Unfortunately, your story isn’t quite what we’re looking for right now.” One wrote, “There were things we enjoyed about it, but overall it didn’t quite work for us.”
I got two rejections that included actual, actionable feedback:
I loved the cooking details and craft details, and that the [MC] tried to think his way out of his fate, but the fable overall felt a bit more simple to me than I needed in order for it to feel satisfying, and the frame narrative to me didn’t have as much of an inextricable role in the story as I was hoping.
While I liked [the MC]’s curiosity, especially as it serves to move the story along, I found I did want to see more of his thoughts on what was happening around him, and to see his world through his own eyes, to see what he would think when he saw the sheep on the surrounding hills, etc.
I’ve learned a lot about writing this year — most of all from my interactions with Paper Angel Press (Water Dragon Publishing is an imprint of Paper Angel Press), the managing editor Steven Radecki, and the lively community of associated writers (aka The Island of Misfit Toys). The feedback I got from the reader panel was very helpful to identify and correct a number of small but significant issues with the manuscript. I learned several really useful things from the editorial process. The most important of these was to report facts via the character’s observations in preference to reporting them as the narrator — this corresponds directly to the comment I got above from one of my rejections, but which I couldn’t really understand until I saw what the editor was doing with my manuscript. Now I can watch for that myself.
I’ve also learned a lot about publishing — and about promoting myself. I’ve never felt comfortable engaging in self-promotion, but it’s clearly become an increasing important part of the publishing process. To paraphrase the demotivator: “The only consistent feature of all your unprofitable books is you.” I’m even using Facebook (Ugh). But I’ve drawn the line at Instagram.
I learned from various other experiences as well. I attended two writing conferences, Readercon 31 and Discon III. In both cases, due to the pandemic, I was a virtual attendee. Readercon did a fantastic job of creating opportunities to meet and interact with people, perhaps because it was virtual only. (And also due to a particularly talented organizer who managed the technical landscape like a virtuoso.) It was at Readercon where I met the friendly folks from Water Dragon. I didn’t feel like I really met anyone at Discon III which was split between a face-to-face environment and a virtual environment. The virtual part of the conference felt like a balkanized afterthought.
I also investigated two local writing-support organizations: Straw Dog Writers and Amherst Writers. I attended one writing workshop (by Straw Dog) “Darling, You’re Making a Scene.” It was well organized and I learned some stuff. I haven’t joined either organization yet, but I probably should — for self-promotion reasons, if for no other.
In the new year, I’ve identified several things I want to work on. I recognize I need to get better at story structure. This is hard because I like my stories the way they are and I don’t necessarily want to write stories where the stakes are higher or the main character has to “risk everything”. That may be a hill I’m willing to die on. (Or maybe not, thinking about my most recent writing.)
I also want to get better at titles for my stories. I was fascinated when I learned that the author wrote I Sexually Identify as an Attack Helicopter, in part, because it was a meme and they wanted to co-opt and subvert the meme. Note: I’m not saying I want to have my titles embroiled in the same kind of controversy (or any kind of controversy, honestly) — but that watching these events unfold that brought home to me how important titles are and that I need to put more thought and effort into choosing titles because I suck at it.
I would also like to join a writing group. Unfortunately, I’ve not had good experiences with most of the writing groups I’ve joined previously. Many of them were organized by, and primarily peopled with, women and felt unwelcoming to me. I do have a small circle of readers who have graciously read my manuscripts and provide excellent, thoughtful feedback, but I think I need more in-depth critiques. Maybe I should consider taking a class. Or I would love to attend Viable Paradise. But those are hard to do while I’m employed full time. And when I do have time, I want to spend it writing.
I’m also hoping to attend several writing conferences in 2022. I’ve already signed up for Arisia and Chicon. And I’ve agreed to attend the Rhode Island ComicCon to help table for Paper Angel Press in November (though I’ve not yet registered). But the Omicron variant of COVID may prevent me from attending Arisia. And we’ll have to see what conditions are like next fall.
Mostly, though, I’m just going to keep writing because, for the first time in a long time, I’m finding that I’m happy. In no small part, this is the result of working with Paper Angel Press and Steven Radecki. I’m constantly impressed by their energy, professionalism, and support. I’d been unhappy for so long that this year has been a revelation to me. For the first time in almost as long as I can remember, I’m genuinely looking forward to what the next year will bring.
Someone asked me recently how I would measure success as a writer. After a brief digression on the futility of “measuring” dimensionless variables with no units, I decided to reflect on what success might look like.
A few years ago, Wayne Chang was invited to speak several times by my employer. He had recently sold his start-up to Twitter for $100 million and was being extensively courted to donate. His talks were interesting, focused on encouraging students to be introspective about their goals and values and pursue their interests:
“Real founders are driven by purpose. All the other [motives], including the money itself, are byproducts of this purpose.”
After his talk, he was surrounded by students who kept asking him about how to make a lot of money and who almost seemed to be trying to brush up against him, as though some magic pixie dust might rub off on them. It was pretty embarrassing, to be honest: the guy already answered that.
That said, money isn’t irrelevant to success either.
But it’s not the most important thing either, like the classic joke:
A farmer wins the lottery and a reporter asks him: “What are you going to do with all that money?” The farmer answers, “I’m just gonna keep on farming ’til the money runs out.”
Around the time John Hodgman wrote Vacationland, he did a show in Northampton that was wonderful. One of the questions he was struggling with (in the book and the show) was the ineffable quality of success. Because people kept asking the secret to his success and he was stumped. He’d been working on stuff right along and, at some point, some things got traction and he became a celebrity. But what was different about those things and all the other stuff he’d been doing? He couldn’t tell. He was utterly unable to guess why these five things got traction, while 10 before/during and the 10 during/after did not. And so his best answer was to just keep putting stuff out there. Because although you can’t predict which thing might become successful, if you’re not putting anything out there, you can’t be successful.
For me, success has always been about being able to pursue my own work and do what I think is right. And, in that regard, I’ve been pretty successful. My occupation has allowed me great latitude to choose the projects I want to work on. Or, at least, it did. Recently, I’ve become quite unhappy at work. All of public higher education has been distorted because the oligarchs would like to see it destroyed. And it was crushing to realize, after 25 years, that my work was being used as a come-on by the rentier class to get young people to indenture themselves at high interest rates to the money economy. So what now?
I started writing more seriously only quite recently primarily as a displacement activity. It was a way to get my thoughts away from topics that were making me panicked and sad and onto something safe. And, with my satisfying career not quite so satisfying lately, I was looking for something more.
Jane McGonigal, in her book Reality is Broken, identified four qualities that make for a happy life: (1) Satisfying work to do, (2) The experience of being good at something, (3) Time spent with people we like, and (4) The chance to be a part of something bigger. She was talking in the context of gamification: using games to give people a more satisfactory life experience. To me — someone who despises gamification — it was always about trying to fix the world so it would provide more satisfactory life experiences, rather than just pasting a band aid over the sucking chest wound of life. But I digress.
Those principles are a good guide to what I’m looking for from my writing career. Writing is very satisfying. I love going back and reading what what I’ve written — and feeling like I’m getting better at it. And especially since getting involved with Water Dragon Publishing, I love the small, quirky community I’ve become immersed in: I joke that it’s like the Island of Misfit Toys, but nobody belongs there more than I. And especially treasure the opportunity to feel like we’re a community working together on satisfying projects. Like writing this blog post.
So, that’s what I’m looking for. The money isn’t nothing. But it’s certainly not everything — and not even the most important thing for me. I’m very lucky in that regard. Finding a way to channel my activity toward something fulfilling is my reason for writing. And I think I’ve been pretty successful already.
As someone with little formal training in creative writing and literature, I’m learning a lot by submitting stories and getting feedback. (When I get any feedback on my submissions, which is rare but not never). And this morning I had an insight which may prove helpful.
In my teaching on scientific writing, I’m constantly telling my students to avoid conversational writing. That is, to not describe the mental states and motivations for activity (e.g. want, feel, need, believe) but simply to objectively describe the rationale and activity directly (e.g. “To facilitate meaningful comparisons, I used a matched-pair experimental design…”) In looking at my fiction, I find that I’m reluctant to describe characters’ intentions or mental states.
Part of this is probably also a reaction to the “show don’t tell” mantra. I don’t want to merely describe the character’s emotional state — instead, I want to demonstrate through their actions how the character is feeling. But a few comments I’ve seen from editors suggest that readers want more about what characters are thinking.
It doesn’t seem like it ought to be that hard to do. And yet… It reminds me of a philosophy class I took as a sophomore where I struggled with a similar issue. The professor wanted us to write essays that included, not just arguments based on reason, but also based on feelings and intentions. I failed for half a semester before I realized that I just needed to write a bunch of stream-of-consciousness bullshit. The professor was happy and I ended up with a C. Maybe the same approach will work here.
Not Worldcon, but festive. From Poŝtmarkoj el Esperantujo.
I (virtually) attended Worldcon this year. Having recently published my first story, The Third Time’s the Charm, it was interesting to attend the biggest scifi/fantasy convention and see what writers, editors, and fans are talking about. It was a lot of fun, plus I got to hang out with my virtual writing community that were all also attending virtually.
The virtual conference experience was only mediocre. They used Discord, but it was not used nearly as well as at Readercon. In particular, they had a chat tool that appeared in the browser window next to the videos of presentations, but it was clunky, didn’t scroll back very far (100 entries) and was lost once the window closed. It would have been a lot better if they used Discord for all of the chats, to provide more scrollback and to keep all of the conversations in the same place. And don’t get me started on the Virtual Dealer Room: it was just a webpage with unrequested motion all over it (which makes it unusable for people with vestibular disorders, like myself.) But to participate at all during a global pandemic is kind of a miracle, so I don’t want to make it seem like I’m actually complaining.
The first panel I attended, How Magazines are Changing, had a diverse, international group of magazine editors. I was curious to understand the economic pressures magazines are under, how they’re responding, and how that is creating change in their business and practices. In particular, I’m particularly interested in understanding how if magazines are using some external source of funding (e.g. kickstarter), does it really make sense to talk about magazines as being “markets” for fiction? Instead the discussion was almost entirely focused on the cultural changes associated with decentering publishing from whiteness, cisness, heterosexualness, and maleness. As a white, cis-het man, it was slightly uncomfortable to be in the room while my characteristics were identified as everything that’s seemingly wrong with publishing. The two, white, male panelists, spoke little and both made statements disclaiming their views as white, cis-het men.
The second panel, Publishing in Africa, had a diverse pool of native and diaspora African authors and editors who had a far ranging conversation about the challenges of supporting a native publishing industry in Africa. Hearing about the huge differences among the different countries reminded me of something: In Ugly Delicious, David Chang’s television program about food and diaspora, he refused to identify ethnic food by nationality. That is, he talked about food from India and China without using the terms “Indian food” and “Chinese food”. I eventually realized this was an intentional decision to reject reductivist labels that ignore regional diversity. This conversation made me wonder: Is Africa monolithic enough to have “African” be meaningful as a label? Or are there essential regional differences that require being approached separately?
I also attended a panel about Gender and African SF with mostly African women. Many countries in Africa have draconian laws and cultural practices policing gender and sexual identity. I was kind of distracted during this panel and didn’t take many notes. My take away quote from this presentation was by Tlotlo Tsamaase: “Stories about us can be damaging, but stories BY us can be so much more damaging.”
The panel Beyond the Hero’s Journey was a lot of fun. Since I’ve basically never really studied literature, I have much less familiarity with story structure than most authors or editors. The result was that I felt kind of lost through a lot of the panel as people put up and then shot down various straw men about the hero’s journey as an archetypal organizing myth. This was perhaps the most passionate panel of the entire convention for me, but a lot of it went over my head. I did relate when someone mentioned how anime and manga were exposing readers in the west to alternative models, like slice-of-life stories. One panelist reminded participants that “the structure serves the story.” OK. If you say so.
An international panel discussed Decolonising Secondary World Fantasy. I didn’t take a lot of notes during this presentation either. There was a fair amount of discussion of why secondary worlds end up looking so much like our history and whether it’s just lazy worldbuilding to not imagine structures that are more different.
The Prejudices of Urban Fantasy panel seemed to spend a lot of time just arguing about labels. Is it Urban Fantasy if it’s set in the past? How big does the city the story is set in for it to qualify as “urban”? It made me wonder if I was writing “rural fantasy.” I kind of lost interest in arguing about the semantic differences among labels, which didn’t really delve into story structure all that much, as far as I could tell.
Our own Steven Radecki presented Preparing Your Manuscript for Submission. As I had been able to preview this presentation, I knew what to expect. But I learned several things. Steven prefers a more formal and lengthy “cover letter” than I had been lead to expect from other resources I had read, which recommended a truly minimal cover letter. He also requests a synopsis or story summary that is longer than I was expecting to write. I’ve generally written something more like a logline for these. I asked a couple of questions: (1) What are ways authors can get involved to learn more about the editorial/publication process? (Attend conventions, remember that writing/publishing is a business, and an agent can help with the business side of things) and (2) Is becoming a slush reader useful? How can you find these opportunities? (Maybe, if you want to read a bunch of bad writing, just ask.)
The last panel I attended was Manifestations of Gender that had three short presentations: Jennifer Zwahr-Castro: Author and Character gender in the Hugos, Nick Hubble: Where Will it All Lead?: Gwyneth Jones’s Life, and Marcia D. Nichols: Gynoids, Fembots, and other Mechanized Women. The first was mostly a presentation about the gender (male or female) of both the authors and characters of Hugo award nominees and winners by decade. It showed that that in earlier decades, they were almost all male, and there has been a trend toward equity. OK. The second presentation was about comparing literature stuff I don’t know anything about. OK. The final presentation was about very early sci-fi or pre-sci-fi stories about men building female robots as sex objects and the madness, mayhem, and death that universally followed. I asked a question about how this story compared with the early history of android stories. The presenter responded that the main difference was that people didn’t view androids as sex objects, which seems fair. One participant made several statements about how old white men should be thrown off Worldcon panels. I felt a bit sorry for the older white male panelist. And a panelist reported that RBG had a made a statement that the SCOTUS should have 12 (sic) female jurists that several commenters enthusiastically endorsed — as if the injustice that prevented women from serving on the supreme court for generations was a model that should be replicated. Sigh…
When I was very young, I submitted something for publication and then wrote a letter pressing the editor for a response. I blush to think of it now, how impatient I was for success. It takes a long time to become successful in writing (unless you’re some kind of a savant, I suppose). But now that I’m older, I’m reflecting on how important patience is for writing in ways I had never recognized before.
To begin with, you can’t just write something and submit it. You need to write something and then have some patience and wait for a bit, before you go back and edit it. But it takes more that that.
It takes a lot of time and effort over years to hone your craft in order to produce writing worthy of submission in the first place. You need patience while you write and get feedback and then write some more. But it takes more that that.
After you’ve submitted your manuscript, you need to get ready and wait again. Some publications will get back to you in hours or days, but some will take months to get back to you. You need patience to submit something and then wait and wait and wait. But it takes more than that.
After your story has been accepted, get ready to wait yet again. Oh, you’ll need to deal with revisions and submit a bio and a photo and other stuff. But at best, it will be a month or two — and perhaps much longer — before your piece actually appears in print.
And then you’ll still be waiting on reviews and award nominations and those accolades you, no doubt, fully merit. For those, you might need to keep waiting your whole life.
When I was younger, it was hard to stay focused across such long time scales. A month seemed like an eternity when I was a teenager. Now the months evaporate like fog in the sunshine and bring one’s impending death into crystal-sharp focus. But that will require a little patience too.
This evening, I crossed a huge milestone in my writing career: I got paid. It wasn’t a huge sum. It was not some gigantic Scalzian advance. It was just for a short story — novelette — The Third Time’s the Charm. And Water Dragon Publishing does not pay SFWA “pro” rates. But it was meaningful to me, having spent the better part of a year writing and submitting stories, to finally have one earning returns.
And who knows? Since I also get royalties, if like three or four million people buy my story, I’ll be a millionaire! It could happen, right?
I’m planning to use my proceeds to advance my writing career. First, I’m planning to buy some books (surprise, surprise). I’m also thinking I can pay for my conference registrations for upcoming writing conferences.
To be honest, earning money was never high on my priority list for writing. For me, it’s been more about the fun and adventure of trying something new. But getting paid is definitely part of the fun. And who knows? In the topsy-turvy world we live in having an alternative revenue stream might become important (although if things got that bad, I suspect my writing revenue would dry up too.)
In any event, here’s to the first of what I hope will be many happy (tax) returns.
I mentioned elsewhere that for several years, I had difficulty doing creative work. But last fall, in the depth of the pandemic, I started being able to write again. But why? I think I finally have an answer.
During the pandemic, I found myself suffering from crippling anxiety. Trying to fall asleep at night, I would find myself on the hamster wheel of doom, where thinking about one stressful thing would lead to another. And another. And another. And eventually back to the first one. When this happened, I would become so disturbed, I would look at my phone for manga (but too frequently doomscrolling) and then, after a bit, try again. But it didn’t really help. Eventually, I started plotting a fantasy story in my head. And this, I found, was safe.
Thinking about a fantasy let me escape from my otherwise dark and panicked thoughts. And that’s still how I’m using it today. Charm was just published. But now I’ve written the sequel Favor. And I’m starting to plot out Charm 3 (which does not yet have a working title). Safe. Saaaaaafe.
When The Third Time’s the Charm was selected by Water Dragon Publishing, I was invited to suggest ideas for cover art. My initial response was to suggest some of the most iconic scenes in the story. But when I saw the first draft of the cover art, I came to understand better how the covers were put together by compositing stock photo artwork.
We had several rounds of revisions. I saw the first draft and made some comments. Another draft was much closer but had a few elements I thought could be improved upon. But the artist had also come up with a second conception for a cover.
It’s got similar elements, but a completely different kind of feel. It has less dynamic range — it’s almost monochromatic — with a more “modern” font. After some back-and-forth, we agreed that, although it was interesting and had its own merits, it probably wasn’t as eye-catching as the original. So we went with the original.
One thing I realize, as I look at both covers, is how little world building I’ve done as yet. I’ve just finished the rough draft of the sequel and I keep realizing decisions I’ve made (or haven’t made) about the structure of the world. In the cover we selected, for example, is a very long single span bridge. Would such a bridge exist in the world? Mmmmaybe. Maybe not. Each new discovery I make through my writing gives me a tiny burst of pleasure and excitement.
In the alternate, I don’t know what that curved thing is on the back cover. It’s pretty cool, I guess. But what is it doing up there in the clouds? I guess now we’ll never know.
One of my reviewers wrote me to say, “I do really hope you write more stories in your world, because I look forward to finding more out about it.” I look forward to finding out more too.
In my previous post about publishing with Water Dragon I mentioned the “support, encouragement, and advice” that authors get with publicity. About a week before the release of the story, I got a link to download some graphics. The folder included the electronic, print, and trade covers plus versions of the cover art carefully composed and resized for my desktop (as “wallpaper”); for my website; and for header graphics for Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram.
Creating these kinds of graphics are not necessarily difficult for me. I created my own covers for my self-published books. (And I’m rather proud of the covers I created.) But that stuff all takes time and, without access to the the original files, it wouldn’t be feasible to create re-composed versions at all. But, in the end, it’s just one fewer thing I need to do myself: I can just use them and spend more time publicizing. (Or writing!)
In point of fact, authors frequently don’t get consulted about their cover art at all. Nancy Wood wrote about how discouraging it was to get a horrible cover when working with a different publisher and how the magic of a compelling cover can make all the difference. Look at that cover! I mean… just look at it.
For my cover, with Water Dragon and the amazing artist Niki Lenhart, we went through about three iterations. The first design was similar to the final design, but I had some suggestions about the nature of the ship that was presented. In the second, I noticed a few additional details to correct. But I was also presented with an alternative design to consider. I liked it — and it was compelling in a certain way — but jointly, with the editor, we decided that the original design was more eye-catching. Then I got one last chance to see it before we pulled the trigger and approved it.
In addition, authors also receive postcards and business cards to support their publicity efforts. The postcards can be used to provide a “signed” version of the digital edition. But, for a story that only sells for $0.99, sending a postcard for $0.40 postage doesn’t make much economic sense. And business cards are more useful during times when people are actually meeting face to face. (I guess I could hold one up to my Zoom camera…)
In addition to material support, Water Dragon and the supportive community of writers working with them have had a wealth of ideas and advice for how to get the word out about one’s writing. It’s provided almost a template for how to get set up to publicize effectively — and to share information about events that might provide opportunities to offer a reading or get books in front of people.
I don’t have (m)any illusions that my first short story will catch fire and take over the internet. But I have to admit that as a debut, this experience has been amazing: My story has been published on its own, with its own cover and identity, rather than part of a collection. It’s been a great trial run for writing a longer piece of fiction (and I have several in the pipeline). And Ive learned a huge amount about the process and established a foundation (blog, twitter feed, website, etc.) to support my writing going forward. Thanks, Water Dragon!
