Mark Andrew Edwards

Sorry folks, just letting you know I'm still alive.  Been working hard at Amazon and haven't had a ton of time to write or edit...

But I DID manage to edit my old 'Wake Up Call' story and...change the character's name in one location and NOT in another.

Yeah....don't do that.  Don't edit stuff you're submitting to another market, let it stand or fall on it's own.  OR spend the time it takes to really, really edit it.

Sigh.

Reject-a-palooza continues. That’s a good thing. I think.  Well, at the very least, it means I’m submitting my stuff and people are…rejecting it quickly.

I finished…I think…my short story for Baen.  I’m just waiting…no, I need to stop waiting.  I need to send it out. Sigh. I’ll do that tonight. I keep making up excuses, “Don’t submit on a weekend, it’ll get lost in his email”, or “Don’t send it until he replies to your personal email”.  Writers.  We’ll do anything to avoid or at least delay rejection.  It’s like frelling dating.

I did get some personal feed back on a couple stories. It is very nice to hear what people thought didn’t work. At least I know they read it if they say the ending didn’t work :)  I won’t deny that it’s hard, though. Very hard, some days.

An odd thing:  I got a nice rejection for my short story “Do Not Touch”, which is a light little space opera story about why you shouldn’t monkey with science experiments in space. I like it and I like the characters.  Anyway, it got rejected and my policy now is to re-submit rejected stories within 24 hours.  Good habit to get into, like ripping the Band-Aid off…and slapping on another Band-Aid.  I happened to be looking at new markets I haven’t submitted to.  One of them does themed issues. The theme for this month was..Touch.

Huh.

Weird coincidence.  So, naturally I submitted my story there.  Just weird synchronicity that one of my better stories (I think) perfectly-ish matched up with a themed issue. 

Doesn’t mean anything, I had a short story with a theme of being human that I wrote a year or two ago. I submitted it to an anthology that was themed around…being human.  Didn’t make the cut. (got close though, I think, if my rejectomancy is correct)

Anyway. We keep going.  Because, damn it, I’m not going to stop writing. Might as well tried to get paid for what I’m doing in my spare time :)

I swear I’ve got to look into those hormone supplements I see advertised. Up and down, up and down, it’s not a mood swing it’s a mood elevator. 

I was pumped up and excited after Norwescon, I had three invitations to submit stories, I had a plan to write consistently from 7:30~9:30 every day…  But it’s back to the slog. The slow, painful effort to get stuff done.  I swear, big bursts of writing energy, like at the Rainforest Writers Retreat actually seem to do more harm than good. Ish.  It was VERY good to get so much of Angel Seculsion (tentative name) written in three or four days.  But afterwards, it’s like the well is dry and my brain is exhausted.

The problem is, my brain tells me it wants to play video games. Which is like my belly telling me it wants Pepsi.  Even if it’s true, it doesn’t mean it’s a good idea.

So, slogging. I got a new rejection for a flash fiction piece and quickly sent it out this morning to another market.  I am revising my military scifi/superhero story for the fourth time…and realizing I should be revising ALL my stories four or five times. Sheesh.  I suck, sometimes.  I want to get a new short story written this weekend and I’m resetting my expectations for it.  It’s going to need revision. And I haven’t even written it yet. :)

Ah well, good thing I love writing so much.

The Convention.

Some years, you have a really great Con.  This was one of the better ones for me.  I think it was partly because I knew so many people here for once.  It really added to the fun.  The Doubletree is actually starting to feel homely and familiar to me, a good feeling. The writing panels Mae Empson organized were good, and over-attended. (We need bigger rooms for the writing track stuff)  For me the best panels were Friday writing panels.  Cat Rambo said something that really clicked with me, regarding establishing the rules of magic in fantasy stories. She said you need to understand the rules, not just for the limitations on the magic but so you know what can go wrong. That just lit up inside of me.  Gardner Duzois was one of the guests of honor and I was delighted to be able to meet him and pick his brain a little, I was and am very grateful to him. He also edits damn good books, in fact his next anthology ‘Rogues’ is coming out sometime soon. Considering how much I enjoyed the ‘Warriors’ anthology, this should be truly great.

Baen Books

The publisher guest of honor this year was Baen Books. I’ve been a reader of their stuff for decades and they were the first people I sent my work to.  Not only is the kind of stories they publish right up my alley, but they have a great attitude. Seriously, Tony Daniel is my kind of guy. I thought he was hilarious but also genuinely trying to be helpful to new writers.  He was even kind enough to let me submit a short story to him for Baen.com, I’ve got just the story, now I just need to edit it into greatness. Or at least competent-ness. Tony Daniel is also working with David Drake to continue the ‘General’ series, which was one of my favorite fantasy series (at least the first three were), so that makes me happy as well.  I really would love to publish my sci-fi stuff with Baen, they seem to really work with their writers.  Special thanks to them for coming this far west and for hosting the party Saturday night. That was the highlight of the Con for me.

The Cloud City Wordslingers

The Wordslingers were really out there, representing.  So damn proud of everyone.  Feedback from most of the workshops was very positive, Stephanie Herman actually got an offer from one writer to have her novel reviewed by an agent.  That is huge and excellent.  She and her book deserve it.  Andrew Rosenberg’s Girl/Alien book pitch attracted some attention in one ‘Pitch your novel’ panel.  Luna has her book out in physical form and it looks great, hopefully she got some attention with her bookmarks and maybe some hand sells in the dealer’s room.  Steve, Heather and Andrew Williams also had good writing feedback from their workshops, should be some sales from their workshopped pieces in their future. We also ‘crashed’ the Fairwood Social and the Baen books party as a group. It was really nice running into so many of us there and hearing other people talking about the group. That tickled me but I think everyone got attention because the quality of our writing has increased. That’s the great thing about this group, how we help each other improve.

Me

I just had fun pretty much every panel and every reading I went to.  It was really nice seeing people I’d met at the Rainforest Retreat or at the Cascade Writers workshop and being recognized by them.  It’s nice to be remembered. I can’t think of anyone I spoke with that I didn’t enjoy talking with. Considering how sporadic my social skills can be, it was pretty effortless for me as compared to World Fantasy.  The wife and I also got a room near the con this year. That made a big difference as well.  So nice not to have to drive to and from Monroe each day and night.

Good news is I got three invitations to submit stories to anthologies or magazines.  Whew.  Very cool. And I need to be sure I write and edit stories worthy of them.  Time to cross my fingers and get back to serious writing. In that vein, I’m going to be back on my daily schedule, writing or editing for at least two hours each night. Goodbye video games.  I’ll beat Starcaft 2 later, once I have stuff written, edited and submitted.

I also got dissuaded (Thank you, Katie Cord) from what might have been an epic time sink. It occurred to me that there really isn’t a dedicated market for Military Sci-Fi.  I thought maybe starting a magazine (online and kindle) would be cool. Well, it would be cool but it was pointed out to me that I couldn’t do that AND write. And I really, really love writing.  If I could learn to love re-writing, I’d be all set…but that’s a different post for another day.

All in all, a very good four days.  All that, and my birthday, too. 

Man, getting blog posts written and updated is a LOT harder with a frelling hour + commute. Sorry about the delays, folks. I’ll try to keep updating weekly.

I have a longer post in mind about writing to your strengths, time permitting (ha) I’ll get that written, chewed over and posted soon.

Two quick updates, so far the submissions are still ticking off. I haven’t been able to write and/or submit every day as I’d hoped (see commute complaint above) but I’ve sent off about ten short stories so far…and gotten about five rejections if we count the Clarion West rejection. Which I am.

Sigh.  Third time getting rejected by those folks. The worst, absolute worst part is…I don’t know why. I don’t know why I don’t measure up. What I’m doing wrong.  I don’t know how to impress professional writers.  Or editors, as my rejection pile will tell you.  I don’t THINK my stories are bad, I’ve had people read and enjoy them.  But trying to get someone ‘in the business’ to say yes…I don’t know.  I suspect my sentences don’t sparkle enough. I don’t write intricate prose. My stylists are Daishell Hammet more than Raymond Chandler.  Anyway, I’ll muse more on this later when I get into playing to strengths as a writer.  A lot of this writing stuff is just being stupidly stubborn and irrationally confident in yourself.  Or being able to fake that.

So Norwescon starts today. I’m heading down later this afternoon. I’m really looking forward to this.  Once again, I’ve submitted some work to the Fairwood Writer’s workshop. It’s a chance for more feedback.  Though, honesty, the feedback I get from Wordslingers is about as good if not better. I don’t know why but you get four pros in the same room, you’re going to get three different opinions.  If there’s one thing I’ve learned from this is, people like different things and dislike different things. There is very little rhyme or reason (though there seem to be gender generalizations you can make) about what will work and what wont.  My goal is to be writing at a professional level. And to get off my hind end, submit and edit more.  The Workshop will help with that. I think.

Apart from the workshop, there’s the art show. Now that I have money, I hope to pick something nice and/or hot for the library at home.  We’ll see what’s on offer this year.  I still hate the fact that I couldn’t afford any of Royo’s work when he was guest of honor a few years back.

I’m also going to be attending some panels, some readings and getting together with the Wordslingers on Saturday for lunch.  One change, I got a room near the convention, so the commute from Monroe won’t be as much of a problem.  Should be fun.

Well I owe you all a rundown on what’s been going on.  Last week I was at the Rainforest Writer’s Retreat, hosted by the lovely and talented (at least at pancake flipping) Patrick Swenson.  It’s four-ish days of writing, writing, seminars, hanging out with other writers and writing.  If you’re like me, it’s a chance to live in your dream world and write it down.

Write it down a lot. Let me get this out of the way, I did write a LOT of words.  Like a little over 52,000 words.  Now I KNOW a lot of those words will get tossed in the second draft but I’m very pleased that I got at least half of my first draft done. That said, I think I will rest on my laurels next year and withdraw from the wordcount wars.

Let’s talk about the retreat itself.  It’s in beautiful Lake Quinalt up in the Olympic peninsula. There are no houses on the hills.  There is almost no cell reception (oddly, I could only get a signal on the road and in the parking lot) and no phones in room.  There is internet but trust me, with 20, 30 people on the connection, you won’t be playing WOW or spending much time online. What you will be able to spend your time doing is writing.  And it is perfect for that.

It helps a lot to have a plan when you go, stories you want to write, an outline for your novel. If you do, you can just go, go, go. Or at least that’s what I did. I knew what I wanted to write and I’d been planning this, imperfectly, but planning for this for a month.

If you don’t want to grind all the time.  The workshop provides some great workshops and seminars by pro writers.  Then there’s the camaraderie.  Everyone is just there to write. There’s not a lot of jockeying or the ‘tiers’* you see at conventions.  Everyone is just there to write. And that is beautiful. I’ve met amazing writers, and not just that they’re as talented as all get out**, but genuinely nice, cool folks.  And the pros that are there are pretty willing to give you one-on-one time, if they aren’t writing.  It’s all very casual and very cool.

I want to talk briefly about two workshop/seminar thingys that I went to this year. The first, on character by Nancy Kress was very, very good. In fact, I bought her book on character and POV just because I loved her thoughts on it.  She mentioned how specific details can be used to reveal character.  Like what kind of clothes they wear, their hygiene, what music or books they have around, how they treat other people, how other people treat them. This is gold, especially in the re-writing phase.  It was an excellent, spot-on example of HOW to ‘show’ instead of ‘tell’.

The other seminar was Mark Teppo’s ‘Nuns with Guns’, which wasn’t really about Nuns or Guns, but instead about plot***.  Since Plot was a big problem when I got started, it was nice to hear about how people resolve plot problems, like managing characters that don’t do what you, the writer, expect them to.  Mark had some great words about making sure your story really needs ‘nuns’ or ‘guns’, that you’re including the plot details that you need.  Mae Empson (who is awesome and talented) had a great suggestion that came in handy:  Let your characters veer off the script, then deal with the consequences of veering off. For example, I sorta…killed off my main antagonist****.  Yeah, didn’t expect that.  But instead of going back and re-writing the scene the way I’d scripted it, I left it in and had everyone deal with the consequences.  As it turned out, killing that guy was even worse for Balt than merely losing to him in a duel.  Huge thanks, Mae.

I can’t say enough about how great this retreat is. If you can, get to it.  There’s talk of a third session next year.  If there is, I’m going to stack it with all the Wordslingers I can beg, encourage or blackmail into attending.  It’s completely worth the time and money.

On another note, I’m finally getting off my hinder and submitting stuff. I’ve submitted about seven stories this month so far.  I’m actually surprised at how…few stories I felt were solid enough to send out as-is. I think that’s telling me something else…frelling EDIT YOUR  STUFF, EDWARDS!  So, I’ve got that to do this month as well.  Meanwhile, I’m still moving forward with the novel  I started.  Getting the first draft done is just the beginning but it is A beginning.  It’s going to be a lot of work, all of it, but you know what?  I love it. I really, really do.

*You’ll know it when you see it.  All the professional writers sit together or hang out in the green room.  All the aspiring authors are in their own group, desperately trying to break into the higher tier, trying to belong but they haven’t ‘earned’ it yet.  And the fan teir who just want to hang out or get acknowledged by their idols.

**Which they are, Mae, Wendy, Liz…I’m looking at you, among others.

***Or at least, that’s what I got out of it. It got pretty free form and I was sort of in a fugue state for most of the weekend.

****Balt, my swordsman character from Angel Odyssey is brought to the Great Eyrie to teach Jacob and the other Rider Candidates.  When he’s challenged by the former instructor, Balt…sorta kills him.  That told me that Balt was looking at the Riders as if they were enemies, not allies.  Very interesting insight, something for him and the Riders to work on.  Unless I kill Balt, accidentally or on purpose.

Well, I’m still putting words together on a daily basis. I finally finished one of my more ambitious* stories Tuesday.  If it gets received well by the Wordslingers, I want to put it into my Clarion West application bundle. My other stories for that are an epic fantasy piece and some military sci-fi, so a contemporary magical realism (? If that’s what this is) piece would fit in nicely.  But who knows what they’re looking for. As I’ve said before, I intend to keep learning as best I can but I think a lot of the lessons Clarion West would teach me, I already know. I just need to DO them.

Speaking of, I’m having ambitions again.  I don’t want to jinx anything but I might be writing a heck of a lot this year, starting with the Rainforest Retreat in March.  I plan to begin writing the sequel to Angel Odyssey there and finish it off in March.  If that goes well, I plan to re-write half of Smooth Vengeance and then edit and submit them.  I just need to decide if I should submit them to Amazon or the New York houses.

In that vein, I’m going to shift gears a bit and do more fantasy writing and reading until the Retreat.  I’ve been writing contemporary fantasy and sci-fi pretty much non-stop for a few months. I need to shake some rust off.  Writing stories set in the Angel Odyssey world strikes me as a good way to do that.

Finally, I intend to submit more stuff. I’m embarrassed that I don’t have any short stories out for submission (well, one but it’s for WOTF, so it doesn’t count).  April is going to be my submission month, with a little March holdover.**

Anyway, that’s what’s up so far this month.  Back to the grindstone. Need to get sharp.

*Ambitious for me means: no sex or violence on the page but still trying for compelling conflict.

**there’s a semi-pro market that might be a great fit for my “Body as a Ship” story.

Ugh.  Stomach flu.

I got hit hard on Tuesday and got almost nothing written for like two days straight.  So much for the Wordslinger’s  competition for February. (you get more points for sustained writing than bursts of wordcount. ) But I will say that lying in bed does wonders for the imagination.  I got a really solid short story idea* and I got the first act written last night.  If it gets critiqued well, I think I’ll put that into my Clarion West application.**

Despite everything, I was somewhat productive this week.  I pounded out a short story on Friday. One of those ideas that gets you up out of bed on 5am (on a day when I SHOULD be sleeping in) and just burns through you.  It’s mostly an exercise in voice but it has a nice twist to it. I think.  Of course, it plays around with some taboos, so it may not be salable but I’m proud of it.

I’ve also got another short story idea on deck for this weekend.  This is another of my dark superhero stories, set in a world where you…just can’t get rid of the damn ‘heroes’. Not a nice place to live but those kind of places seem to make for the best drama.

That’s it for now.  We may be getting some new Wordslinger applicants. I hope that goes well.  We have a few members on a break due to work or life and I’m going to sincerely miss them.  Life happens and then you write about it.

*It’s probably been done, almost everything has been but still…

**Yeah, I was going to send it in early but I ran out of time and health.  I still have until March 1st.

Several fellow Wordslingers and I are engaged in a writing contest for this month. The point isn’t really about winning wordcount but about getting us writing every day with an incentive plan. The more days consecutively we write, the more points we earn.

I’ll be blunt, it’s been hard. I’ve had a few days when I could really churn out the words (about half of them worth keeping). But work has also been a butt, making it hard to get anything done. Not to mentions critiques I owe for tomorrow’s Wordslinger meeting.  But I’m not posting to complain, just the opposite.

This is helping remind me how much I enjoy writing.  Just writing can be an act of mental release.*  The challenge to write GOOD fiction is still there, though. What I enjoy writing isn’t really the most salable. But this challenge is helping to keep me focused on writing stories that matter. That have more than just sex and violence for its own sake in it.  Heck, one of my challenges for myself is to write more stories with absolutely  no sex or violence but still chock-full of conflict.  Now that’s a challenge.  For me, at least.

I also have to put together my Clarion West application package.  I’m not sure which stories I’ll submit, which are my best.  I’ve had some stories get close to publication but they didn’t quite make the cut. Maybe I’ll send in those.   Gah. More stress.  Or maybe not.  All I can do is send out my stuff, write up an amusing bio and…roll the dice. I really feel that Clarion West is a big risk, if I get in, an even bigger risk. But I want to try one more time.  I don’t know if I need the validation and I don’t know if I need the training as much as I did a couple years ago,** but I do want to learn everything I can.  I know I can make it, maybe even make it professionally but I don’t know if I need to now.  The book market seems to be cratering, at least as far as the NY houses.

On the other hand, I still fully intend to write a novel that will make the cut at PYR.  I’ve got three years left on that goal.

Well, big mountains are scaled one step at a time. First February, tomorrow the world.

Who DOESN’T love a head-to head competition against your friends?  The Cloud City Wordslingers have decided to have a wordcount writing contest.  Basically, you get 1 point per 250 words you write. As long as you keep writing every day, the points add up cumulatively. If you miss a day, it resets back to 1, so the incentive is to keep writing day after day. Just what I needed since I hope to kick a lot of butt at the Rainforest Writer’s Retreat in March.  So this should get me into writing shape.  Or at least get me back into good habits again.

In honor of this, I am also going to be abstaining from video games during the weekdays.  Videogames are the biggest time thief in my life that I have control over. Work, commute, dog….can’t do much about them (or at least, I’m not willing to). But I can control how much time I spend playing frelling CIV 5.  Rabble.

I also want to get some outlining and brainstorming work done for my Angel Odyssey sequel…task #1 there, coming up with a better title.  Add in the sudden early appearance of Seattle spring (subject to revocation at any time) and February is looking to be a pretty damn good month.