"A Fairy for Bin Laden" Cover Shot

I wrote yesterday of the awesome cover concept for my story "A Fairy for Bin Laden" my old colleague graphic artist Jerry Branch whipped up.  Here's the final version, a collaboration between my initial vision and his magical talents.

Cool.

KDP, Baby

Yeah, it's been seven discouraging months since I last posted.  After a few more rejections of my short, "A Fairy for Bin Laden," I made it through the slush pile at Bull Spec for editorial consideration in January (never mind that I submitted in November.)  I just said, "fuck it; fire and forget."

After a few monthly follow-ups after March rolled through with no word, I received a semi-form letter back last week apologizing for the delay due to some logistical screw ups at their end; the bottom line, though, was a polite no-feedback rejection.

So.

Last Fall I scored myself a Kindle to read on my daily train commute, and have done a lot of reading around not just the body of work published for the eReaders, but also around the self-publishing industry that eReaders and services like Kindle Direct Publishing have spawned.  After spending a week reading the blog archives of successful Indie (self-published, whatever) author Joe Konrath, I decided that perhaps self-publishing was for me.

I made a few more passes at editing the story, and dropped a line to an old colleague of mine, Jerry Branch, an amazing graphic artist.  He agreed to do a cover for me, and together we came up with an awesome concept and the image is coming along very well -- I'm pumped.  A good cover is no substitute for a great story, and won't make up for a poor one, but it -- and a good blurb / description -- certainly helps readers make decisions to pull the trigger on a sale.  I've downloaded some formatting and Kindle previewing software, and have been reviewing and tweaking the format to match the medium and present a professional product.  Sometime in the next few weeks I'll pull the trigger on uploading it to Amazon.

Don't get me wrong; I don't expect to make money on the thing; but I do expect a few sales and enough feedback and reviews to give me a reality check on whether I can hack it in this industry.  A short story isn't a novel (I've been pumped and excited enough to start making some progress on that again; thanks Joe), but writing is writing, and I'm going to expose my balls to the wind and see what sort of responses I get to my work.

I've decided, in the immortal words of Joe's guest blogger Stephen Leather, " . . . my overall opinion of the legacy gatekeeping system is that it can blow me."  


Let the readers decide.


In the meantime, I'm going to keep plugging away honing this craft.


Thanks, Joe.

The Waiting is the Hardest Part

Sorry about cribbing Tom Petty; if it's any consolation, I'll have that song stuck in my head for the rest of the day.

The good news is that my story "A Fairy for Bin Laden," is *still* under consideration at Apex. I have to take that as a good sign, and not imagine that the editor reading the story picked up before he left for vacation last Friday . . . not thinking about that, not thinking . . .

I have another story up for critique on Critters.org, but haven't received any useful feedback yet. Hopefully, I'll get some ideas on how to revamp what I've come to view as a story that needs a kick in the ass.

I'm still cranking on the novel. I read of a writing tool called Scrivener, and downloaded a demo; it's great for drafting and organization. A side benefit is that you can view stats and sections in parts or as a whole; what really floored me is that I'm at 52,000 words, and don't feel it's half done. I can't believe I've made it this far.

I can only echo the advice I've read many, many times at this point: keep putting black on white, every day. Cheers.

Dare I Hope?

I received notice yesterday that an editor at Apex had read my story "A Fairy for Bin Laden." I didn't immediately receive a rejection, like I had in the past with similar submissions, so I have cause for hope.

I checked the status this morning, and saw it was "under consideration." Dare I hope?

I've tried to put submissions out of my mind until they have been processed. Lately, I've been banging away on pieces of my fantasy novel; I can't say for sure how good the pieces are in first draft, but banging out a thousand words at at time of decent quality seems to be coming easier and easier, as I imagine it would.

Now if only that pesky first sale would come . . .

Persistence

"A Fairy for Bin Laden" was rejected by Clarkesworld magazine; I spent a few days editing and cut a few hundred words, and submitted to Apex.

Interestingly, I joined Critters.org, a SF & H critique group, (I sent in "O'Reilly's Sacrifice", since I seem to have a blind spot on that story's flaws), which somehow led to me dusting off that old fantasy novel I was writing last year. I banged out 2,000 words in two days, including nearly 600 just on the train ride home last night.

I keep coming across advice regarding persistence and "keep putting black on white."

Good advice.

Practice Makes Perfect

Not perfect, per se, but definitely better and faster. It's amazing what happens once you establish a regular schedule and routine; I sat down to bang out an idea for a new short story I had, tentatively titled "Y Marks the Spot,", about a female assasin who has tiny nanomachines in her blood that are triggered by the Y sex chromosome in men.

Before I knew it, 1200 words had poured out.

No, I'm not getting sucked into the "Novel in a Month" thingy . . .

Submission Time

I finished polishing a 6700 word short story, "A Fairy for Bin Laden," yesterday afternoon and submitted it to Fantasy Magazine.

It only took them a day to reject it; I did notice that they use a form letter: the content was identical to a rejection from a month or so ago of the first story I had the nerve to submit for publication.

It's a nice and gentle rejection letter, all in all.

Within the hour, I turned around and submitted it for Clarkesworld consideration.

I keep telling myself that all writers have been rejected, from J.K Rowling to Hemingway; I just need to have faith in myself and stay level-headed and persistent.

A new story is in the works, about a female assassin with deadly nanotech in her blood.