Submissions

Recently I set myself some goals , so I thought I’d better keep you up to date on my progress:

Firstly – Today this blog went past 500 views! I’m pretty happy with that. So far this week I’ve had 100 views and it’s only Wednesday. I’ve also got over 40 followers and the blog has been read in Europe, Asia, the US and Australia. So over-all I’m calling the goal of ‘set up a blog’ a successful one so far.

Secondly – I haven’t got an agent yet, but really that’s a longer term goal. I’m hoping I’ll get one this year, so I’m calling that goal in progress. The next agent on my list requests paper manuscript samples rather than electronic so next week I’m going to do some printing and put together a really enticing package that’ll make them thrilled to represent me. Or at least that’s the plan.

Thirdly – I have submitted two short stories this week. One to a paying market and the other non-paying. We’ll see how they’re received but it feels good to have them out there. I also submitted a third story to a third market but it was automatically rejected because it was shorter than their minimum fiction guidelines. This was entirely my fault and I’m a bit embarrassed about it. The lesson of  course is to always read the submission guidelines carefully. Even if you’ve submitted to that magazine before and you think you know them.

Fourthly – I’ve been writing some more on my Untitled Novel project and I’m pretty happy with most of it. One conversation sticks out to me as a bit forced. It’ll need some drafting work, but the protagonist’s voice is flowing well and I’m getting a feel for the piece. Thanks to my wonderful wife’s patience I had a good block of writing today, adding 3,000 words to take me past 8,000 and almost completing chapter 3. I’m about 10% of the way there I think.

Fifthly – (and lastly) I tried writing a query letter for my novel Exile which I plan to submit to a small press when their submissions open next month. I’ve got the manuscript complete. Now all I need is a good synopsis which summarises 240,000 words and at least six Point-of-View characters across split narratives into a page or so. Then I have to improve this query letter in which I use about 300 words to entice the publishers (and hopefully readers) to pick the book up. Not easy, but if it were easy everyone would be doing it.