How Learning New Tech Can Help a #Writer

No, I don't believe that computers make us more creative. In fact, I tend to agree with Annie Proulx who, like me, writes all her first drafts by hand. She's made statements to the effect that typing your words the first time through makes you think less carefully because the process becomes "facile."

Yet I cannot deny that technology has a huge impact on the act of writing for publication. The frustrating thing, though, is that we must wade through an ocean of tech and decide what really matters. It's something I think about a lot, especially when I get frustrated by yet another program or machine I have to learn about. Today I offer a few ways in which embracing change and actively learning new skills has benefitted my writing career:

• Income opportunities. I have picked up two regular freelance jobs (one as a website fact-checker and one as a social media manager) from writing colleagues because of tech skills I've acquired. This, in turn, helps me remain a freelancer rather than going back to the traditional working world.
• Promo opportunities. If you can run a blog, keep a website updated, and post regularly to social media, you certainly have a leg up the steep slope of Mount Marketing. These days, I'm amazed when writers don't have an active, organized Web presence. Not that I don't still have a ton to learn!
• Ease of editing. For some, it's novel-writing software like Scrivener that makes the difference, but even getting to know the ins and outs of Microsoft Word can change the editing and revising stages for a writer. And now there's Word for iPad, and a dedicate cloud service called OneDrive that gives you editorial access to all your documents on all your devices. Yay!
• Ease of submitting. Duotrope. Submission Grinder. Submittable. Query Tracker. Google Drive spreadsheets. There are many ways now to keep really detailed, sophisticated records of what we've submitted, to whom, and when. And often, we can find out how long to expect responses to take (based on real user data, not just what the magazine editor says). I always have at least twenty pieces out looking for homes, so programs like these truly help me stay sane.

Your turn: How does the digital world color your writing life?

Alex Shvartsman on Humor, Subjectivity, and Slush

This week's guest talks about fiction-writing from a different perspective: as an editor. Alex Shvartsman, whose own collection of published science fiction stories would stretch from here to Cleveland if laid end to end, has edited an anthology called Unidentified Funny Objects. He shares with us an insider's view about the difficult task of picking stories from the pile of submissions.

*   *   *

Humor is subjective.

This was the mantra of my associate editors and I as we read submissions for Unidentified Funny Objects last year. My stated goal was to collect a wide assortment of humorous stories and to feature a variety of styles and sub-genres that would offer something for every palate. But how to make certain that my personal tastes don’t skew the book toward the kind of humor *I* like at the expense of what other readers might enjoy? In order to build a healthy, balanced collection, I developed a slush system that’s quite different from most publications.

Each story we received was read by the first reader (in most cases it was me, only about 20% of the stories were seen by one of the other editors first). The first reader’s job was to look for stories that *might* be a good fit even if they weren’t that reader’s personal favorite. This culled well over 80% of the submissions and left us with a handful of very strong contenders.

Each story that made it past the first reader was stripped of any personal information and sent out to 5+ associate editors for evaluation. Anonymity was meant to help the editors judge the story solely on its merit – they didn’t know whether they were reading a submission by a Nebula winner or by a previously unpublished author.

Each editor offered a Yes, No, or Maybe vote with some comments. Based on those votes and feedback I either released the story back to the author, held it until the end of the reading period, or (in a few rare cases) bought it immediately because I knew I had to have it for the book.

I ended up buying 29 stories out of over 900 submissions. Do you know how many of those 29 received a unanimous vote from the associate readers? None. Not a single one. Because--say it with me--humor is subjective.

I don’t truly expect any one reader to enjoy every single story collected in this book. However, I strongly believe that almost anyone will find multiple stories they can love. Both readers and critics have been very kind to the volume so far, sharing this sentiment.

But don’t take their word for it – you can read a number of additional bonus stories posted for free at www.ufopub.com -- and if you are a Twitter user, may I suggest that you begin with this one: http://www.ufopub.com/twitter

Unidentified Funny Objects is available as trade paperback and eBook at Amazon, B&N, and Kobo, as well as directly from UFO Publishing:

http://www.ufopub.com/buy-our-books/

Milo James Fowler on writing short and making every word count

Milo James Fowler writes short fiction. I mean short. No, even shorter than that. He's really good at it and has published a great deal. I asked him to discuss this skill for brevity.

*   *   *

Small Packages

I used to be verbose.

When I was a kid, I wrote 300-page novels and never felt the need to revise. I was having way too much fun for that.

But revision is important. Cutting and polishing are very good things.

So's a writing challenge every now and then.

When I started Write1Sub1 in 2011 to follow in Ray Bradbury's footsteps (writing and submitting a story a week), I couldn't halt the ideas once I opened the floodgates. While I didn't have time to flesh them all out into full-length tales, some were so evocative that they stood well enough on their own, despite their brevity.

Once I discovered microfiction and sci-fi/horror-flavored haiku, it was like the heavens opened and I saw into the glorious beyond. Microfiction—6 word stories, Twitter fiction, 6 sentence stories, drabbles—became a new creative outlet for me. I started jotting down mini-stories that could later become full-fledged tales of their own, and I brainstormed other ideas in a more poetic form through haiku.

Then I sent them out into the world in search of good homes.

Some of my favorite micro and haiku publications are Trapeze, Scifaikuest, Cuento, and 101 Ficton, and I've enjoyed sharing my byte-sized tales with their readers. What writer doesn't like being published?

But I also appreciate the challenge—particularly with drabbles and haiku. 101 Fiction publishes 100-word stories with 1-word titles. Cramming a Captain Quasar tale into 100 words has been a lot of fun, and as far as haiku goes, I'm a stickler for the 5-7-5 syllable count—not because it really matters anymore in English language haiku, but because it provides me with a higher hurdle to cross. Next month, I'll be the featured poet in the winter issue of Scifaikuest with 11 of my haiku included in their print publication. I'm super stoked and can't wait to get my contributor's copy in the mail.

Will all of my micro tales and haiku eventually become full-length stories of their own? "Identity Thief" started out as a haiku and became a short story available from Musa Publishing. "Grandpa's Bluetooth," published by Liquid Imagination, started out as Twitter fiction. Maybe the rest of my small packages will evolve in like manner; maybe not.

I'm okay with that.

I don't have to be verbose all the time, after all.

But I can keep challenging myself to make every word count.

*   *   *

You can learn more about Milo James Fowler on his website.

You can purchase Maikro, his collection of haiku and microfiction, on Amazon.

Letting the Novel Take Over

One and a half more chapters, and my new novel's first draft will be done. Interestingly, the light at the end of the tunnel is not bringing me relief, but a sense of responsibility that I'm trying to keep from becoming panic.

Suddenly I am drowning in work. I do edit previous chapters as I write new ones, so the task could be even scarier. But I've promised my beta readers the first ten-chapter chunk next week, so that's another round of edits. And as I prep for beta, I'm making my chapter-by-chapter synopsis and my style sheet of invented terms and concepts so that I (and a publisher) can be consistent in their usage.

The purpose of this flurry of activity is to be sure a finished novel is really that: a completed work ready to be sent to publishers. In six weeks, out it goes, so it needs to be all shiny. Short stories may need to wait a couple of weeks. But that's okay. I'm ahead of sched on those anyway.

And We Wait. And We Wait.

A couple of decades ago, when I worked as an editor at a university book publisher, it was all about galleys.  First galleys, second galleys.  Send 'em to the author.  Hound the author to send 'em back.  Call the author if her corrections were illegible or illogical.

But in my book-writing experience, there have been no galleys.  I turn in my manuscript.  I hear nothing.  I forget about the whole thing and move on to other projects.  Then one day my free copies of the finished book show up at my door (or they don't, as happened once, when I found out two years later that my book had been released).

I miss galleys.