The Race

Since getting more focused on writing, I've discovered the WotF forums, which are populated with like-minded individuals. Discussions are lively and informative.

One recent nugget I discovered is the concept of The Race, as it relates to writing. It's something that Dean Wesley Smith points to as the kicking-off point for his career and those of other successful SF/F writers such as Kevin J. Anderson and Geoff Landis. Here's a link to DWS' blog talking about it.

The basic idea is turning Heinlein's Rules of writing into something measurable, by getting points for story submissions. As DWS describes it, you get:

- one point for every short story in the mail.

- three points for every novel proposal or chapters and outline you have out. (Only three points per book, not per submission )

- eight points for every full novel manuscript you have out to market.

And though, when doing this with others, there is an inherent competition to get the high score, the real competition is with yourself. In order to get your score up, you need to write, every day. DWS advises writing and submitting a story every week.

When DWS and his contemporaries were doing this at the beginning of their careers, those in the 50 - 70 range ended up making it as writers. Those that couldn't even generate 10 points never heard of again.

I have 2 points. Nuff said.

The Certificate

Got the certificate in the mail today. Man, is she a beauty or what?


Nice cardboard stock, K.D. Wentworth's autograph.. and, let's not forget, your-truly's name smack dab in the middle.

Yes, that is a wood frame encasing the certificate.

No, I do not think I am over-inflating the significance of this. ;)

WotF - Q4 Update

A strange thing happened after I sent the Q3 entry in. Though I felt it was my strongest writing, to-date, I stopped writing. The manuscript went into the mail on June 30, and on July 1 I took a vacation from writing.

I realize now that, as a wanna-be writer, there can be no such thing as vacations. No time off. No lollygagging. I have not earned that right, quite honestly.

Unfortunately, I didn't start on my entry for WotF Q4 until the end of August, leaving me roughly 5 weeks to complete. Plenty of time, right? And it was, as I completed my first draft with 2 weeks to go.

But then a funny thing happened. Though I still liked the story's premise, I wasn't satisfied with the direction I had taken it. Right around this time, I received word of my Honorable Mention for Q3, which was both a buoy to my flagging spirits, and also raised the bar for what I expected myself capable of. Now that I had a modicum of success, merely entering for Q4 wasn't good enough. I wanted to win, plain and simple, and I just couldn't see how my Q4 entrant could reach those heights.

So I broke one of Heinlein's rules. I re-wrote the story. Completely. This rewrite was flowing good, and it looked like I would complete the first draft and still have a few days for polish. Success, right?

Wrong. Though I felt like I was finally taking the story in the right direction, I just wasn't feeling the resolution that I was tunneling towards. So, probably 90% complete, I put the brakes on. Changed the direction again, salvaging probably the first half. I still felt confident I could get it done in time for September 30.

But, it just wasn't to be. The deadline passed. I kept working, slowly realizing that I had bitten off more than I could chew. The story concept was just too difficult, for me, at this point. To borrow from one of Stephen King's concepts, I didn't have the proper tools in my toolbox to unearth this story fossil. And, rather than risk ruining the idea, I decided to leave it half-buried, until my skills are up to the challenge. So, it goes on the shelf, for now.

This, I have realized, is a risk with my writing "style". I'm not an outliner. I start with a premise, play around a bit, then plow forward with the first promising take on that idea. This often means reworking the concept several times, and my subsequent drafts often end up very differently from one another.

I now recognize that if I am going to be serious about this whole thing, I need to spend more time planning up front. Brainstorming, considering different angles, etc. I don't think I'll ever be the guy who plots the whole manuscript down to scenes, but I do need more structure going in so that I don't just spin my wheels.

So not only did I miss on my goal to submit to WotF every quarter, but I missed submitting during the most important quarter of the year. Q4 was the last chance for the Aug 2009 workshop and ceremony. Now, if I manage to win WotF, the absolute best I can hope for is to be there in Aug 2010. Ouch.

Onward and upward.

Checking in on Goals

We're already midway through the year, so wanted to provide an update on goal progress. As a reminder, here are my writing targets for 2008:

1) Submit to Writers of the Future every quarter (no expectation on winning). Update: 50% complete - submit for the periods ending in March & June.

2) Complete NaNoWriMo (50,000 words baby) Update: 0% - NaNo isn't until November.....

3) Sell a short story to a Pro or Semi-Pro market Update: 0%. Have a couple of stories circulating, and have received a few positive rejections (still a rejection, but they encourage you to send another story).

Feeling pretty good, so far. Obviously, nothing can be done about NaNo yet. I'm on track for WotF, which is my big goal for this year.

WotF - Q3

Another 3 months passes, another WotF deadline looms. This time, the tale is a near-future, Science Fiction story called 'Shock and Awe'. Think Orson Scott Card's Ender series set in a time closer to our own, with a backdrop of high school politics.

It's my best writing to-date, so fingers and toes crossed!

WotF - Q2

As planned, I submit my story for Writer's of the Future, for the quarter ending March 31 (officially, WotF Q2). It's a story called The Last Chieftain (I'm terrible at naming stories), and is a fantasy tale. We'll see how it does!

Goals for 2008

I'm a big believer in setting goals. There's something motivating about putting down on paper what your heart desires, as though having something tangible makes it more likely to happen. And I suspect that it does.

The key to good goal writing is to make them attainable but challenging. They should be stretch goals, ones that you can envision completing without moving mountains, but still have to put in some work to get there.

My goals for the next year of writing are:

1) Submit to Writers of the Future every quarter (no expectation on winning)

2) Complete NaNoWriMo (50,000 words baby)

3) Sell a short story to a Pro or Semi-Pro market

Attainable? Yep. Motivating? You betcha.