Waiting is the hardest part...

Okay, so it's been nearly half a month since my last post in which I said I was submitting short stories. I'm pleased to say they are out at the respectable publishers I chose to send them to and now I am anxiously awaiting word from the editors. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that at least one will be accepted. But, of course, it would be great if they all received acceptance.

I think I said in my last post that I was submitting two stories, but since then I sent out yet another. So, there are three out making the rounds instead of just two. It's been a while since I've submitted anything and I forgot how frightening and, at the same time, exciting it is to await the editors' responses. Hopefully, I will have good news to post soon concerning any feedback. If, that is, I haven't worried myself into a knot.

Let the submissions begin

We're half way through February and Valentine's Day looms on the horizon. I finally pulled myself away from editing my novel in order to submit two short stories. Actually, the second of those short stories won't go out until tomorrow. I packaged the manuscript according to the publisher's guidelines, trying to follow their instructions to the letter--very important! My wife is mailing it off for me tomorrow since she goes by the post office and I don't.

Anyway, I am excited to be awaiting word from editors/publishers regarding my submissions. Having been on hiatus during the holidays leaves me feeling unproductive even though I have been editing. I hope to hear good news soon and post where my stories have found homes. Meanwhile, I will continue editing one of my novels and get it into shape. With any luck, I should begin querying agents/publishers later this year after I polish the manuscript into the best story it can be. I also hope to get a few more short stories ready to submit soon. Stay tuned to see where my stories wind up. Thanks for stopping by.

A gift for other writers

Yesterday, I came across a post on Nathan Bransford's forums where a writer had inquired about ways to keep track of submissions. I responded, telling about a program that I created to do just this. It's called Submission Tracker. I made this program last year after reading a different post somewhere where a few writers were commiserating over the chore of keeping track of manuscripts during the submission process.

As a software developer (yes, that's still my day job), I decided I would create an application for myself to help keep track of my own submissions because there was no applications out there that already did this (I didn't do any extensive searches to determine this, but it's been my experience that there are few apps out there for writers). I created a rudimentary program and added functionality to it when I deemed it necessary throughout my own submission process.

I've been using it ever since to keep track of my stories, markets, and submissions. Since reading that post in the forums, I've decided to make my program available to other writers who feel a desire to use it.

Some of the features:
1. Ability to enter story details. This includes: Title, word count, genre, number of drafts.
2. Ability to enter publisher information. Name, publication type (webzine/print, paying/non-paying), approx. response time, two web addresses (useful for home page and submission guidelines for quick reference).
3. Quick reference history for stories that have been submitted. Shows current submission location and prior submitted locations (if applicable) with publisher's response.
4. Grid view listing of current stories on submission, stories written, and publishers, each on their own tab.

I'm making it available free of charge, downloadable at the bottom of this post on a couple of conditions.

1. The software is available as-is.
2. Do not contact me with any bugs you find in the software. I created this app for myself and I program every day. In my spare time I write and do not want that time to be used programming. It's a free program, after all. If you find you don't like it, simply uninstall it.
3. This is a Windows application. Unfortunately, anyone using a different operating system will not be able to use it.

With that said, I would like to add that I will more than likely enhance the application by fixing any bugs I find and adding new functionality to make the app more robust. But, as I've already said, I don't enjoy programming during my time away from work, so these enhancements may be slow in coming. While I do not want people sending me bug reports, I am open to receiving wish lists for features. If there is something lacking that you think would make the application better, feel free to email me.

Here are a few screen shots:

This is a detail view of a submission.


This is a list of publishers I entered into the program.


A shot of the new story and new publisher dialog screens.


This is the submission history from a single story. Notice the context menu (right-click) to view detail, edit the entry, or delete it.


If you find yourself interested in using the Submission Tracker application. You can download it here. Check back for future updates. Perhaps I will add a feature that you find useful and, remember, if there is something you'd like included, you can always send me an email requesting it. I may or may not include it depending on how useful the suggested feature is, but you never know. I hope the program makes tracking your submissions much easier. Thanks for visiting.

Georgia's deep freeze

Woke up this morning to snow. I was happy to learn that my company closed due to inclement weather. That gave me an opportunity to edit my novel. I was able to finish the first pass of the hit man novel I'm working on. Now I'm ready to begin the second edit.

I took time out to go outside with my new Canon Rebel T2i camera and take some pictures of the snow. It was nice to come back inside with my family where it's warm and watch news coverage of people trying to navigate the treacherous roads. If you've been following me, you know I was involved in an accident in December when I rolled my Jeep after encountering an icy bridge on my way home from work. Well, needless to say, I learned a valuable lesson from that and won't dare drive when there's a chance of having icy roads.

The photos above show the beautiful snow we received. Let's just hope that when everything freezes tonight we don't lose power, which is typical in Georgia during winter weather like this.

New Year, New Opportunities

We're five days into 2011 and I'm excited by the opportunities that await. Most blogs I've read since the first have discussed resolutions. I'm not going to do that. Why? Simply because I don't believe in resolutions. Instead, I want to tell you what I'm up to and what I'm planning to do this year.

Currently, I'm four chapters from finishing the first pass of my editing process for one of the novels I wrote last year. Many times, when I do a read-through of one of my first drafts, I am embarrassed by how horrible it reads. There are so many awkward parts that I wonder if I will ever get the damn thing published. Of course, that's why the edit process exists, to chisel away all of that awkwardness and confusion and finely tune the prose to be smooth and beautiful (hopefully). I'm pleased to announce that am very satisfied with this first draft's story so far. I was expecting the clunky awkwardness, but it has been a pleasure to edit so far. I hope the other two novel manuscripts waiting their turn will be as enjoyable on the first read through.

In addition to my ongoing editing, I am preparing to circulate two short stories to publishers and hope they find homes. With the new year, many publishers submissions should open to fill empty slots within their magazines. So, needless to say, I'm anxiously waiting for that to happen. I'll be even happier to receive another acceptance letter, those are always exciting!

Also, I am considering entering NaNoWriMo again this year. As I write this, it sounds like it will be fun. I guess my annoyance of feeling rushed from last year's has worn off. Not only that, but in retrospect, I came away from it with a third novel for the year. I didn't complete the novel within the specified time, but it was close and if I can do that again, then I think it's worth the effort. This time, however, I'll make sure to get my notes and outline complete before November 1!

I love reading and I buy books every week from Barnes & Noble. I should also admit that I'm a slow reader, so my queue of books to read is much larger than the books that I've finished reading. I'm thinking about whittling down my queue before I buy anymore books. Otherwise, I'll have to build another set of bookshelves, which is inevitable, but at least I can put it off for a long while.

On another artistic note, I purchased a DSLR camera around Christmas because I wanted to dabble in amateur photography--I really enjoy looking at great landscape photos. I asked myself, why not take pictures that mean something to ME? I mean, that's how I became a writer, right? I'm extremely new to digital photography...hell, photography in general. My first lesson was that the hobby I chose is very expensive! The camera I bought is a Canon Rebel T2i. It set me back a substantial amount, so I'm working on the basics and learning the camera's functionality before spending anything further. I hope to shoot my own videos--did I mention it also records video? cool, huh?--in addition to photos so I can put together book trailers in the future. If I become worth a shit and take any photos worth posting, I'll probably post them on the web site.

Well, that's about it for now. Plenty to keep me busy. I'm hoping 2011 will be a prosperous year for my artistic outlets. Now, time to go edit.

Year's end

Before we slipped into the new year, I wanted to wish everyone a belated Merry Christmas and a very Happy New Year. I hope everyone's Christmas was spectacular. I know mine was despite suffering injuries in an auto accident on the 15th when I had a nasty run-in with some black ice on a bridge over the Etowah River. Everyone who sees pictures of the crash tells me I'm lucky to be here today. I couldn't agree more.

I'm spending the week leading into the new year with my beloved wife and my youngest son, so I couldn't be happier with that. In the meantime, I'm busy editing one of my three novels written this year. It's the story of a college student who has been blackmailed into performing executions for the mafia. So far during my re-read, I've found it to be entertaining. I only hope I can polish the rough edges and emerge from the editing process with the gem I envisioned. Also, I'm nearly finished with the edit process for a short story I wrote called MAN'S BEST FRIEND. The feedback from my first readers was much better than I anticipated. I have some more feedback I'm waiting to receive and then I will begin shopping the story around to various markets.

With the new year comes the prospect of publishing new stories, and hopefully, a novel. I'm keeping my fingers crossed and working diligently to produce the best, most entertaining material I can. I hope I will succeed. Thanks for reading. See you all in 2011!

Catching up

Okay, so my last post was really short because I was on Thanksgiving vacation. In it, I said I would elaborate more on my NaNoWriMo results. Well, here it is.

I didn't cross the 50k finish line, but I did participate at least. I managed to finish the first draft of that novel (and yes, it will be a novel, more on that in a bit) with 41,865 words. I was doing pretty well with making the daily word count of 1,667 words. In fact, I was usually well ahead of that number, averaging about 2k words a day until I got closer to the end of the story and then I slowed down because I knew I didn't need to kill myself when I wasn't even going to get 50k words. Also, I may participate in 2011, but if I do, I plan to outline the proposed story more thoroughly. This time, I half-assed my preparation and outlined only the first couple of chapters before NaNo began. I had the main story arc all planned, but after those couple of chapter's outline and I was off-road writing, so to speak.

While I finished the story in under 50k words, I still feel it will be novel length when I finish the extensive editing I plan to take it through. During the writing of the first draft, I simply did a brain dump, getting the meat of the story on the page and foregoing all the description and scene setting. I imagine when I go back and flesh that out more thoroughly, the story will really blossom. Also, I feel really anxious to work on it, to stand back and see the forest instead of the individual trees. I think the characters are strong and the story is gripping. I enjoyed writing it and look forward to returning. This isn't usually the case with some of my stories. I know, that sounds bad, like I write shit and bury it. That's not what I meant though. I mean, that usually, when I finish writing the first draft of a story, I'm more excited to start something else because I've been in that world for so long, it's beginning to become tiresome.

For a writer, you're exposed to the intricacies of an environment and at the mercy of the characters who populate the world for much longer than the reader, who reads it much quicker than the writer creates it. After a while of that long creation process, a writer tends to get tired and wants a change of scenery. Or, at least, I do. I can't speak for all writers, but that's the way I am. I am almost always eager to start something new when I'm half or three quarters through a long piece of work. Maybe I'm just impatient that way.

Anyway, I'm eager to return to my NaNo novel to clean it up and whip it into a finished, marketable product. In the meantime, I am keeping to my word before NaNo and I'm editing the previous two novels I wrote. Like I said in an earlier post, my life for the next few months (or possibly longer) will consist of nothing but editing.

I wrote three novels this year and a couple of short stories, one of which is currently making the rounds with selected magazines. I'm going to be a busy busy fellow. Hopefully, you'll check back in to hear my progress with everything. If you'll pardon me, I need to go edit.