Feedback

 

It has been a while since I’ve posted anything but a comment by an online acquaintance got me thinking about a topic and I thought I’d share my experiences with regards to this.

What was the comment?

They wished that markets to which they had submitted stories and been knocked back would provide feedback about why they did not select the submitted story

My first thought was, yeah that would be great but on further reflection and after reviewing some of the feedback I’ve received from editors and readers I’m not sure that is true.

I’ve made seventy-four (74) submissions to various markets over the past couple of years and from these 74 submissions I’ve received 9 pieces of personal feedback. The quality of the feedback has been all over the place, some has been useful, some disheartening, some affirming, some insulting.

I’m not going to name the markets, I still might like to have something published there, but I’ll share some of the feedback

“The prose needs work; it’s overwrought in some places, clumsy in others. There are frequent punctuation errors.”

This one was crushing I wished I’d never submitted it. It wasn’t my best work, but personally, I would have preferred a, it is not right for us, form rejection then this. I didn’t find it especially constructive or helpful. This is especially true when on another submission for the same piece I received this feedback

“I thought it was well-written and moved at a good pace, but unfortunately, it’s not quite what we’re looking for at the moment.”

Which one is correct, I’m going to say the second, although In actuality it came first (chronologically) the surprising thing is that the positive feedback came from a market paying pro-rates while the negative came from a semi-pro market.

In general, the feedback I’ve been given has not been entirely helpful, it certainly did not lead me to extensive rewrites of my pieces. Most feedback from markets seems to be along the lines of the second example, I like this element, but it’s not for us, which leaves me thinking well if you liked it why isn’t it for you?

So what have I learned, well if you are looking for feedback find a community that does provides this, other writers and readers, that will tell you what they like or don’t like either in person or online. I’m a member of www.fantasy-writers.org a website that provide a place for author to post and critique each other’s stories and I cannot emphasis how helpful this has been for improving my own writing (please not the quality displayed in this blog in no way reflects the grammar, punctuation, and general word-smithery I would find acceptable in a story I deem ready to submit to a publisher). I would also like to apologise to all FWo members to whom I owe a critique, it is coming (so is Christmas). I’m slack, slow and have been incredibly unproductive this year.

The other thing I’ve learned is that the only real feedback that I am interested in from any market, are the words “has been accepted for publication”.

This is vindication, this is affirmation, we like it but it’s not for us, we didn’t like this or we like this but… are fine but don’t really help me, you should always remember any feedback is subjective, just because someone doesn’t like something doesn’t mean others won’t love it. I recall someone mentioning that Harry Potter got rejected 17 times, love it or loathe it, it is successful. Don’t get hung up on rejections, even if they come with negative or positive feedback, just keep plugging away, keep improving and you might get lucky.

I did.

It took Seventy-Three (73) rejections but I finally got one (1) acceptance, but more on that latter (You’ll probably have a hard time shutting me up about it to be honest).

Thanks for reading and good luck with your writing.

as always the dog

How I feel after a Rejection

Distractions

It seems that my blog rolls in a cycle I talk about goals, targets, what my plans are and how I’m going to achieve them. The next week I’m back making excuses, explaining why nothing came to fruition, accepting failure and doing better the next time. (I swear this time I’ve got a really good one).

Well this month I’m going to talk about distractions, things that keep us from writing. As I see it distractions fall into two categories; Important and Unimportant. Things like spending the time you should be writing trawling through Facebook or watching Netflix are Unimportant distractions. Things like attending work, completing study/school and spending time with family are Important distractions.

My productivity has slowed to a crawl due to an important distraction. My daughter was born at the end of January and has been greedily consuming the time I usually spend writing but that is alright she’s adorable and a distraction I am happy to have.

The problem with distractions is that not all of them fall into such a clear cut basket of Unimportant or Important or to complicate things even further an Unimportant distraction might be useful or productive while an Important distraction might be counterproductive.

My daughter as important as she is, is a counterproductive distraction. Whilst I’m spending time with her nothing is happening with my writing. Work is a little bit of an in-between it is definitely important, you might argue that that time spent working is counterproductive as you are working rather than writing or you might argue that it’s productive as your generating money you can use to hire editors, cover artists if you are going down the self-publishing route or simply keep the electricity on so your computer with all those hard written/type words stored in its gizzards is a functional device rather than an ornate door stop (I’m not writing this story by hand and while a typewriter is cool I neither have the proficiency or patience to avoid or correct my mistakes). Study/School in my opinion is not only an important distraction but probably a productive one too, no matter what you are learning this is additional information that you can pump into your writing. For instance I’m studying commerce and this inspired a short story about price fixing and alternate markets. Explained like this its dry and boring but the scene was written as four parties around a bargaining table trading veiled threats and offers and I got decent feedback about it.

Unimportant distractions can sit in even more of a grey area. Sure trawling through Facebook or power watching an entire season of a show on Netflix could probably be classed as an Unimportant distraction but occasionally it might be productive. A few of my characters have been inspired by friends or acquaintances and TV, movies and pop-culture probably inspire a few too many of my stories.

Then we have things like word-building, side-stories, and research which might start off being important but when overdone can become unimportant whilst still being productive and if taken to the extremes might even end up being unproductive. Trying to work out where to devote my time is frustrating. So many things to do Important things, Unimportant things, Productive things, Counterproductive things that need to get done how do I choose?

The answer is simple. Do whatever you need to. If you feel you need to run up and down the street screaming at the top of your lungs do it. Definitely do the important things. Feel free to spend time doing the Unimportant things. If you can, try and turn them into productive exercises, but remember it is fine to be unproductive too. The only thing you absolutely have to do if you want to be a writer is write just try and remember that it is okay to do other things too.

I’m not even going to bother to update my progress for my yearly goals. I got nothing (very little) done. The year is off to a great start and that’s fine I’ve got other things to do but I will write. I promise. I will find the time. I’ll do it today.

Thanks for reading

And now for the dog

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2017 Goals

I’ve spent the past few posts ranting, writing and raving about goals, failures and being realistic with your targets. It just so happens that I had possibly chosen a fortuitous time to be discussing such a thing. The stars are in alignment or just possibly the dates, anyhoo. One thing that happens every time a New Year eve rolls around is that people make huge possibly unrealistic promises to themselves about what they are going to accomplish with in the New Year.

We reset in January and say this year is going to be better, I’m going to do so much and I’m going to accomplish this. I had a number for my list this year, lose weight and drink less, the usual stuff. I’ve already failed the second of those.

I did have one other possibly unrealistic resolution to add to that list. Finish my Novel. At least finish the draft. Considering the progress I’ve made this would seem like an effort in futility. And it might be but it gives me something to strive for.

Edwin Locke in the 1960’s proposed the Goal Setting Theory of Motivation (And I think we could always use more motivation) which is a complex and tedious way of saying, goals indicate and give direction about what needs to be done and how much effort is required to be put in.

Goals need to be specific and clear (Finish my novel, I don’t think I can get clearer than that), realistic and challenging (Not entirely sure about realistic but it will definitely be challenging). The individual (in this case me) must display Self-efficiency (I need to believe that I can do this) and Goal Commitment (I need to want to do this).

So I tick all the boxes (mostly) Alright I’ve got a yearly goal. Now I need to break that down into manageable portions. Months, Weeks and Days. Smaller goals are easier to achieve and make me feel all warm and fuzzy inside after I’ve beaten them (Preferably with a large stick).

 

Year (I’m throwing in a few more minor goals too).

1. Finish Novel (0/1) (I think about 24 Chapter will get me to the end)

2. Finish Novella (0/1) (Probably about 15,000 words left)

3. Write 3 short stories (0/3) (2,000 – 5,000 words each)

4. My reading has slowed right down so, Read at least 24 Books in the year (0/24)

5. Provide feedback to other authors that I have a critique exchange going with (I’ve been very slack)

 

So now I’ll break these down into what I consider to be manageable chunks and set monthly, weekly and daily goals. Small is always easier and It will also let me track how I’m progressing and when I need to put in a little (or a lot) more effort.

 

Month

1. Write 2 Chapters a Month (0/2)

2. Read 2 Books (0/2)

3. Review 4 Chapters (0/4)

 

Week

1. Write minimum 3,000 words per week (I’m estimating 156,000 words should get all my projects complete) (0/3000)

2. Read ½ Book

3. 1 Chapter Review (0/1)

 

Days (Some things are a little harder to break down into days so only one thing)

1. Write 600 word s per day (this unfortunately doesn’t count) (0/600)

 

 

I think this is a big ask but I’ll at least be able to track how I’m going. Not well on the daily word count I can tell you that, but now that I’ve set my goal nothing is going to stop me.  (I’ll be writing a retraction momentarily). Anyway I would love to hear about everyone’s writing goals. Are your unrealistic? Are they manageable?

My dogs goal for 2017 seems to be sleep on the bed as much as possible

What do you mean  your spot?

ZERO

Just thought I would throw out an update (Mainly because it is relevant to my last two posts) On Monday aiming for my target of 500 words I wrote the magnificent figure of zero. Yes you did read correctly  I wrote zero words. Absolutely nothing. Zilch. Sweet fanny Adams. I failed, but today though I’m going to pick myself up, dust myself off and keep writing. I’m not upping my target to make up for it, I’ve learnt from previous failures that probably isn’t going to work. I’m being realistic, I was busy I didn’t write anything. I’ll reset my target and try again.

Targets

This one is going to be super quick. I’ve stumbled over (been shown) an important consideration for any perspective writer, freelancer, storyteller, blogger or any other creative person. I’ve rambled on about setting goals and how they help me. I’ve talked about making them manageable, dealing with failure, overcoming blocks and a host of other concerns. So far though I’ve thrown out monthly goals, finish this chapter, plot this, have this organised. If you are struggling (see me last month) the best thing that I can advise you to do is to set a small goal, a word target for the next day. I’m going to write 100 words or similar. Make it manageable. Up the target for the following day. Don’t get carried away with one day of solid writing, build slowly. Don’t start at 2k words per day build up to it. Once you have some momentum find a target your happy to keep hitting. For me I’m happy with 500 words a day, every weekday. If I can keep that up it will be a miracle. Remember that it is alright to fail (read my last post). Keep a log, record your progress. Build a habit of writing.

This little piece of advice/process has gotten me out of a funk. I can’t take credit for it though. The thanks goes to Arisillion from www.fantasy-writers.org He made a forum post asking everyone to post their targets. I love targets and goals and I was doing badly so thought I would start slowly. Here is my progress

06/12/2016	104
07/12/2016	192
08/12/2016	199
09/12/2016	437
10/12/2016	–
11/12/2016	–
12/12/2016	650
13/12/2016	516
14/12/2016	540
15/12/2016	536
16/12/2016	512

And I’m not even counting this blog. It might not seem like a lot but it’s over 2,500 of words this week and since I’ve started keeping track and setting daily targets I’ve written twelve times as many words as I wrote in the entirety of last month. I’ve made more progress on my novel than I have in ages. I’m almost finished chapter 10 and that’s while also writing a short story, dealing with university assignments, prepping for Christmas, taking time off to see the midnight premier of Star Wars: Rogue One (It’s awesome. Highly recommend everyone sees it) and today being super distracted by Mario Run (I so did not need an addictive plumber on my iPhone) so I’m feeling good. I’m taking the weekend off but on Monday I’m aiming for another 500 word and I’ll try and keep it going every business day until the end of the month. I’ll be back with more updates on my progress after the holidays and hopefully by then I will have thought of something interesting to talk/write about.

Thanks for reading. Obligatory picture of dog below.

woof. nailed it.

A BIG FAT F

So how did I do with the remainder of NaNoWriMo? (The title may have given it away). Not well, to put it delicately. In fact it was my least productive month of writing for the entire year. I had goals, targets, plots, characters, I had four stories I wanted to write and I wrote absolutely none of them. I think in total I put down roughly 300 or so words for the month. That’s abysmal. Now I could spout of a list of excuses, I was busy, I was on holidays, assignments were due, work got hectic, but it doesn’t matter what I say it won’t change the fact that I failed. And do you know what, I don’t particularly like failing.

Anything I would say would be an attempt to absolve myself of the responsibility and that’s not helpful. While I might not like it, failing is a part of life. If you expect to always win, always complete your goals, achieve everything you set your thoughts too then you are going to be disappointed. If you’re reading this and thinking well I’ve never failed at something I call bullshit.

Our society seems to want to treat failure as an all-consuming negative. People don’t want to identify with a failure. It’s swept into the corner and ignored, not talked about. Children are given participation medals, they don’t score their sporting matches saying that they’re just for fun, and there are no winners and losers.

But failing/losing can teach you things. It can teach you what you did not do well, what can be improved, what you can work on. In life you are going to fail, it might be a small failure, it might be big failure but I can guarantee it is going to happen.

I will let you in on a secret though. It is perhaps the most important thing that I have ever learned in my life. It is something that my failures have taught me and trust me there have been a lot of them. I won’t go through the entire list but let’s just highlight a few. I’ve attempted NaNoWriMo four times and not once completed it. I have three half-finished novels, not counting the one I’m currently working on. I was kicked out of university twice. My wife refused to go on a second date with me.

So what’s the secret? It’s really very simple. No matter how many times or how badly you fail, what really matters is what you do afterwards. Just to clarify by afterwards I don’t mean immediately after you fail, I mean in the future. Will you learn and grow from you losses and failures? Will you let them teach you? Or will you sweep them into a corner, ignore them and pretend that they never happened.

I might have never completed NaNo but it is not going to stop me trying again next year, I’ve already identified a few ways to improve my chances and things to work on (More detailed chapter summaries and less obsessing over each line). I might have been kicked out of University twice; it might have taken five years to decide to re-enrol, but I’m studying again and this time I’m actually enjoying it and doing well. My wife might have refused to go on that second date with me but hey she is my wife. I might have a growing collection of half-finished novels but I’m not going to let that stop me writing, each of those stories taught me something and one day I’ll get back to them.

So what did my failure last month teach me? Well firstly I need to have a better plan in place, between work, study, family and everything else going on I need to allocate some time for writing, at least once a week or even better once a day. If I want to be serious about this there is not point setting goals and targets if I don’t give myself a chance of completing them. I need to be better prepared; my NiP is drifting a little at the moment. I know where I’m going but the details of how I’m getting there are being discovered in the process of writing, that’s slowing me down. It might be time to go back to the planning stage and flesh out a few of the coming chapters, I’ve had too many additional characters appear along the way, I need to sort things out. There has been way too much staring at the screen and thinking what happens next. I’ve also got to celebrate the little things, for instance in this post I’ve already doubled last month’s word count, go me!

Alright with this in mind here are my goals and targets until the New Year.

1. Finish Chapter 10
2. Start plotting in detail the next 5 chapters (or however many will get me to the next major plot point)
3. Write for at least 1 hour on 4 days of each week
4. Accept that I might fail at my goals but try and learn something from them and do better next time

Obligatory dog photo

Just because I have failed to get some food with does not mean i’ll stop trying

More Than I Can Chew

All right this is going to be a short one. So first up how did I do on my monthly goal? Am I writing chapter 10. Yes I am. Unfortunately for me when writing the previous post I mislabelled the chapters. I was already writing chapter 10 and I was supposed to be in chapter 11 by this month. That said I’ve made some solid progress in the chapter and I have a feeling it will be a big one.

Last time I mentioned I might be attempting NaNoWriMo. November has just kicked off so let’s check in and see how I’m doing. I’ve written 153 words for the month. To reach the 50,000 mark I should be writing 1,666 words per day. Of course that’s if I’m writing every day. Which I’m not. If you’ve got time to do this I envy you. I also wonder how you pay your bills and when you interact with other people. So how many days am I writing? Well November 1^st to 3^rd was worth 150 words so I can pretty much eliminate them. I don’t write on weekends and I’m about to go on overseas on holiday for a week (lookout New Zealand) I’m not taking my laptop so doubt I’ll be writing very much there. So what do I have left? Well I’ve got today and the last two and a half weeks, excluding weekends to vomit out those 50k words. That’s 14 days. If I subtract my measly 150 words from the target 50,000 Ive still got a long way to go. In fact I’ll have to write about 3,561 words per day. I’m sure many would baulk at the task and I’m not saying it’s going to be easy or that I’m going to be able to do it but I’m going to give it a go.

To make things a little easier on myself I’m going to say that anything I write will count towards my 50k. That way if I get distracted by a short story I’ll still count it. So I’m spreading the love between my Novel, my novella, last year’s NaNo project and the short story that I know will derail me (I’ve already got the idea). I’m even going to count the 500 or so words for the blog.

On top of all that I’m starting a summer semester of uni and I’m trying to finalise plans to renovate my house. Oh and don’t forget work. I still have to eat and pay the mortgage after all.

Hopefully I’ll have something more interesting to share with you next month. I doubt it but I can always hope.

I may have bitten of more than I can chew this week but hey better too much to do than not enough.

Best of luck to everyone who is participating in NaNoWriMo this year

Obligatory dog photo

I swear I was sleeping the whole time