“From the Darkness Beneath” Heads to Space and Time

Posted on November 5, 2012 by D. Thomas Minton

It’s been a while since I’ve a sold a story (other than a reprint, that is), so I was happy to get an email from Space and Time informing me they were accepting my story “From the Darkness Beneath.”  Space and Time has been around for 40+ years, and they’ve published some of the biggest names in speculative fiction, so it will be a privilege to have one of stories appear in its pages. 

No publication date has been scheduled, but they publish only 2-3 issues a year, so I suspect the earliest “From the Darkness Beneath” will surface is the fall of 2013.

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Into the Home Stretch: Checking in on My Writing Goals

Posted on November 3, 2012 by D. Thomas Minton

The third quarter of 2012 ended several weeks ago, but I’ve been reluctant to review my progress on my annual writing goals.  I know Q3 wasn’t a great quarter for my writing, and putting together this review has confirmed it.  I’ve manage to stay on pace to meet or exceed two of five goals, and I’ve fallen behind on two of them.  The final goal, completing National Novel Writing Month has only just started, and I’m not very confident I’m going to make it this year.  Anyhow, here’s how I’ve done in Q3 on my five goals for 2012: 

  1. Write and/or edit at least 700 words per day:  I wrote or edited 64,374 words this quarter, which averages to 700 words per day.  For the years I have now written or edited 208,669 words putting me on pace for 303,069 words (including NaNoWriMo), which is above my end-of-the-year target.  While the third quarter was a little disappointing, I still met this goal for the quarter, and I’m still on target to meet my annual goal.
  2. Complete NaNoWriMo (50,000 words in November):  Check back in about thirty days to see if I made it.  Wish me luck.
  3. Finish at least twelve short stories:  In Q3, I completed only one short story, which puts me at eight stories completed for the year.  I’ve fallen off pace to meet this goal and it may be difficult to catch up.  The silver lining, however, is that have several stories in draft still sitting on my desk, so I might still be able to make my target if I can get into a groove over Q4.  Of course, the bad news is that I still that have several stories in draft still sitting on my desk….
  4. Make at least 60 story submissions or five sales:  I made 17 story submissions this quarter, which actually surprises me because so many of submissions seemed languish this quarter.  I’m on pace to make 69 submissions this year.  Unfortunately, I made no sales in Q3, so I still sit at nine sales for 2012.
  5. Revise and submit my draft novel:  I’ve not started revising my novel.  Time is running out, and there’s still a lot to do on this one….

The third quarter was a tough one for me.  My day job got crazy during this quarter, which made it difficult to focus my writing efforts.  While I have fallen behind on several my annual goals, I’m hoping I can finish with a strong fourth corner and make up some of the ground I’ve lost.  Here’s to a good fourth quarter.  Now back to writing.

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Bang! We’re Off!

Posted on November 1, 2012 by D. Thomas Minton

National Novel Writing Month is officially here.  Good luck to anyone taking part, and I hope I see you at the finish line.  Now to work!  To work!

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“Big 6” Now “Bigger 5”

Posted on October 31, 2012 by D. Thomas Minton

On Monday, Penguin Books and Random House, two of the Big 6 publishers, announced they were merging in order to better compete in the global marketplace.  The new company, to be called Penguin Random House, will become the largest book publishing company in the world, with a market share of more than 25 percent and an impressive list of authors and titles.

According to industry experts, the merger will allow the new company to deal with the challenges arising from the growth of electronic books, and allow them to better compete with large Internet retailers, like Google, Apple and, especially, Amazon.  These companies have vast resources to invest in new technology, like digital sales platforms, and their size allows them negotiate better terms on prices.

So how will this change things for speculative fiction?  The answer is currently unclear. 

Both Penguin and Random House have science fiction and fantasy imprints, and have distribution deals with some independently owned publishers, such as DAW books.  According to Penguin and Random House, the merger will allow them to share costs and invest more money in their writers, but there is also concern that there will be fewer options for authors looking to get their books published, as the “Big 6″ will be reduced to the “Bigger 5.”  How this plays out will depend on whether the new Penguin Random House continues to operate under the current model, where different imprints within each group bid and compete against each other. 

According to John Makinson, chairman of the new conglomerate, this is what will happen. “The publishing imprints of the two companies will remain as they are today, competing for the very best authors and the very best books,” Makinson said in a letter to employees.  If true, this suggest authors’ options won’t be significantly reduced, so perhaps there will be little negative impact on authors. 

It appears that this merger is only the first of more to come among the traditional publishers.  HarperCollins has already signaled its interest in consolidation, and apparently considered making its own bid for Penguin.  Having failed, HarperCollins will likely pursue a merger with one of the other “Big 6.”  Regardless of what happens to traditional publishing houses, the rules of the publishing game have and continue to change.  Over the coming years, it’ll be interesting to see if traditional publishers can compete in the changing publishing landscape.

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Six Tips for NaNoWriMo Success

Posted on October 29, 2012 by D. Thomas Minton

I’ve hit the target goal of 50,000 words for the each of the four times I’ve participated in National Novel Writing Month, so I guess I could be described as a bit of a veteran.  While every writer is different, I thought I’d share how I managed to do it.  Keep in mind this is how I hit the 50K word target, and it may not work for you.  Some of it may seem obvious; some of it may not, but here it is:

1) Plan ahead.  Some authors write from the seat of their pants, making everything up as they go along.  I can’t do that, because I eventually get to a point where I don’t know where to go.  I need a plan.  It doesn’t need to be a long, detailed story outline, but I generally need to know the ending of my story.  If I know this, I can keep writing, even if the stuff in the middle is still inside that proverbial black box.

2) Write consistently.  NaNoWriMo is marathon, not a sprint.  To make it to end, I must write almost every day.  I seldom have big chunks of uninterrupted time to write thousands of words in a sitting; instead I focus on manageable daily chunks.  If I write every day, 1,700 words a day will get me to my target (with a little to spare).  I find that I can make this target within the 1-2 hours I have to write each day.

3) Bank words.  Realistically, I will not write to my target every day, so it’s important to “bank words” when I can.  Even if I only manage 200-300 extra words here and there, it will be easier to stay the course when I miss a day of writing for whatever reason.  I usually try to get a couple of 3,000-word days in early, when I’m still feeling fresh.  By banking these words, I can afford to miss my word target later in the month.

4) Always forward.  NaNoWriMo is about going forward in my story.  I resist the temptation to go backward.  I don’t rewrite a chapter, unless it’s such a mess that I cannot move forward.  I find that if I need to change something in what I’ve already written, a few notes “scribbled in the margin” are generally enough.  Then I forge on.  If I get stuck and don’t know where to go with my story, I’ll write a short bridging narrative (e.g., James somehow escapes from the dragon), and pick up the story farther along.  After another few chapters I may figure out how to write that section I skipped, and can either return to it or leave myself more detailed notes for later.  What’s important is that I put new words on the page, not just push around old words, like cold peas on a plate.

5) Daydream.  It’s important to get the creativity flowing, so I find it helpful to think about my story, characters, setting, conflict, or even key scenes when I’m not writing.  I’ll think about them on the bus, while eating lunch, when taking a sanity break at the day job.  I may jot down a few notes or listen to dialogue in my head or imagine how a character walks.  Basically I daydream about my story, so when it’s time to write, I have lots of details already floating around in my head, and I can focus on writing.

6) Have fun.  I write a story that excites me, that entertains me, that haunts me.  Basically, I write something that I want to write.  This is important because I will be living and breathing that story for at least 30 days, so I better like what I’m writing.  If I don’t enjoy my story (as opposed to just being stuck in a rough patch) I’d drop it quickly and find one that I do. 

So there you have it: my six tips for succeeding at NaNoWriMo.  If you’re participating this year, good luck.  Maybe I’ll see you at the finish line, provided I can make it again….

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Who’s Reading My Book and How Did They Find It?

Posted on October 27, 2012 by D. Thomas Minton

Since I started writing for publication, I’ve become more interested in the reading habits of the public.  In June, I looked at sales figures for ebooks versus books from traditional publishers.  I’ve also explored the correlation between religion and speculative fiction.  So when a fellow writer at the Codex Writing Group told me about a new Pew Research Center report (released on October 23rd) that examines the reading habits of “younger Americans,” I simply had to check it out.

The Pew report, Younger Americans’ Reading and Library Habits, is filled with fascinating information on the reading habits of Americans under the age of thirty.  It also compares these “younger’ Americans to “older” Americans, which is just as interesting.  The report is broken down into several chapters, including reading habits, library habitats, and most interesting to me, how readers discover and get their books.  I’m just beginning to dig into this hefty report, but so far a couple of interesting points have jumped out at me:

• 83% of Americans age 16-29 have read a book in the last year—I’m not sure why this surprises me, but it does.  Of these, 75% read that book on paper.  I would have guessed both these numbers would have been lower.  So, is all that talk about traditionally published books being dead as true as some would like use to believe?

• 52% of young readers did not know you could check out ebooks from the library.  You can!?!  I didn’t know that.  That’s very cool, and I’ll have to look into it.

As I get farther into the report, I’ll post other interesting findings.  If you’re interested, however, I recommend you head over to the Pew Research Center website and check out their list of reports  Pew is one of those places that does a lot of fascinating research, and you’ll find it’s well worth your time to see what they have to say.

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“Still Life” to Get the Toasted Cake Treatment

Posted on October 25, 2012 by D. Thomas Minton

It’s been a while since I’ve reported any sales, so it’s a pleasure to write this post.  The fact that I get to report the sale of “Still Life Through Water Droplets” to the Parsec Award winning podcast Toasted Cake makes it even better.  Tina Connolly, the editor and host of Toasted Cake, did a lights-out, awesome job with my story “Clownspace” a few months ago, so I’m extremely excited to see what she does with this next story.

If you’ve yet to read “Still Life Through Water Droplets,” you can find it at Daily Science Fiction, who originally published it in January 2012.  Of course, you can wait a few months and listen to it over at Toasted Cake.  Or you could get crazy and do both.  Regardless of what you decide to do, make sure to add Toasted Cake to your speculative fiction recipe list.

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Covering My Story

Posted on October 23, 2012 by D. Thomas Minton

My contributor’s copy of Aoife’s Kiss (issue #42), containing my story “The Last Horse,” arrived in the mail yesterday, and the cover is even nicer looking in print than it was digitally.  It was created by Laura Givens, who has done numerous covers for authors like Phillip Jose Farmer, Connie Willis, and many others.  She’s made nice looking covers in many different genres and styles.  The Aoife’s Kiss cover is one of the nicest I’ve seen in a long time.

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Ready or Not: NaNoWriMo is Coming

Posted on October 21, 2012 by D. Thomas Minton

For the past four years, I’ve taken part in National Novel Writing Month, or NaNoWriMo for those in the know.  For those not familiar with NaNoWriMo, it’s a celebration of writing with a challenge for all those who wish to participate: write a short novel (50,000 words) in the month of November.

For aspiring writers, NaNoWriMo is a great motivational tool, especially if you’re having trouble focusing on writing consistently.  It doesn’t cost anything, and there’s a large community to help keep you motivated (if you need that sort of thing).  If you come at it with an open mind, you may just find the whole process of putting words on the screen without over-analyzing them to be liberating. 

The first time I attempted NaNoWriMo, I was writing only sporadically.  I thought the 50,000 words in a month challenge would be an interesting way to motivate me to write more often, so I tried it.  And I did it.  I didn’t write a complete novel, but I did write over 53,000 words that month.  I found the exercise exhilarating, and I carried that writing-high into the next calendar year.  To this date, I write consistently—almost every day—and I credit that first NaNoWriMo event for it.

I’ve since participated and finished NaNoWriMo three more times.  The second time I didn’t write a novel; instead I wrote several short stories that totaled over 51,000 words.  Three of those stories have been sold, including, “Requiem for Shiva,” “The Last Horse,” and “The Beauty of Wynona,” which appeared this month’s issue of Lacuna.  Over the last two NaNoWriMo, I wrote the novel I’m supposed to be revising as part of my writing goals for 2012 (yeah, I know I behind on that goal).

For this year’s NaNoWriMo, I’ve decided to start another novel, this one set in the same world as my forthcoming story “Dreams in Dust” (December issue of Lightspeed Magazine).  I’m concerned, however, that this year I’m not going to be able to finish.  For the past three months, my day job has been crazy, and I recently picked up some extra work on the side, so now I’m working one-and-half jobs.   That hasn’t left much time for writing.  While I’ve manage to keep working (primarily editing some story drafts), I haven’t written a consistent chunk of new fiction in several weeks.  Regardless, I’m going to give this year’s NaNoWriMo a shot and see what happens.  Maybe I’ll be able to find a new groove, or I’ll pop a hole in the space-time continuum and find some extra hours everyday in which to get everything done.  What?  It could happen….

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Silence Speaks Loudly

Posted on October 19, 2012 by D. Thomas Minton

I think it’s unprofessional when an editor sits on a manuscript and doesn’t respond to queries.  Fortunately for me, this hasn’t happened often, but one publication (that will remain nameless) is doing just this to me now.  They’ve had one of my manuscripts for nearly seven months, which in the grand scheme of traditional publishing isn’t that bad, but with the advent of electronic submissions is piss-poor, in my opinion.  Their guidelines say to query after 90 days.  I’ve queried twice since July, and received no reply to either.  Grrrrr. 

I’ve considered submitting the story elsewhere without bothering to withdraw it–if they’re not considerate enough to respond, why should I bother–but then I realized that two unprofessional acts don’t make a right.  I’m going to withdraw my story today and sent it to another publication, one I know will act professionally and will respond if I query.

The take home message?  Just because a place pays professional rates, doesn’t mean they are a professional outfit.  Writing and publishing is difficult enough; I don’t need the aggravation of dealing with unprofessional editors on top of it.

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