Dos and donts

Twistedlemon

Twistedlemon

The American
Joined
Jul 14, 2015
Messages
212
General question; as someone with a short story under my belt what should I try to do over the next few months. Should I pursue publishing in a magazine or wait until I have several more works?
 
Its soft science fiction. I have not made goals yet, I go with the flow. I'll keep plugging away with publishing more work.
 
Keep writing. Always keep writing. Sometimes that is hard, I am struggling right now to get back on that particular horse while betas attack a novel, but I know that is exactly what I have to do.
 
At least you have beta readers. I'd kill for readers that don't share my last name :)
 
Ask around for victi-- I mean beta readers. Some extremely kind folks here are part of my beta crew for Liberator. But expect the truth. That is why I do not ask for the opinions of friends and family, their views are virtualy useless as you can not be sure they arn't just being kind.
 
To be candid my family doesn't sugarcoat anything haha. In all seriousness, do I have to have a certain post amount to ask for beta readers on here?
 
Twistedlemon said:
In all seriousness, do I have to have a certain post amount to ask for beta readers on here?
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You can post up to 1500 words in Critiques after 30 posts. There's nothing to stop you asking for beta readers at any time, but in my opinion and experience, your best bet is to stick around here, get to know people and let them get to know you. Then you can think about making approaches to those you think would be a good fit and who might want to swap with you, or put up a thread advertising for readers. You're much less likely to find anyone who will commit to reading a whole novel when you've just arrived.
 
It'd only be a short story but I understand. I must compliment this place though, this is by far the greatest site I've ever been apart of as a writer. I look forward to spending more time learning on here.
 
This place is so good it may impact on how much time you spend actually writing, by sucking you into wonderful discussions about writing.

Quellist said:
That is why I do not ask for the opinions of friends and family, their views are virtualy useless as you can not be sure they arn't just being kind.
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Or deliberately being cruel.
Or think you are daft, "Prophet has no honour etc ..."
Family members or friends with best will in the world may not have read much in the genre you fancy writing or actively dislike that genre or be incapable of explaining why they like / hate a passage.
 
I also would point out, try and get a broad range of readers. We are using writers AND non writers, because they will see things from different perspectives.
 
I've said it a few times before...

Paralysis by Analysis... don't succumb to it.

Set yourself some easily measurable goals.

1. Get to 30 posts and then start getting it critted.
2. Act (or not... just as valid) on those crits.
3. Submit
4. Work on the next while waiting for a response. If you get feedback (you probably won't) then use it. Oh and be so good as to share it.

And agreed, Ray. I often have to get pretty self disciplined on not throwing myself into a discussion or debate. Or do a one shot pop presenting my best point and then bowing out. Otherwise I'd never get any writing done!
 
Ray McCarthy said:
Family members or friends with best will in the world may not have read much in the genre you fancy writing or actively dislike that genre or be incapable of explaining why they like / hate a passage
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YES. No one in my family likes reading science fiction.
 
Desperation is an ugly thing my fellow dust covered zebra. It was either them or high school friends I haven't talked to in years :D.
 
Do your old high school friends like science fiction? Of course, it's not the greatest of conversation starters -- "Hey, haven't seen you in years! Would you read this story for me and give me feedback? Yeah, good to see you, too." :p
 
Well, you've made it into the 75-word Challenge, but there's still the 300 this month, and we're also taking signups for another story exchange in the Workshop -- it's under "Psecret Psummer Pstory" psomething-or-other. For that one, you post a request -- something you'd like someone to write for you -- and all the requests are mixed and assigned secretly to the participants, who then write a 1000-word-plus story to fulfill the request. Then excerpts are posted and we guess who wrote what, and the whole stories are sent to the people who requested them. Story assignments will go out at the end of this month, and then there are two months or so to write the story. You can post the entire story after it's over, if you wish, or keep it if you think it might be good to send out for publication.

There's also a Special Submission window open at Kraxon, which you can find under Magazines, but it closes on Monday, so you'd want to be fast. It's for a 1500-word short story to a particular prompt.

And Gary is still taking submissions for the Aliens anthology at Ticketyboo, which you can find under Publishers -- Ticketyboo Press. That's till the end of July.

That might keep you busy for a while. :D
 
Now you sound like me -- if you try to write six things at once, you don't get any of them done! Unless you're Jo, of course. She finishes them all.

Oh, I should mention that there are several other anthologies at Ticketyboo that are still taking submissions -- Aliens is just the one that's expiring first. There's "Space: Houston, we have a problem", and "Death will not be cheated", and ...err... something else I can't remember but should be writing for. Much like Aliens, which I should also be finishing. You can find those at the Ticketyboo site, www.ticketyboopress.co.uk.

And if you feel like writing a space opera novel, he's open for those at the moment, too.

What are you still doing here, man?
 
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