Paper Vultures – A SITREP (Part 5)

If you think I’m not being genuine when I say $2.30 really does make me joyful, I’m afraid you’ll probably never be a writer.

School’s out for summer! Or, like, University is out for summer. Basically the same thing, except the latter is less work. Whatever, the point is I have three and a half months of summer holidays to look forward to. Possibly my last ever summer holidays if I don’t carry on with a Master’s Degree after next year. Now that’s downright sobering, and as a Uni student that’s never an enjoyable sensation.

So what’s my summer got to do with you? Well, nothing really, but it means there’ll be more writing, more blog posts about writing, and more of these Situation Reports, wherein I divulge my latest writerly adventures in the half-baked belief that anyone will get anything from them. Hey, you may pick up info for a few easy-to-publish-with markets and small presses along the way!

The past few months of keyboard-abuse have brought SUCCESS – the SUCCESS of a few dollars worth of cash from my writing thanks to Books to Go Now (see, already namedropping the small presses, you attentive fledgling writers can go snap ‘em up now), and rather more than a few dollars courtesy of Jukepop Serials. Your support of Werekynd got it firmly to the top spot, and considering the site has near on 200 ongoing stories that’s a damn fine achievement. Couldn’t have done it without you and all that.  

I also recently (three days ago in fact) got interviewed about why I give my characters the names I do, courtesy of an old amigo’s blog. He’s a top-notch reviewer, so go check his site out.

The past few months have also brought FAILURE – the FAILURE of writing rejections galore. I think the current number stands at three short stories and heaven-only knows how many agent query refusals. All expected of course, but if even the saltiest sea-dog writer tells you he doesn’t get a teeny weeny downer when he opens the email to that monstrosity of a NO, he’s a lying salty sea-dog. On the bright side, with agent rejections for my novel Crucible of Faith hitting the 30ish mark I’ve been thoroughly reworking the whole thing since February. Yes, I know we’re not supposed to query the agent-folk until our work is already at its very bestest. It just takes clear repeat rejections for me to accept that my work really isn’t at its bestest. Character pruning, plot tightening and adjective deletion here I come!

The plan for the next few months. Well, probably take my driving theory test. Hopefully I’ll get that part time job at the Culloden battlefield visitor’s centre. Take a trip down to London… oh wait, you mean writing plans? Well that’s easy, imma resubmit those three rejected short stories, continue to hammer-hammer-hammer Crucible of Faith at people/things, and write more of these blog post.

Sorry about that.