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RE: 50-Word Writing Challenge for $5 SBD
Are you participating in CampNano this year? You sound like a seasoned writer, so I'm sure you know what it is. But for those who don't, basically you join a virtual cabin with other writers (though you can be alone) and set writing goals for yourself for the month of July.
There's word sprints and online 'events' - as well as local physical meet ups. Would love to start a steemit group for it.
I'm not doing Nano. I'm actually taking a stab at Pitch Wars next month. I have hopes it will keep me busy through the next few months! (Fingers crossed.)
I need to google this Pitch Wars thing you speak of :-)
Hang on and I'll get you a link. It's for completed, unagented, unpublished manuscripts, and it sounds incredible. . .if a person gets in.
http://www.brenda-drake.com/2017/06/pitch-wars-2017-details/
Yeah I found it earlier. Filing it under #writinggoals lol
Congratulations though! Are you a mentor in it? Or a participant?
I'm a participant. Those waters out there in today's publishing world are harder to navigate than a Steemit ocean full of sharks.
I self-pubbed two novels that I'm really pleased with, but I have a third one that I don't feel comfortable publishing as an indie. So I have my fingers and toes crossed that I can get someone's attention with it during Pitch Wars. It got some love during PitMad, a recent Twitter pitch party, and one publisher has it but I may not hear from them for months. So onward I go. sigh
It really is, it took my mentor 4 or 5 years to get his book published. I so look forward to the day when I receive my first rejection letter because it will mean my WIP is finally finished.
The fact that you did it - twice - is incredible. Self publishing has it's place, and (preaching to the choir here lol) quite a few authors excel and even get picked up by the big publishing houses (I can't think of her name right now...author of the memoir Dog Medicine went the self publishing route, and got picked up by Penguin)
Good luck. It sounds like you're on a real path to success, you're clearly talented and have what it takes....now it's a matter of a little bit of luck. So believe in yourself!
Well, thank you! That's an incredibly positive and encouraging thing to say. I guess it helps when we love what we do.
Rejection letters suck, because they mean everything and nothing at the same time. They mean it's another chance for us just gone, but you can't read anything into them at all, because most likely the agent didn't even read your query. And I get it...I really do. I can't imagine being as overwhelmed with submissions as they are. A few nights ago, someone asked in the MSP chat why I didn't have a publisher. And Shane Welker came right back with, "Same reason I didn't win the lottery last night." Uh. . .yeah. Exactly.
It's a tough business. I love every aspect of self-publishing, except for my lack of reach. It's just so hard to get noticed by your potential audience, and there are no shortcuts. So the 4 to 5 years that it took your mentor to get one published sounds about right to me.
There's still sort of a snobbery I think about self publishing, which is ridiculous. That said, when you look of some of the crap that's self published (I saw a woman on amazon selling an ebook full of point and shoot pics and her itinerary from a trip to Dubai - no lie - for $5 or something) I understand why.
I think that stigma will change over the next few years as finding traditional publishers gets harder and harder. Like you said,agents are overworked and overwhelmed.
It all comes down to that show buis cliche - it's who you know (and lottery style luck like Shane said lol). It seems so arbitrary at times when god awful unoriginal literary blasphemy like Shades of Grey becomes a best seller - and truly talented authors struggle to make rent.
I didn't know you at all until I saw this blog post - but I (selfishly? lol) want you to succeed so everyone can witness your rise to the bestseller's list and know that talent + hard work and dedication still = success!
I've done NaNo five times and Camp NaNo four--I'm not doing it this time, mostly because I forgot, but also because there are way too many projects to work on at the moment, and creating new fiction makes it worse, not better. But I'll cheer for you, and follow you, and wish you Godspeed.
:-) Thank you. I've been slacking on my creative work, so using Nano as my 'crutch' and an excuse to make regular writing a habit again. Yay to having too many projects - that's awesome !
I needed that for a long time. Now I've got close to a million words in the bank, earning me no interest. I need editing time, not writing time! But I'll do NaNo again, because I'm an idiot and a writing junkie. First step to getting better is to admit you have a problem, right?
Haha we're a masochistic breed
Wait...so you're not saying I'm the next JK Rowling based on my two stories of less than 1000 words total...LOL
RFLMAO!!!!! I dunno--you might be the next Robert Galbraith. LOL!