Inkpunks

Today’s guest post comes from writer and editor James L. Sutter, whose anthology Before They Were Giants should be on every writer’s bookshelf. Thanks for contributing, James!

There’s a thing that happens to me a lot, which I’ll bet happens to you as well. I’ll get a story idea–whether driving to work, talking science with my roommates, or snapping bolt upright from a deep sleep–and be filled to bursting with enthusiasm for it. All day while I’m trying to get work done, part of my mind will be whirring away on the story, forcing me to scribble down notes on sticky notes (or my Google Tasks list) until I’m walking around with a thousand words of disjointed bullet points in my pocket–things that would mean nothing to anyone else, like “vampire coffins = cryogenic creches?” and “Post-Rapture balloon tech–yes? Yes!” My conversations will suffer, I’ll have trouble getting to sleep, and I’ll positively vibrate with my need to write the story. At last I’ll wake up early, wait for my fiance to stumble bleary-eyed out of the house, and start writing.

And it sucks.

Oh, it rarely sucks at the start–that young-love glow usually lasts for a few thousand words. But at some point–maybe the third day that I’m rolling on it–I start to get a bad feeling. Maybe the characters feel wooden. Maybe the scenes are choppy, with nothing to stick them together. Maybe the prose itself feels infantile, and the dialogue is a bunch of head-bobbing and exposition.

I feel, in other words, like a hack.

You know the sort of writer I mean. To most folks, a hack is somebody who churns out a ton of fiction with no regard for art–the sort of low-quality stuff that, as in Spider Robinson’s famous origin story, makes you throw the book across the room and say, “Damn it, I can write better than this guy!”

Once upon a time, that moment of doubt might have been a death sentence for my story. While things were good, they were great. But as soon as a story lost its charm, it was out on the street, panhandling for semicolons.

Then I got a job editing for Paizo Publishing, and immediately realized the truth: I was, as expected, a hack. But so was everyone else.

Don’t get me wrong–I’ve seen some great stuff come across my desk. But I’ve also seen a whole lot of stories (and RPG adventures, and articles, etc.) that were merely good enough. They had some merit, but they also had some flaws. As again and again I found myself buying work that was merely good (or sold stories of my own that I was sure were destined for the scrap heap), I began to understand that writers really are their harshest critics. Sure, there will always be folks out there who are better than you. But you aren’t competing against them. You’re only competing against the rest of the slush pile for a particular magazine in a particular month. And as Sturgeon’s Law teaches us, ninety percent of that slush pile is bound to be crap. Suddenly the odds don’t look so bad, eh? One thing they never tell you in school is that all professional writing is graded on a curve.

So how does this relate to Ted Chiang?

If you aren’t already familiar with his work (and I suggest you remedy that immediately), Ted Chiang is an anomaly in the SF world. Though he’s published only a dozen stories in twenty years of writing, every one of them is brilliant. His list of major industry awards is in fact longer than his list of published stories. He’s unquestionably a wonderful author–his only collection, Stories of Your Life and Others, blew my mind when I first read it, and I still think about it regularly half a dozen years later.

He’s also, in my opinion, a terrible role model for a writer.

That’s not an insult to Ted–he’s a very nice man, and I imagine he has some excellent advice regarding the writing process. But if you set your literary goals with him as your model, you’ll go insane. That’s because you can’t be Ted Chiang. He’s the statistical anomaly. The outlier. The batter who hits every pitch.

For the rest of us, writing is a series of almosts. Sometimes–never as often as we’d like–we’ll hit on the perfect word, the perfect scene, the perfect ending. More often, we’ll end up with something less than we want, but more than we fear. It’s always easy to see the flaws in your own writing, because you know where to look for them. The key is to keep going and finish the story anyway.

This isn’t to say you should ignore the holes. By all means, revise. Get someone to read your story, and listen to their comments. Make each piece the best it can possibly be, given your current level of ability. But once it’s everything it’s going to be, send it out. Even if you’re not sure you like it anymore. The world is filled with great stories that their authors were ultimately unhappy with–even Mr. Chiang turned down a Hugo nomination in 2003 because he felt his story “Liking What You See: A Documentary” didn’t turn out the way he had hoped. On a personal level, several of my most prestigious publications have come from stories that I had misgivings about, or was about to retire from the submission process altogether.

Not every story is destined to win an award. Plenty of good stories are just that–good, not great. As soon as you make peace with that fact, you can quit psyching yourself out and just write the damn story. And when you’re done, you can write the next one. Who knows? One of them may turn out to be an award-winner after all. Experience is the best teacher, and an author who has a dozen books in print is far more likely to find a groove and an audience than someone with just one Great American Novel. He or she will also be far more equipped to pay the rent–it turns out the pay is the same whether your story is a glittering jewel or just pretty good. (And if you’re really lucky, the editor footing the bill may be able to help you turn the latter into the former.)

Of course, some people will argue that being a true artist means demanding perfection, and that if a given piece isn’t a Great Work of Beauty and Truth, then it should go in the drawer. They’re welcome to their opinion, and I’ll be happy to read their work, presuming they ever finish.

But me? I’m a hack.

James L. Sutter is the author of the forthcoming novel Death’s Heretic, as well more than twenty-five short stories for such publications as Apex Magazine, Black Gate, and the #1 Amazon bestseller Machine of Death. His first anthology, Before They Were Giants, pairs the first published stories of such SF luminaries as Larry Niven, William Gibson, Cory Doctorow, and China Mieville with new interviews and writing advice from the authors themselves. In addition, James has written numerous roleplaying game supplements, and is the Fiction Editor for Paizo Publishing, creators of the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game. He lives in the Ministry of Awesome, a house in Seattle with 4 other roommates and a fully functional death ray. For more information, check out jameslsutter.com.

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Today we are lucky enough to have a guest post by the Functional Nerds!

Patrick Hester is an author, a blogger and a podcast producer, John Anealio is a musician and blogger who publishes his music online at johnanealio.bandcamp.com.  Together, they host a podcast called The Functional Nerds, delivering interviews with authors, artists, and musicians every Tuesday on their site FunctionalNerds.com.

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Patrick:  First off, we’d like to thank the Inkpunks for inviting us to contribute to the blog.

Second, we thought we’d talk a little bit about podcasting and self promotion.  The 21st century author has far more opportunities for self-promotion and control than ever before.  Technology has put the power squarely in the hands of the author, making it easier to control your content, and reach your audience.

In the past, the path to publishing was paved with letters of rejection.  Your odds of becoming a published author were low, still are.  Depending on who you talk to, some people say it’s even harder to get published today.  But the difference is that you have alternate channels open to you that weren’t around even five years ago–like podcasting and ebook publishing.

John: Coming at this from a musician’s angle, I applaud the collapse of the major record labels.  I’ve been a performing songwriter since I was a teenager, and the idea of chasing a record deal never resonated with me.  It felt like playing the lottery and I’ve always wanted to have more control than that.

Blogging, Twittering, Facebooking and Podcasting have made it possible to truly connect with people in a really natural way.  Through common interests, people can organically share their art.

In regards to The Functional Nerds podcast, our listeners are exposed to a great new author, musician or artist every week.  At the same time, people are getting to know Patrick and I as human beings.  Over time, they’ve grown to care about us and our own creative endeavors.  The key to all of this is to show up every week and just be ourselves.  That’s what people want, authenticity… and cookies.

Patrick: Mmm… Cookies…

The major difference today versus yesterday, is that the author/artist can seek out their audience directly.  You don’t have to create your book, record your song, then deliver it to the publisher or label, hope they know what to do with it, and can find you an audience.  That path still exists, but you can also shop your book around, and if no one is interested in publishing it, you can podcast it.  That’s where you (or someone you know or hire), reads the book chapter by chapter.  People subscribe to the podcast and get a chapter a week, or a month, or however you set it up.  You can also publish the book electronically via Amazon or Smashwords, to name just a couple.

Then, through Twitter, Facebook, Goodreads, Podcasts and all the other social media out there, you can connect with people and build an audience who just might buy your ebook, or go to Bandcamp and download your new single.

It’s great that John mentions the music industry, because I see a lot of parallels.  The music industry has not weathered the digital distribution model well, and today, the publishing industry is struggling to keep up with changes to how we consume information.  The idea of a ‘gate-keeper’ telling us what we can read, and when, and how, is dying.  The publishing landscape is forever changing, and those changes are coming so quick (at the speed of technology), that they don’t know how to keep up.

John:  Even if you are signed to a major publisher or record company, it is incumbent on the artist to do the majority of their own promotion these days.  So, no matter which path you choose, building a community through social media, blogs and podcasts is only going to help you.  So start now!  Not when your masterpiece is finished; now!

Another benefit of participating in a community and putting your stuff out there, is that it can help you to discover what works and what doesn’t.  Personally, it has helped me to figure out who I am as an artist.  Case in point:

When I started the Sci-Fi Songs blog a few years ago, the idea was to write and record songs based on Sci-Fi/Fantasy novels that would appeal to fans and reviewers of those books.  I never thought that I would have contact with the authors themselves, but that is exactly what happened.  By getting pretty involved in the community, I eventually felt comfortable enough to write a humorous song (George R.R. Martin Is Not Your Bitch).  That tune was by far my biggest success.  Artistically, it also just felt right.  I’ve been following this humorous, geeky, sci-fi path in my music ever since.

If I didn’t just put my stuff out there and actively participate in this community, I would have never stumbled on to this path.

Patrick:  So, to wrap this up-you have lots of opportunities to get your content out to people who want to read it or listen to it.  You just have to do the work (which I know can put people off).

The way people are consuming content is evolving, which presents a lot of opportunities to connect with an audience, you jut have to find the way(s) that work for you.

Any final thoughts John?

John:  To conclude, whatever you do with this, do it because it’s fun.  Don’t put together some big business plan with thoughts of financial success.  To be frank, most of us aren’t going to be able to make a living doing this, so use your art to express yourself, say exactly what you want to say and have fun.  Being artistically satisfied and having a good time will help you to be consistent and to stick with it, which ironically, will give you a greater chance of success.

Thanks again to the Inkpunks for letting us hang out.  Check us out at FunctionalNerds.com every week for new episodes and great posts from our contributing nerds.

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I live in a state of constant failure. Even this post represents a failure, since I’m not writing on the topic I’ve been struggling with for the past week, and I’m repurposing an old personal blog post instead. I take on more that I can realistically handle, and I aim much higher than I can probably ever achieve. I determine my self-worth in large part by my distance from the top–i.e., the distance I failed to cover, instead of the distance that I climbed from the bottom. On days like today, I feel as though my life is defined by what I didn’t achieve:

• I didn’t write the challenging post on the tensions between writing for art versus commerce, or self-expression versus audience. Hopefully my thoughts will continue to percolate until I’m able to articulate them clearly.
• I’m working on a novel, a short story revision, a new science fiction short story (writing SF scares me), and a comic script. I’m falling behind my self-imposed schedule on all four projects, but refuse to let go of any of them.
• I am on rejection number five for my story about a necromantic mushroom in love. But I keep submitting it to professional markets.

In Booklife, Jeff Vandermeer tells us that “To be great, we must attempt so much that we not only are in danger of forever failing, but that we do fail ..and in the failure create something greater than if we had set our sights lower.” I find deep comfort in these words. I’m not sure if anyone else feels this way, but it’s like I need someone to give me permission to fail. And not just permission to fail in the process of achieving a single goal, but to fail and fail again. As Samuel Beckett said: “Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try Again. Fail again. Fail better.”

Here’s one more quote, and some muddling of metaphors: Thoreau said that our dreams should be in the clouds, but that we should set about building the foundations to support them. What do you do when your dreams are soaring into the stratosphere? What if they’ve reached the earth’s escape velocity?

I know I’m unlikely to achieve my dreams, but I refuse to set my sights lower.

Maybe it’s the Japanese in me. There is a place for the honorable loser. The great medieval epic, the Tale of the Heike, is named for the losers of the Gempei War. I want to fail and fail again. Because if I only fail when I set my sights high and stretch myself in the vain struggle to achieve them. I will fail. I will try again and fail better. And by so doing, I will fail gloriously.

So, what are your recent failures?

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Disclaimer: I do not claim to be someone who knows. I only claim to be someone who tries.

This post is addressed to all writers. Even the ones who don’t think this applies to them. Because, however much we try, we will always make mistakes.

The world is really diverse, and I mean, really diverse. And changing. The list of nations given to us by Yakko Warner less than twenty years ago is no longer accurate. And within those countries are regions and cities and towns with their own unique feel and experience, different to any other place in the world. And those experiences don’t stay trapped within those borders. They move and grow and arrive in other places.

Within the US there are more women than men. Between the 2000 and 2010 US Censuses, there was an increase in the percentage of every non-white group living in the United States, an increase in the double-digits. Women lead first-world countries. We have a black president. We have a trans model who is hot in haute couture.

And yet, our fiction doesn’t always represent this reality. In fact (she says, as she casts a glance at slush pile reports) it’s actually kind of rare.

If we look at where we stood one hundred years ago, socially, economically, politically, racially, everything, and where we stand today, there is a clear trajectory. Upward mobility is being opened to more and more people. Formerly restricted groups are now able to step into roles that were once considered impossible. It’s not at all perfect and wonderful and harmonious now (oh no, not even remotely) but there is a clear path, and that path is going up, so long as we continue to walk it.

And yet, as I said, our stories don’t show that. I so often see stories of a Young White Male (Aged Nineteen to Forty Five) who is Obviously Our Hero. Any women in the story exist to be Looked At, Lusted Over, and then Won As A Trophy. If somebody has a skin color that isn’t white, Lord help them, because the author won’t.

Do you write like this? Because, I’ll tell you what… I know I used to. And — this hurts to admit, but I must be honest — I know I still do.

When this is the only story you have ever heard, ever read, ever seen… it is the only story you know how to write.

There are two parts to solving this problem: Identify and Rectify. The first is actually easier than you may think, only requiring a willingness to hear that you have made a mistake, regardless of your best efforts. The second is harder. Much harder.

Part 1: Identify (aka The Easy Part)

I claim this part is easy, but I should clarify. It’s easy as long as you’re willing to be wrong. Despite your best intentions. Despite not believing yourself to be racist/sexist/etc-ist. Despite actively being an ally. If you can say “I tried and I still screwed up” then this part is manageable. If not, then there’s nothing but an uphill battle ahead.

Take your story, novel, play, screenplay, comic script, whatever you have. Write down every character’s name. Do you reveal if they’re male or female? Their gender? The color of their skin/hair/eyes? Their sexual orientation? What’s the source of their name? (If it’s a made-up-language name, did you draw those sounds from some existing language?) Note what you put down on the page in your story. Not what’s in your pile of exhaustive character questionnaires, but what the reader will see.

Who lives in your world?

Is the hero a white, heterosexual, cisgendered male? Is there a girl who is beautiful by western standards which the hero longs for? Does the hero “get” her in the end? Is every action he takes good and right, even when it’s wrong, because he’s the hero and it’s always justified?

Is there a woman? Just one? Is she raped or molested? Is she a virgin? A whore? Is she physically described, at length, in the style of how a heterosexual man might inspect a woman? If she’s good, does she ultimately rely on the hero? If she’s evil, is sex her weapon? If she’s a mother, does her world revolve around her children?

Is someone homosexual or bisexual? Is someone trans? Is there somebody who doesn’t strictly conform to gender roles? Just one? Are they sugar and sunshine and so good and noble it hurts? Are they the darkest epitome of evil? Do they attempt to find love and come to a tragic, heartbreaking end? Do they ultimately “realize” they were “wrong” about themselves, and are somehow “fixed”?

Is there a person of color, any color, any ethnic background other than white western? Just one? Are they overwhelmingly good? Are they evil? Are they “primal” or “native” in some way? Is the color of their skin merely painted on, and the reader would probably guess they were white if you hadn’t said otherwise? Do they exist only to offer mystic wisdom? Do they sacrifice themselves for the sake of the hero?

Is anybody handicapped in a significant way? Not in some minor way that is easily overcome to the point where they are not really handicapped, but actually handicaped? Are they, as previously queried, one-dimensionally good or evil? Do they live on the moon with a laser pointed directly at the Earth, twirling their mustache? Do they exist only to reveal the compassionate nature of the hero?

Is there financial disparity? Is someone poor? Is this glossed over, with little understanding of what it is not to have money? Are they poor because they are lazy? Are they, like all the others, a one-dimensional character, a passing footnote, only existing to show us just how wonderful the hero is?

Look at every character that isn’t your hero. If the hero were removed from the story, would they have no reason to exist?

If you answered “yes” to a lot of this stuff… well, there’s a problem. You’re not treating your characters like human beings. You’re treating them like caricatures. They’re not people, they’re just props. (And I haven’t even covered all the damaging stereotypes, just a handful. Enough to give you an idea.)

And I can already hear the protests. “But this is fantasy!” “It’s called fiction for a reason!”

Absolutely. It is fantasy. It is fiction. We get to make up a world perfectly under our control. We get to envision this beautiful, hostile, awe-inspiring, heartbreaking world we put our characters in.

I don’t know about you, but I’m not interested in a world I’ve read about a thousand times before. I’m not interested in a world that looks like the most limiting, restrictive version of where I currently live, or worse, a place we grew away from, where only a percentage of the people have power, and those people are all demographically similar, and nobody else can ever have those opportunities, and that’s being presented as a good thing.

I want my fiction to follow that path of opening the world to everyone who will fight to take it. And then I want to read the stories of all those people who fight. All of them.

That’s the world I want to escape to. I want to follow that hopeful trajectory to its logical end, and I want to taste the richness of the world through fiction.

And you? Do you want to go to a place that subjugates, or a place that elevates?

Part 2: Rectify (aka The Hard Part)

The really, really hard part.

This part is going to take careful thought. It’s going to take consideration, and it’s going to take being considerate. It’s going to take research, and meeting people, and going places, and watching foreign film, and listening to foreign music, and reading translated works, fiction, nonfiction.

It’s going to be about trying, trying really hard, being really honest about trying really hard, and getting it wrong, and having people get mad at you, and calling you out on it. It’s going to be about getting hurt, and angry, because goddamnit, you tried so hard… and then quietly putting that all aside and fixing the flaws, because are you a whiner or are you a writer?

It’s going to be about going past what the movies and books and music and news tell you something is. It’s going to be about diving in and getting fully drenched.

It’s going to be about respect and curiosity. About approaching a group you are not a part of and asking to be invited in, instead of knocking on the door and demanding entry. About asking politely and saying please and thank you, and thank you for your time, and I’m sorry for bothering you. It’s about squashing your entitlement. It’s about humility and gratitude.

It’s going to be about picking up all of it, not just the shiny parts that excite you, but all of it, even the boring bits, the bits where a woman’s dance is for her own pleasure and not yours, where someone’s sexual orientation is not a curse or disease but just is, where someone’s rough hands caked with cornflour are not used for “ethnic flavor” in your writing (as illustrated in this paragraph), where someone wasn’t “born into the wrong body,” where a person isn’t a cripple to be pitied or shamed but a paraplegic whose story isn’t “tragic” or “noble” or “heroic” but simply theirs.

Why It Matters

This is hard, I’ll be honest. Unbelievably hard. When the stories you see in books, movies, magazines, news, everywhere, all of it, paint an entire group of people in one way, it’s hard to break out of that.

But it matters.

It matters because of the story of a little girl on a bus who wishes she was white, a kindergarten girl who already learned to hate her own skin because of what media has told her. It matters because of little boys who want to be chefs are told they shouldn’t take cooking classes, because what are they, gay or something? It matters because of the homeless man who wants to work, any job he can get, but will never be hired, because oh you know, those people, lazy and feckless, probably won’t even show up on the first day.

An individual story making an individual error isn’t the problem. Each story isn’t its own individual drop. It’s part of a large ocean, surging in a hurtful direction. Each error is a tiny scratch, but with the way that things are, it’s death by a thousand papercuts.

This isn’t about “quotas” or building ourselves a “Rainbow Coalition.” This is about being honest about the people in our world, about human beings in all their messy glory. This is about taking an honest look at others, and an honest look at ourselves. Are we writing what’s easy? Or are we writing what’s honest?

“Let me say true things in a voice that is true, and, with the truth in mind, let me write lies.” — Neil Gaiman

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We were asked on Twitter recently how to find a good free-lance editor. We turn today to Lillian Cohen-Moore for the answer. Be sure to leave your own tips and questions in the comments. Thanks for your wisdom, Lily!

As someone who has been on both the editorial and writer side, I’ve picked up a few methods to find my people. Locating an editor to work with is similar to finding an agent, or the right market—do your homework, know what you’re dealing with, and you’ll do great.

Know What Kind of Editor You Need

A copy editor will poke your punctuation with a stick, make sure rewritten sections don’t have floating fragments of old passages in them, and that your work is free of widows and orphans. In the end, you’ll have a clean, correctly formatted manuscript. A substantive or developmental editor is someone who will look for plot holes, have the skills to recognize why and where sections need rewrites and possess experience and know-how to make recommendations on how to improve your manuscript. You might want one or both. In my case, I often work as a copy editor. I do often work on projects with editors who specialize in developmental editing, which tweaks my job description from strict copy edits to a second pair of eyes, often part of creating an edit that’s a blend of two different people’s skills and views.

Hit the Directory

You can always look to professional organizations as a starting point, like the EFA. The Editorial Freelancers Association is an American-based, international professionals group for freelance editors of all stripes. You can search the EFA directory for someone who specializes in your project type, as well as place a free job listing looking for editors, which will only go out to EFA members.

Ask your friends

Via word of mouth or social networking sites, you can ask friends and colleagues for a referral to an editor, or if they know anyone who does freelance editing. Depending on scope of project, their qualifications and rates, you can generally find someone who will fit what you need at a given time. If you belong to a writer’s group of writer’s guild of any kind, you can ask fellow members for tips as an additional source in your search.

Turn to your bookshelves

You can check out anthologies, magazines or role-playing games you enjoyed, and look for the editorial credit(s) as a jumping off point to find an editor who you enjoyed the work of. Some of those people will be freelancers, but not all will be accepting clients or able to.

Lillian Cohen-Moore is a freelance writer, researcher and editor working in speculative fiction and creative non-fiction. She’s published horror and science-fiction, freelances as a personal assistant, recently working as co-editor on the role-playing game Do: Pilgrims of the Flying Temple. Currently Editor in Chief at the Broad Universe Broadsheet; she lives in Seattle, Washington, where she avidly explores history, botany and funeral sciences for her next project. You can find her on the web at www.lilliancohenmoore.com.

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I occasionally overhear part of a conversation where someone mentions Duotrope and the other person admits that they’d never heard of it before before. What? I think to myself, How can you not know the holy grail of market research known as Duotrope? Then I remember that all knowledge is subjective and that, one day, I didn’t know what it was, either.

Presumably, you know how to brush your teeth, comb your hair, and tie your shoes but you don’t really think about the acts themselves. You learn, you internalize, and then you do without conscious effort. The basics of writing are much the same way, from the act of forming a complete sentence to submitting a finished manuscript. The following advice is purposely simple, a primer for those just getting ready to submit.

Goals

People usually dive right into the research and flail like a swimmer at high tide. It’s an approach I’ve used on more occasions than I’d like to admit but there is  better way. The first thing you should do is ask yourself a very important question: what is your goal?

We all write for different reasons; understanding yours will save you a lot of frustration later. Assuming you want other people to read your work, I look at three factors primarily.

What kind of exposure does the market have? If I can get more readership posting to my blog than if they published a story, they’re probably not the right kind of market for me. Figuring out what the readership numbers are is a dark art. There are ways to see gritty, probably inaccurate numbers on some website, but look at the website itself. Is it easy to read? If you google their name, do they show up? Do they have a Wikipedia page? Are other people talking about them? All fairly easy things to find within a minute.

Money flows towards the writer — Yog’s Law

Secondly, what is their pay rate? This can be a sticky subject for some, and is very subjective based on your goals. Publishing is often a for-the-love effort by the editors and some markets only offer token payments, if that. If, however, they are a for-profit venture, have a shiny, professionally-developed website and are selling subscriptions, I would expect a semi-pro rate. Writers create content, and if that content is sold, writers deserved to be paid for their effort.

Some of the very best markets don’t pay at all, and that’s okay, too. You come to know who they are. Electric Velocipede. Lady Churchill’s Rosebud Wristlet. Sybil’s Garage. They pay little to nothing but are highly respected for the quality of their work and as such are read by fan and editor alike.

Breaking into a prestigious market is a perfectly valid goal. Take a look at the award-nominated and winning magazines and you’ll find a who’s who of markets that are high quality and well-respected. Selling a story to any one of them is a point of pride.

Market research

Now that you have an idea of what you’d like to achieve, the real work begins: finding your markets. In days of old, you would have lugged out the doorstop known as the Writer’s Marketplace. Thankfully, we’ve come a long way, kid. Your search begins and ends at Duotrope. (Ralan.com, I should note, is genre specific and has good listings but doesn’t have any search functionality so I generally leave it for secondary research.)

With Duotrope, you can search for print or electronic markets, by pay rate, by genre, etc. Once you’ve narrowed down the results to fit your goal, I urge you to pay close attention to the details. You’ll find detailed response time reports so you can see what other Duotrope users are experiencing from their submissions. You can also see the average acceptance/rejection rate based on those numbers. The statistics are only so accurate, but when I see a market with a 65%+ acceptance rate, I know that they’re probably taking every legible submission not written in crayon and that’s doesn’t fit with my goals.

Even though I know my markets, I re-check their Duotrope listing and website from time to time, to see what’s changed. Editors move on, formats change, and markets close. You’ll also hear praise and damnation from fellow writers based on person experience. I keep a spreadsheet of markets that I’ve submitted to, make a note if I or someone I know has had a bad experience with them, and make a priority list, by story, of where I want to submit.

Submitting

You’ve written your story, you’ve found your target markets, and now it’s time to submit. Follow the guidelines, ask questions if they aren’t clear (because sometimes they aren’t), and learn to love Standard Manuscript Format. William Shunn has written the definitive guide to Standard Manuscript Format. My friend Kaolin, a geek of the highest order, also wrote a nifty tool to automatically generate your final document.

Rejectomancy

Everyone will tell you that this way lies madness but it’s a case of do as I say, not as I do. That said, there are plenty of ways to scry your stories fate. Duotrope lists the expected and actual reported response times for any given market. What’s even better, if you sign up and track your submissions, they offer an RSS feed listing the recent responses of markets you have a pending submission at. This can be a useful reminder. You might find that your story has been waiting three times the current average response time. It might be too soon to query but it is a good reminder for checking your spam folder.

Most markets will list how long you should wait before querying. Even if others are receiving responses before you, resist the urge to query early unless something has obviously gone missing (your submission disappearing from the market’s status page, for example).

Plays nice with others

The more you submit, the more likely it is that you’re going to interact with an editor. You’ll rack up a stack of rejections both form and personal, rewrite requests, and hopefully more than a few sales. You’ll develop a working relationship and reputation with these editors. Be professional. Communicate clearly. Above all, don’t be an asshole.

Handling rejection

When your rejections wing their way home again, be prepared to resubmit. I allow for, at most, a 24 hour cooling off period before sending a submission back out on its way.

Log your rejections in your spreadsheet, in Duotrope’s submission tracker (because good statistics help us all), and/or in the Rejection/Acceptance log. Make a witty comment on Twitter or Facebook or behind the closed doors of your writer’s group. Keep the message positive. Don’t assail the market for rejecting you — editors will see and remember your name in a bad way.

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Tales have often told of the great power behind our names and that giving someone your name can allow them mastery over you. J.K. Rowling’s villain is only referred to as You-Know-Who or He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named, for fear the mere mention of his name, Voldemort, would bring his wrath. It’s no wonder then, as writer’s we often feel an overwhelming, even debilitating pressure to come up with great names for our characters. This is a wide topic, I’ll attempt to cover a few points and provide some resources.

Know Your Characters

Beginning a new novel or short story requires coming up with a playbill of characters, major and minor, who all need names. Before you attempt to pick the perfect name for your characters, you should know them first. When and where were they born? Who are their parents and what things influenced them? Were they named after someone? Are they good, evil or in between? Do they have a strong personality or a more reserved one? Finding the answers to these questions can lead you to the type of name you want to use. Perhaps their parents were quite young when they had your character and named them after their favourite band. Little Bon Jovi has a nice ring to it.

Names to Fall in Love or Hate With

If you’re working with a novel length work, or a series, it’s important you choose names you like because you’re going to live with them for a long, long (did I say long?) time. From first draft through to the final, you may spend months, even years with these characters. Don’t pick a name you don’t like or a name that reminds you of someone you despise. Likewise, your fans will live with your characters throughout the journey of your book. You want them to be able to fall in love with (or hate, as the case may be) your characters so they think and talk about them as real people. You’ll hear people talk about characters in some of the most successful series as if they’re living, breathing people. Give them names they will want to hold close to their heart and tell other people about.

The Meaning Behind the Name

Whether or not you want to use names because of their particular meaning is something to consider. If you know your character, you could search for names based on a meaning. To give a really obvious example, if your main character is a marauder with a heart of gold, you might want to search for “brave” or “valiant” and see what comes up.

When choosing my main character’s name for my new novel, I narrowed it down to a few choices based merely on what I knew about my MC and what I wanted the name to portray. I looked up their meanings and one of them, Abby, meant “joy of the father.” In my novel, I knew my main character was going to have an extremely tense relationship with her father, who she can never seem to please. Done, decision made. I may have worked backwards with this process, but it worked for me. Nowhere in the novel will it ever be stated, “Abby means joy of the father,” but I’ll know.

Helpful Resources

I’ve found several useful websites for naming characters. The Social Security Administration website is a great resource where you can search for popular names based on the year of birth.

The website babynames.com has an article called Tips for Writers.

Behindthename.com is a great database you can use to search the etymology and history of first names. There’s also fun stuff like anagram names, theme names and names for twins.

Name-meanings.com is another great site where you can look up the meaning of names by origin or popularity. They even have popular pet names in case you’re having trouble naming your hero’s faithful dog in your novel.

I haven’t touched on fantasy, alien or bizarre sounding names yet. Most will caution you against picking anything with too many apostrophes, dashes or unpronounceable combination of letters. However, I’m sure we all know several successful novels that do just that. If you’re like me and enjoy playing around with names, the Behind the Name website has a random name generator I love. You can pick how many given names you’d like generated (from first and middle to first and three middle names), and whether you’d like it to be masculine, feminine or ambiguous. Then there are categories to choose from, everything from region to mythology and even witch names. If I’d like a female Russian Fairy name with a Classic Greek influence, I just click the correct boxes and like magic, my character’s name is (drum roll please) Sveta Nonna Yulia.

The fantasy name generator at ringworks.com is another great way to find different types of fantasy names. You can pick from a drop down list, for example, short names, insult names, mushy names and much more. It will then give you one hundred and nineteen options. I’ve tried refreshing it under the same selection and it will you give you a new list.

Good luck finding the perfect name for your characters and if you run into any shady cloaked figures in dark alleys asking for your name, politely tell them you’d prefer to keep it to yourself.

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Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one’s courage. -Anaïs Nin

For my inaugural Inkpunks post, I wanted to talk about something that every writer struggles with, probably at every stage of their career.

Courage.

I bet at this point, you’re nodding sadly. If only you were a little braver, you’re thinking, your path would be clear and fame and fortune would come flooding your way.

Maybe. But I’d like to offer a different perspective. If you’re setting out on a writing career, you’re a lot more courageous than you give yourself credit for.

We writers dig deep down into the loam of our souls and drag up things most people prefer to leave buried. We unearth misshapen dreams with nasty dangling bits and let everyone know what we find. With as much honesty as possible. Oh sure, we fix it up, change the names of the guilty, process it through many filters — but we commit how we see the world to paper, and fervently hope that millions will read it. Don’t tell me that doesn’t take guts.

Making the time to write is no picnic, either. Developing your ideas and honing your craft means saying “no” to a lot of other things. Friends don’t always get why you want to spend some Friday nights at home. Even your family may weary of your long hours at the keyboard. You’ve negotiated, cajoled, and compromised to get that time to yourself. But even if you have the most understanding partner in the world (and I do) you’ve had to look them in the eyes and say “I can’t go out for ice cream tonight. Not if I want to hit my wordcount.”

Many of us writers are introverts, distinctly uncomfortable in a crowd or among a group of unfamiliar people. Yet we’re driven to seek out others in our community. We form writers groups and expose our darlings to critique. We attend workshops where the pressure is intense, and give readings where we—gasp!—share our work with complete strangers. We even submit our work to editors despite the odds that we’ll probably just hear “no thanks,” this time. Then we take that story and send it back out to find a different home—again and again until it does. If we’re lucky, an editor will buy our stories, and then everyone in the world can read our words.

And some of them write reviews.

If you’re reading this blog, then you’ve probably done most of these things already. That means you’ve got the chops. So push the boundaries. Do more. Find new opportunities. Scared? Nervous? Good. It means you’re doing it right. Dig deeper with every new story you write. Attend a convention even if you don’t know anyone. Submit your stuff to that top market. Introduce yourself to your favorite author at a reading. Write despite the obstacles. Your courage will be there when you need it.

You’re braver than you think.

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Publicity, promoting yourself and getting your work into the view of other folks is hard to do. Information overload. We’ve got so many people, so many books, so many cool things to see and do and read. How does one get noticed?

What often surprises me is the glut of bad advice out there. The advice that basically says ‘treat this like a door-to-door salesman’.

Hey, maybe that works for everyone, and I’m like the 1% who puts up signs saying ‘all door-to-door missionaries consent to be BBQ’d’, and then puts up a pit and spit in their front yard. (It’s in the 5-year plan, actually)

Point is, I don’t care for it. And it seems like everyone I’m talking to is also not caring for it. So here’s what works for the people I know. Not necessarily how we MARKET our stuff, but what makes us look just a little harder at that book on the bookshelf.

First off in the series: Basic Etiquette Online and In Person.

Twitter (Of course, Twitter.)

Be Tweet, Not a Twit

I will buy your book if it fascinates me, makes me curious, or I’ve heard amazing things about it. I’m not going to buy it because the author tells me 50 times a day that it is fabulous. I’m not going to be guilt-tripped into it. My time is limited, my resources are limited, and I have to make hard choices against books I really, really want. So a book I haven’t heard of is fighting an uphill battle.

The problem is that, once you join the social media circus, you’re not just selling your book anymore. You’re connecting with people and making (hopefully) friends.

So tell me about the book, in your tweets, sure. But tell me about you, too. What inspires you? What’s your life like? What cool thing did you see between here and the bus? These are the things that make me curious to follow you. If someone talks to me, I try to talk back, even if I don’t know who the person is. It’s FUN to meet new people, and you never know what you’ll find. I love it when someone who is leagues out of my world replies to a random mention, and it makes me feel a bit awed that someone I really, really admire took the time to reply to ME. (I’m only human…)

Twitter is a powerful tool, and it is wonderful for promotions, but it’s like perfume: a little goes a long way.

So be engaging, be responsive, be genuine.

Play Nice!!

It seems like we shouldn’t have to still be saying this, but it keeps getting proved over, and over, and over again: Don’t lose your shit on the internet. Don’t bitch out reviewers. Don’t get in fights. Don’t debase another author, professional or random old lady on the street. It doesn’t get you sympathy, it makes you look petty. It also fosters a negative environment around you, and leaves followers feeling a bit unsafe.

That being said…controversy is inevitable. Just make sure you know where the line is between genuine, real-issue based controversy and cat-fights.

Don’t try to insinuate or manipulate. If someone isn’t following you, don’t take it as a slight, just shrug and move on. The ‘who’s following me’ apps that tell you the minute someone unfollows you are poison. This isn’t about being a popularity contest. It’s about social networking. Think adults, not high school, yes? Don’t call someone out in public and ask why they stopped. If you really, really, REALLY have to know…you probably shouldn’t be on Twitter. (And do remember: Twitter sometimes drops followers off of your list. It happens.)

And remember:Never, EVER, auto-DM. That’s just asking for the villagers to grab fire and pitchforks.

(Most of this stuff is equally applicable to Facebook, by the way.)

Blog

Engage, Personalize, Share

Like Twitter, I’ll follow you because you put up interesting things. I’m sorry, but I’m not following to hear how many words you got, if there’s nothing else there. Now an excerpt from your story? THAT, I will follow for. Equally enticing: photos from the dark corners of the internet, cat humor, musings on spirituality or sexuality, the minutae of a willow leaf’s molecular composition, history of the 3rd legion of Rome…

See? Give me a window. Give me pretty things to see and play with. And work your book around those, because you’ve already got my attention, and I’m probably hoping that the molecular composition of a willow leaf is vitally important to your plot, because that would just be COOL.

Events

Don’t stalk. Really, that’s the number 1 rule. Sometimes, an invitation to an anthology, or a lead on a job, etc, can actually be a case of who you know. So it is of course good to network and push yourself to meet new folks. However, it is also important to NOT be the person who hands Neil Gaiman or Lou Anders a manuscript in the bathroom, as well as an earnest, half-hour pitch. It is also best, if you’re in a pitch session or trying to make small-talk with someone, to not know TOO much about them. An editor friend was not-so-pleasantly surprised that a pitcher knew what town this editor had grown up in, because it was not readily-accessible information.

Let the other person tell you about themselves, let them choose how well they will know you. Be respectful of their time and space, and remember that they are people just like the rest of us. Touching Jeff VanderMeer’s hand is rumored to cure all your writing ills, but otherwise, you aren’t going to die if you don’t get your book signed, or if you don’t get an invitation to dinner with their editor and publisher. Even new and mid-grade authors are very, very busy trying to stay fed and under a roof.

Conclusion

Really, it all comes down to the golden rule: Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. Be polite, professional and willing to listen and learn. Don’t under-estimate your readers, don’t talk down to them or treat them like a faceless crowd. Like it or not, we’re really not remote from our audience, and everything we do is influencing our image and our reputation.

So be human. Don’t be a door-to-door missionary. Dedication and tact are virtues. Aggressive conversion tactics lead to BBQ pits.

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