I first participated in NaNo WriMo in 2006. That first year taught me to plow through to the end of my first draft, and ignore the overwhelming temptation to stop and edit along the way. That lesson was the difference between my first effort at novel-writing, which was over a decade of on-again off-again write-and-edit screwing around, to my second, which was a finished first draft in thirty days and a published novel a few years later. I dedicated that book to Chris Baty, because it was the most important lesson in writing fiction I’ve ever learned. All the other stuff–the methods and the techniques–don’t mean shit if you aren’t actually using them and getting the writing done.

Since then, writing 50,000 words in thirty days has become much easier. In fact, that’s the lesson I learned this year; that once you’re used to doing it, writing 50,000 words in a month isn’t really that hard at all. And so, my goal now is to take that lesson with me into December and beyond.

27 days and 36,000 words ago, I wrote on this blog that I hope to remember that writing 14,000 words in three days wasn’t that hard. That I hadn’t gotten up at the crack of dawn and written into the wee hours. I didn’t abandon responsibilities or give up on having a social life. I didn’t even write every day. But I also didn’t stop writing. I didn’t lose focus of my word count goals. And I never accepted for one second that I wouldn’t reach 50,000 words by November 30^th.

My first year I hit 50,000 pretty easily, but I did spend whole days doing nothing but write. I did ignore things I should have been doing instead. Taking that philosophy forward with me, I decided that NaNo WriMo was supposed to be a horrible struggle. The second year, I had the whole first week of November off work, and knew 50k in 30 was going to be “too” easy. So what did I do? I set myself a personal higher goal of 75,000 words instead. And I wrote 82,000 and still finished 2 days early.

After that year, my work schedule changed, and it wasn’t possible anymore to reach psychotic numbers like 70 and 80 thousand words in a month. So I let myself believe I was too busy because of my job, and the next few years I struggled with the word count. Last year, I didn’t even come close.

This year, I took a different approach, and learned the most important lesson since that first NaNo year. One I knew intellectually all along, but had to convince myself of. And that, as I’ve said a few times now, is that writing 50k words in a month just isn’t that hard, at least not after you’ve done it a few times. I plan to take that forward with me, and not stop writing just because NaNo is over. The 50k words I wrote in November weren’t a complete novel. My current project is actually a series of novellas, and my plan is to finish the first drafts of them all before I start revising (for the sake of continuity), so I’ve got a long way to go. My goal for December is to write another 50k. If I manage that without too much difficulty, I’ll do the same in January. And so on.

This is certainly not a new concept. Plenty of writers proclaim the value—the necessity, even—of writing every day. But you know what? I have no intention of doing that, because I know myself better than that. Over this past month, I did not write every day. I took almost a whole week off for Faeriecon, and had plenty of “I just don’t feel like it today” days throughout the month. If I were to try to force myself to write every day, I’d overwhelm myself. Daily writing goals are a valuable tool for a lot of writers, and if you’re new to writing (or not new but looking to develop some new habits) I definitely encourage you to try it. But I know me, and I can’t keep it up. But a monthly goal? Oh, yeah. I’m all over that one.

So, we’ll see how I do. I’ll keep my progress posted here from time to time. And hey, the comments are open—why don’t you share your thoughts? Anybody else out there wanna try NaNo WriMo: The Sequel with me?

I’ve had more time to write lately than usual, including a vacation day from work on November 1st, meaning I’ve only had one actual work day since NaNo started. Also, I’m going to Faeriecon next week, and know full well that means I’ll be going four full days without writing a single word, and I’ve been stockpiling for that.

And that, really, is my big secret. I haven’t done so great at NaNo the past few years, mainly because of a lack of time. This year, I’m trying to power through the limited time and work like I used to, which was all about getting ahead. The first year I did NaNo WriMo (2006) I ended with a few thousand words over the 50k goal, but I only wrote for 3 of the 4 weeks of the month. The next year, I set myself a personal higher goal of 75k, and hit 82k in 28 days. Both of those years, the way I did that was by getting way ahead in the first week, when I was still full of steam and excitement. Those first few years of NaNo, I took vacation from work the whole first week of the month, so I usually had more than half the 50k goal covered in the first week. A few years back, I changed jobs, and taking extended time off in November isn’t really an option anymore and November is usually the month where I start having to work a ton of year-end overtime. I’ve let that psych me out and keep me from really even trying. This year, I’m determined to get past that.

And here’s something I’ve learned in the past three days. Something I’m passing along to you, and something I hope I remember come next month and next year. And that’s this: writing fourteen thousand words in three days hasn’t really been that hard.

I haven’t gotten up especially early, haven’t slaved over my keyboard all day long. I’ve watched tv, kept up on Twitter and reading my blogs. Hell, last night I actually played The Sims for a while, and I’ll do it again tonight. Which means it really wouldn’t be hard to keep up this pace, or at least something close to it, all the time. When this month is over, I’m going to be revisiting that idea, and will be setting myself a weekly word count goal that I intend to maintain. We’ll see how it goes!

So, how’s everybody else doing? If you’re doing well, do you have a different secret than me? If you’re struggling, what’s in your way? I’d love to hear some other feedback–without having to fight the overtaxed servers on the official nano website!

Also, if you’re not doing NaNo, or don’t know what that even is, it’s still very early in the month and it’s not too late! Why not head over to www.nanowrimo.org and check it out? Warning, the site is VERY busy in this first week, so it may be very slow, or down all together. Keep trying; you’ll be glad you did!

Happy writing!

Samhain, or Halloween, is a time of endings. This is evident even to people who don’t subscribe to a Pagan or similar spiritual system, what with the costumes and the emphasis on fear and gore. Of course, my take on the fact that our society sees fear and gore as the logical connections to death is yet another tangent I’ll avoid at this time. The point is, the end of October and the beginning of November, whatever holiday name you choose to call it by and experience it through, is thematically linked to death. All Hallows, All Saints, Day of the Dead… throughout history and across cultures, this is a time of ending and closing.

Of course, with death comes rebirth. Even if your spiritual path doesn’t include the concept of actual reincarnation, the idea of death making way for new birth/new growth is all around us in nature. The trees lose their leaves in order to fertilize the earth. Plants and animals must die in order for others to feed and live.

And why am I waxing poetic about Samhain/Halloween on a writing blog? It’s that synchronicity I talked about at the beginning, because I have my own ending and new beginning going on right now. C. Bryan Brown and I have decided, for reasons I won’t go into, to close up our publishing company, Misanthrope Press. It’ll be sad to see it go; I’ve met some fantastic authors, and we’ve produced some books that I’m extremely proud to have been a part of.

But… At the same time, I’ve read submissions from people who told me in their cover letters that it was their first acceptance, or even their first submission, who now talk casually about their long list of publications, things they’re going to buy with their writing income, etc. In other words, people who once came to me completely green, seeking publication and advice, have now surpassed me as writers. Why? Because I’ve been too busy editing and publishing to spend time on my own writing.

This is the rebirth part. Because the death of publishing means the rebirth of my writing time. So while I’m going to miss working with Chris, and our fabulous authors, I’m rather over the moon at the thought of all the wide-open time ahead of me. Already, this is my second blog post this week, something I’m not sure has ever happened. I’m starting NaNo WriMo tomorrow, and am looking forward to actually reaching the 50k word goal, something I haven’t been able to do for a few years.

I’m going to be spending the next few weeks organizing and making plans for the coming year, which will include taking stock of all of my open and half-finished writing projects and setting up a plan to get them all finished so I can move forward. Even though I’ll still be fighting for time with my day job and its hour-long commute and all the other obligations in my personal life, it still feels a little bit like winning the time lottery right now. I’m sure the feeling will fade, so I want to take as complete advantage of this honeymoon period as possible while it lasts!

OK, it’s not particularly relevant to my theme, but how cute is this little guy? (Probably not cute to the person whose eyes he clawed out as soon as the pic was snapped for putting him in a hat, but still…)

I’ve decided to honor this budding annual tradition by dropping labeled copies of (mostly) used books at random locations where people will find them. I’m sitting at Starbucks as I write this, and so far I’ve left one book, a copy of Dean Koontz’s Frankenstein, on the waiting-for-your-coffee bar. I have seven more to find spots for. I’ll leave one or two more here when I leave, then one or two in the waiting room at the garage where I get my oil changed. Not sure after that, but that’s the fun of it!

My books for All Hallow’s Read 2012, labeled and ready to drop (Photo taken on my mother’s table; please excuse the ridiculous doily of a tablecloth!)

This is my second year participating in All Hallow’s Read, but the first conscious one. I was introduced to All Hallow’s Read by Cory Hutcheson at New World Witchery last year, when I was honored to have my story “A Flash of Red” included in the All Hallow’s Read episode of their podcast. If this is your first time hearing about All Hallow’s Read, be sure to check out the website, www.allhallowsread.com. There’s not a ton of information on the site, so it won’t eat up your day reading about it or anything. Basically, it’s an annual tradition started by Neil Gaiman, wherein you give the gift of a scary book to friends for Halloween. Some people, rather than buying new books and giving them as gifts to friends, choose instead to gather up a stack of books, whether new or used, and drop them where lucky strangers will happen upon them. This is the approach I’ve chosen. (The website has printable stickers you can use to mark the books you drop, so people who find them know what’s going on.)

I hit Half Price Books first, and found four books on the clearance shelf for $1.00 each. I added a couple more from the regular “half price” shelves, plus one from my bookshelf at home that I knew I wasn’t going to read. My offerings to spooky literacy are: “The Shining” and “Bag of Bones” by Stephen King, “The Exorcist” by William Peter Blatty, “The Bad Beginning” by Lemony Snickett, “Imajica” and “Weaveworld” by Clive Barker, and ”Frankenstein” by Dean Koontz and Kevin J. Anderson. I also threw in a copy of my own novel, Act 3 Scene 4, which I signed with a special All Hallow’s Read greeting.

I really need to work on my signature… But I thought the pumpkin was a cute touch

My hope is, of course, that the people who find these books read and enjoy them, but also that they look up All Hallows Read and decide to participate next year (or even this year still; it’s only the 29th after all!). I also hope those reading this post will do the same! There are lots of ways to do so. Author Laura Bickle is giving away a copy of her newest novel, “The Hallowed Ones” via a drawing in honor of the event. Others very specifically focus on giving books to kids, using the event as a way to get kids reading. You can follow the hashtag #AllHallowsRead on Twitter to see examples of what others are doing, as well as suggested books lists etc.

And finally, since we live in a digital age, I’d like to also extend my All Hallow’s Read giving to cyberspace. Therefore, I’m giving away ALL of my short-story eBooks at Smashwords for free from now through this coming weekend (November 4th)! Just go to www.smashwords.com and search my name, then enter the following coupon codes at checkout:

Violin Concerto No. 9 in A Minor – QF79T

The Seventeenth Sphere – SG36R

The Death and Permanent Storage of Picket Fence Pete – KG42Z

Services Rendered – SJ74R

Ophelia Doe – PJ48H

Happy reading everybody!

This anthology was conceived almost exactly one year ago, in a rented SUV on the way home from Mythic Faire in Hunt Valley, MD. Chris and I had made the decision that we were going to each edit a new anthology, and were discussing what theme we’d each choose. For Chris, it was a no-brainer–he couldn’t edit his first anthology and it not be werewolves!

We were already doing my go-to theme–Pagan–in Etched Offerings, which we were editing together. That meant I needed a new theme for my book. I kept looking around the landscape as we drove (or rode, technically; I think Chris’s wife was doing the actual driving), hoping that something I saw would spark an idea. We were on a freeway in rural Pennsylvania, though, and the only landscape there really was was trees.

Lots and lots of trees.

And then, it hit me: the forest! Why not do a whole anthology with no more specific a theme than “Set in the forest”? OK, I also wanted dark and preferably strange, because this is me we’re talking about, but dark and strange in the forest.

So, my decision was made. I actually remember asking Chris if he was sure he wanted to do just a general werewolf theme, and not something a bit more specific. I figured everybody who’d ever written a werewolf story (and what spec fic writer hasn’t written a werewolf story?) would pile them all on him and he’d be overwhelmed. Meanwhile, though, I actually worried that my odd little forest theme wouldn’t get enough submissions to even fill the book.

I couldn’t have been more wrong. Chris managed to get enough subs to put together a great book (Children of the Moon), but he was by no means overloaded with them. I, on the other hand, received at least twice as many as he did, maybe more. And yes, a few of them came from people who’d obviously thought “well, this one has a tree in it, why not give it a try?” but the vast majority of them were right on target. It’s never fun to send rejections to authors, of course, but all the same it was such a great feeling to be able to reject every story that wasn’t right for whatever reason and still have enough to fill the book!

Once the final acceptances were sent, I actually had to put the whole project aside for several weeks while we finished up Etched Offerings and some other projects. Once I got back to Rustle, and went back through the stories to do the line edits, they were pretty fresh for me again, and I was amazed at how good they all were! The first time through, of course, I was reading these stories mixed in with the ones that didn’t make the cut. Reading just the accepted ones together, I was astonished at what a great book this was going to be!

Meanwhile, I received an email back from artist Edison Yan, replying to my query about his gorgeous painting I’d found on DeviantArt. He gave me permission to use the image for the book cover, and it’s just the perfect final touch to the whole project.

Oh, and speaking of final touches… This book was originally intended to come out in the fall of 2011.  I found out after starting the project that 2011 was “The Year of the Forest.” I’d planned on tying into that theme for the introduction, but once it became obvious that I wasn’t going to make it by the end of the year, I decided to step aside and let someone else write the introduction. I reached out to Cory Thomas Hutcheson, figuring who better than a folklorist and traditional witch to write the introduction for a book of magical forest stories! To my delight, he jumped at the offer, and gave me an excellent intro to go with these excellent stories. Thank you, Cory!!!

Oh, and one other bit of Rustle trivia, then I’ll let you get back to your lives. You’ll notice that the first story in the book, by Seth Drake, is actually titled “A Rustle of Dark Leaves.” You might be having a chicken/egg moment with this, so let me confirm. The book is not named for Seth’s story. Rather, he finished it and decided that the most fitting title for it was the same title I’d given the anthology. I remember the submission coming into the MP gmail during one of Chris’s and my weekly coffeeshop business meetings, and seeing the title on the story and rolling my eyes, saying ”Aw shit, we’ve got another yahoo!” or some such. But, just another of the many wonderful surprises this book has given me, Mr. Drake absolutely 100% backed up the ballsy move with the most perfect lead story I could have asked for!

OK, plugging and yammering complete. And to the three people still reading this far in: thank you for indulging me!

~Inanna

I’m not, however, going to yammer on and on about every little thing. You wouldn’t read all that anyway, and we both know it. Instead, this is going to be the beginning of a sort of sub-series, which I’ve chosen to title “Confessions of a Frustrated Editor.” To start us off, my inaugural topic is: Cover Letters.

“Why cover letters?” you may be asking me. “Wouldn’t it make more sense to start with the basics, like making sure you’ve proof read your manuscript and formatted it correctly?” Those are definitely the first things the author needs to do before submitting, sure, but think about it. The editor sees your cover letter before opening your attached story file. Your cover letter is your first impression. It’s important. Let me say that again: IT’S IMPORTANT.

Sadly, a large number of authors fail to realize this.

Let me start with the good, mainly because it’s easier and faster. Easier and faster because it’s not hard to write a good cover letter. At all.

First – write a cover letter. It’s amazing how many submissions I receive that are attached to a completely blank email. Or worse still, a blank email that has some ridiculous auto-signature at the bottom, like a humorous quote or sarcastic remark.

Second – It’s a cover letter, not your autobiography. Keep it polite, consise, and relevant. If you’ve got stories in thirty anthologies, and you’re proud of that (you should be!), then by all means tell me you have stories in thirty anthologies. Name the top three you’re most proud of. What you shouldn’t do, however, is list every single book, the title of your story, the publishing house that put it out, and the date. You think I’m kidding? I’ve seen it. More than once.

Third – Give me some quick-reference story information. In my own cover letters, I include the title of my story, my name, and the word count. As an editor, I like to have these things in the cover letter so that when I’m scanning through emails, deciding what stories will fit where, or which submission to read next when I have a specific amount of time to read it, I can tell at a glance how long each piece is.

Fourth – Don’t just give the info listed in number three. A while back, I updated the guidelines on the Title Goes Here: website listing the things above as the minimum info we want to see in a cover letter. As soon as I did, we started getting submissions with bullet lists of just those things. Not much better than blank, people. Say hello, and introduce yourself. It’s awkward to reply to an email when the person didn’t tell you their name.

That’s it. A basic greeting, like “hello” or “dear editor,” followed by “My name is…” and “attached is my story.” Then a short section giving the basic details, listed out for quick reference. Easy peasy. The only other thing I’d include is to READ THE GUIDELINES VERY, VERY CAREFULLY! What I’m listing here are my preferences. Other editors are different. Whatever they say to do, both to your cover letter, and your manuscript, do it. Even if it sounds ridiculous. They have their reasons. I’ve been asked to submit single-spaced manuscripts with no paragraph indents. I thought they were crazy, until I started doing eBook formatting and realized that’s the perfect starting-state for an eBook manuscript.

So, that’s the good. What’s the bad, other than the few “don’ts’ I peppered in above? Let’s see…

Don’t overshare. Unless the guidelines specifically request that you include your bio upfront with your submission, don’t share a lot of personal information in your cover letter unless it’s relevant. If you’re a mother of three, certainly feel free to share that you’re a mother of three. But don’t then go into how you finally got little Bobby potty trained last month unless your story is about potty training. Likewise, be careful with personal information, and with statements of opinion. I had one recently that told me about the author’s job, which was relevant to the story, then went on to share a couple of completely unrelated tidbits, one of which came across as quite racist. I don’t actually think it was meant that way, but it’s how it sounded, and I’ll admit it colored things for me when deciding whether or not to accept the story.

Don’t tell me I probably won’t like your story. Again, you think I’m kidding? I’ve seen “Most people probably won’t like this story, but…” I think most, if not all, authors have that story. The one that we know will probably never get published, either because it’s just not that great, or because it’s just such an off-the-wall topic that it doesn’t really fit anywhere. (My writer friends and I affectionately refer to my unpublishable story as my “goat fucker” story. Yeah. Exactly.) Tell your writer friends all about it. Blog about it. Tweet about it. Whatever you want. But don’t tell the editor you’re submitting it to that they’re not going to like it! As writers, we’re absolutely at the mercy of editorial taste and preference, but those editors in turn are at the mercy of our readers’ taste and preference. I might absolutely love your “few people will like this” story, but if I know none of my readers will, then I’m going to tell you how much I enjoyed it… and reject it.

Don’t leave out information the editor needs. This, again, goes back to reading the guidelines. Here’s a very specific example, again from my experience editing TGH:. We have both a Print Edition and a Web Edition. The print is quarterly, while the web is monthly. The web is not just a copy of the print edition put online; each have different stories. When we’re open to submissions to both editions, we ask authors to specify in their cover letter whether they have a preference. It clearly states that if they don’t tell us, their story will be considered for either edition. We still occasionally have authors we accept for the web edition refuse once they find out we’re not accepting them for print, even though they didn’t specify print only in their cover letter. It’s a right pain in the ass to spend time reading and considering a story, working out which issue it will work best in, and adding it to the projected word count total for that issue only to have the author pull it because they don’t feel that online publication “counts.” Oh yeah, we’ve been told more than once that “online isn’t a real publication credit.” That, however, is another rant for another day. The point here is, we ask you to specify  in your cover letter. Other publishers have their own specific, special things they need to know upfront. Don’t ignore these requests. I’ll go into a lot more detail about that another day, when I’m talking about following guidelines.

So, I think that’s /rantoff for now. I’m not sure right now how often I’ll be doing these “Frustrated Editor” posts, but I have a good, long list of topic ideas for them, so I doubt it’ll be that long ’til the next one

Thanks for reading!!

~Inanna

The anthology is available now at Amazon. Static Movement’s anthos are usually also available in the bookstore at Pill Hill Press, but I haven’t gotten an email notice on this one yet, so I can’t guarantee you’ll find it there. Probably, though

In other news, I’ll be doing a panel at Genericon in Troy, NY March 2-4. We plan to keep it pretty general, just talking about the ins and outs and whys and wherefores of writing speculative fiction. I’ll be joining Seth Drake, who’s moderating, and possibly a couple of others. If you’re in the area, why not swing by and see us?

That’s it for today. More soon, I’m sure!

~Inanna

For the final episode of the month, however, they decided to do something different. Cory, being an excellent fiction writer himself, decided to include stories by authors he actually knows personally (or as personally as online, at least), and I made the list!  Cory sent the authors the file early, so I’ve already listened, and can assure you I’m in excellent company!

Now, I do want to apologize to all of you, because he wanted the authors to read our own stories, so instead of Cory’s deep, resonating voice, you get me and my little Skype microphone.  Also, I’m the only one included who’s not a podcaster–yikes! Hopefully, I held my own OK I do want to thank Chris Orapello profusely for his assistance while I was fighting with recording programs!

The other authors included are Saturn Darkhope (from the podcast Pennies in the Well), Oraia Helene (formerly Oraia Sphinx, of the Media Astra ac Terra podcast), Ben Reeder (read by Peter Paddon of The Crooked Path podcast), Scarlet Page (of the Lakefront Pagan Voice podcast) and Cory Hutcheson himself, of (of New World Witchery, of course!) They’re all great authors–three of them are actually in Misanthrope Press’s soon-t0-be-released Pagan fiction anthology Etched Offerings, in fact, and one (so far) has also appearedin Title Goes Here:. I’ve published these people myself, so you know I’m not full of shit here!

And one last thing I want to go into before I shoo you off to go listen. As his theme for this episode, Cory directs us to the infant tradition of All Hallows Read. I hadn’t heard of this before, and it’s just simply brilliant! Begun last year by Neil Gaiman, All Hallows Read is the tradition of giving the gift of a scary book for Halloween. Cory goes into it a bit more in the episode, and there’s a lot more detail still on the official website www.allhallowsread.com, so go check it out. There’s even a “book drop sticker” you can download, so you can simply label a book (or a stack of ‘em!) and leave them around for lucky people to find and claim as their own! (and maybe drop again next All Hallows, if we’re all even luckier?)

OK, that’s it for me… go listen to the podcast!

Inanna

The Paranoia Conspiracy at Thrillers, Killers ‘n’ Chillers

Bernie and Gerard Take a Hike at The Fringe Magazine

J.M. also has stories in two our our writers’ group’s annual anthologies, so if you like her stuff, there is more to be had! The Creative Minds Collective vol. II includes “Beauty Becomes the Beast,” and the third volume, titled “Welcome to Havisham Corners” includes her story “Until Death Do Us Part.” She also edited the Havisham anthology, as well as came up with the whole premise of Havisham Corners itself.

And yes, those links to the CMC anthologies go shamelessly back to the Misanthrope Press bookstore. Sorry about that. They’re available in print only right now, but the eBooks should be available in the near future, if that’s more your style.

You can follow J.M. on Twitter, too, at @jmrv09 . And you should. She’s quite witty.

~Inanna