Wednesday, May 5, 2010

April Stuff

Lousy month for new writing, but an excellent month for dinking around with not-quite-there stories and getting them out the door. I always have a pile of WIPs on my hard drive; sometimes I go weeks or months without finishing anything, and sometimes I get a bunch polished up all at once. It's sort of like biorhythms that way. :) Last month I got four submissions out, which is more than I've done in one month in an amazingly long time, so that's cool.

I also got my marketing/admin doc for A Hidden Magic done and submitted, including several versions of a synopsis, at various lengths for various purposes. I'm counting that as a "synopsis" point, but I'm not counting the various bouts of sandpapering I did on the stories as "editing" because I don't know how to handle the wordcount on that. Does editing a 5500 word story equal 5500 words of editing, or does deleting 100 words equal 100 words of editing, or does dinking with a 258-word paragraph to turn it eventually into a 261-word paragraph equal three words of editing, or what...? No clue what McKoala's final verdict will be (and the Koala is absent until next week so I won't find out for a while) but I'm ignoring the whole editing thing and tentatively awarding myself five points.

Koala Challenge 5

I've also submitted to a couple of markets recently (Clarkesworld and Strange Horizons) where they have a form on their web site you fill out with your name, story title, cover letter info, etc., and then you upload the story right to their site, rather than e-mailing it. It feels a bit odd, but it works, so what the heck. I remember scoffing at this sort of thing a while back regarding a novel publisher's site -- brand new baby publisher, wanted you to copy/paste your whole novel into a box on their web site, and then click a button saying that by submitting you were assigning all rights to everything forever to the publisher [eyeroll] which made them sound rather... let's say "inexperienced" to be kind. I'd never heard of the "upload here" thing before with a legitimate market (and still hadn't at that point IMO) so it seemed part and parcel with the ignorance (at best) of the ridiculous rights statement. I can see this working well for shorter pieces, though (and even longer ones, to be honest, although it still feels a bit weird) and neither Clarkesworld nor Strange Horizons is going for a rights-grab, so that's fine.

On a more personal level, I tried backing off on the ibuprofen, cutting it down from 800mg twice a day to 400 twice a day. (I was originally prescribed 800 three times a day, but after a few weeks I eliminated the middle dose without much trouble.) The stuff works fairly well, but it dissolves your liver in tiny bits, and I've been taking it at this level for a couple of years now. :/ I was hoping I could get along with less, maybe taking a couple extra pills when I went to the gym or something. Unfortunately 400x2 leaves me too immobile to even consider going to the gym. I tried it for a couple of weeks to see whether it was something I could get used to, but it's not. So I'm back up to the 800x2, and the screaming in my joints is starting to quiet down a little at a time. I do need to find a doctor up here, though, and get a prescription for something else. There's got to be something I can take for the pain and stiffness that won't do a number on my liver, or anything else similar; it won't do me much good to maintain my already limited mobility if it means I need a liver transplant in five or ten years. :P

Next submission will hopefully be something for Sword and Sorceress. [crossed fingers] And if anyone else is considering that market, I found that the link I posted in the last antho call is now broken; the new page is here: Sword and Sorceress 25 guidelines.

Angie

5 comments:

Charles Gramlich said...

I hope you can get to feeling better soon with the physical stuff. I hate to take pills but sometimes you have to. I submitted to Sword and Sorceress many years ago and didn't get in. the story was too long was the primary reason for the rejection that they gave.

Angie said...

Charles -- Thanks. :) I've gotten used to taking pills; that doesn't bother me anymore. I just want pills that work without causing worse problems. :P

I've subbed to S&S before too, although not for quite a few years. They definitely prefer shorter. [nod]

Angie

writtenwyrdd said...

the way I work edit counts is that I line out the words I change so I can figure the actual added words without worrying about how many were deleted.

I suppose you could use the logic that every deleted word should be added to the editing total, too, seeing as you dealt with those words, even if it was removal... But that's splitting the hair one too many times for me.

Bernita said...

Another thing about ibuprofen is that it is supposedly elevates blood pressure. Hope you find a new docotor soon, Angie. Surely, there are alternative drugs on the market.

"Sword and Sorceress" is a delightful title for a pub!

Angie said...

WW -- someone said elsewhere that the total length of the work counts, so long as you went over the whole work looking for needed changes. I'll keep that in mind for next time.

Bernita -- I think there must be. [nod] Just a matter of bestirring myself. I'm afraid I'm not good at that. :P

Angie