Tag: short stories

Writing–Happy Endings

~ Kiki Writes ~ Leave a comment

I don’t write happy endings.

Okay, I do, but I don’t.

It’s something I’ve noticed as I accumulate short stories and novel first drafts and it’s not just because I write a lot of horror. That’s not to say that I don’t write satisfactory endings in the sense that the plot is tied up and the questions are all answered because I do that. Sometimes I even do it in an a happy way. You have to offer up a satisfying conclusion if you want to write a story worth reading.

The happy endings I’m talking about are the stories that end with the girl getting the guy or the guy getting the girl. I’ve written a few stories and some novels in which that is a possibility. The set-up is there. But I don’t do anything with it. I might play a little with flirting or a smidge of sexual tension, but in the end, the characters ride off into the sunset…alone.

It seems to be an expectation for most stories involving a man and a woman that they’ll end up together. It’s an expectation I don’t live up to and I don’t live up to it on purpose.

I don’t think it’s always necessary. Just because two characters share the same story doesn’t mean they have to hook up by the end of it. Maybe they’d really like to. Maybe they do hook up at some point after the story ends. But for the time period that’s written about concerning these characters, it doesn’t happen. It happens if it’s necessary for the story and so many stories I write don’t find it necessary. And that’s okay! It’s better to serve the story rather than shoehorn something in to satisfy a reader expectation that clashes with everything else about the story.

I think that frustrates people. The last paragraph coupling happens so often that they’re disappointed when it doesn’t happen and they somehow interpret that as an unhappy ending, no matter how upbeat the story ending was. And though I have quite a few upbeat endings (I may be over estimating a little), I still manage to disappoint people.

This doesn’t bother me as much as it should. I’m satisfying people whether they want to admit it or not. Not every ending has to be happy.

Those last two sentences are filled with a lot more innuendo than I intended, but when talking about satisfying happy endings, you run into that risk.

Writing–50 Rejections

~ Kiki Writes ~ Leave a comment

Sometime last month it occurred to me that I should try to get 50 rejections this year.

Now let me explain.

There’s someone I follow on Twitter that counts her rejections. She tries for a lot more in the course of a year (like 150). In the course of those rejections, she does manage to get some acceptances. And after watching her do this for a year, I thought to myself, what a great idea.

So naturally, I stole it.

I need something get me going and keep me going when it comes to writing/revising/submitting short stories. It’s like I go through bursts of productivity with them, but never fully commit to the constant progress. Aiming for 50 rejections will help me do that.

In order for me to obtain my goal, I need to be more proactive. I can just rely on sudden bursts of time. I can’t let stories languish on the shelf. I can’t just stick to the horror genre to submit to, especially since it’s not the only genre I write in. I’m going to have to broaden my horizons and be more dedicated to my work.

I’ve already got my first rejection for the year (also my first acceptance) and I’ve still got four stories out. I’m on my way. Now I just have to keep moving.

This doesn’t mean I’m solely after rejections. I’m not going to be sending out any stories that aren’t ready to go just to meet my goal. The idea is that I accumulate my rejections through the legitimate act of trying to sell my stories and get published.

I admit, it’s kind of daunting sitting where I am right now. I’ve kind of got a plan in place. I’ve got stories I’m working on. I think that once I get a few more stories out and I rack up a few more rejections, I feel better about this challenge.

For now I’m just going to keep my head down, keep working, and try not to think about it.

Let’s get those rejections flowing.

Writing–February Projects

~ Kiki Writes ~ Leave a comment

February is being dedicated to the short story now that I’m finished with the initial (and crappy) rewrites of Spirited in Spite. I’ve got this goal of getting 50 rejections this year (more on that next week) and it’s really spurned my creativity in regards to my short stories.

So here’s my short story To Do List this month:

-Revise/Polish “At 3:36” (I’ve already done initial edits in changing it from 3rd to 1st person)

-Revise/Polish “An Active Sleeper” (I think I’ve figured out how to fix this story)

-Revise/Polish “Everybody’s Time” (I wrote it at the end of last month)

-Review “Powerless” and revise/polish if necessary (It’s my first rejection of the year)

-Write “Notorious” (about the survivor of a serial killer)

-Write “Hear It?” (about a person suffering from auditory hallucinations; title may change)

-Submit any stories that are ready.

I’ve got a couple of other stories (“Anniversaries” and an untitled one) that I could revise if I get the time, but I’ve left them off the list for now simply because I’m not sure what to do to them yet. The stories need tweaking to make them work, but I’m not sure what the tweaks should be. I’m sure it’ll come to me.

Ideally, at the end of the month I’ll have at least four stories that can (and hopefully will be) submitted.

Gotta keep producing and submitting if I want those 50 rejections.

Writing–Canceling “Playing Chicken”

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Last month I learned that due to lack of funds that the anthology that “Playing Chicken” was going to be published in was canceled. This bums me out for a few reasons. One, I won’t be getting paid. Two, I won’t be getting my story published. Three, one of my favorite small publishers (that’s published me in the past) is struggling.

It’s the third point that really troubles me. See, when I ask you to buy an anthology I’ve been published in, I’m not just asking for me. Yes, I want you to read the story I wrote, but I also want you to read the stories everyone else in the anthology wrote. I get paid a one time payment of a certain amount per word when the anthology is published. I don’t make royalties off of it. The money made from you buying an anthology pays the bills, allows the small publisher to keep publishing, and provides me with the future possibility of having another story published with them.

So, while I don’t reap the immediate monetary rewards from all of the copies the anthology sells, you are providing me with the opportunity to get paid by these people again. That’s important to a writer, especially in a time when the short story market is competitive, tough, and not paying a whole lot. Buying the anthologies and keeping the small publishers afloat help out not just the publishers, but the writers, too.

So, with that all said, the “Playing Chicken” ball is back in my court and I am charged with finding a new home for it. On one hand, that’s a pain in the ass. This story was sold, dammit! I should be done with it. On the other hand, it gives me another story to shop around which kind of gives me a boost for my goal to make more of an effort in my submitting. It’s easier to submit a story when you actually have a story to submit, which will be the key to reaching my submitting goals.

They say that when one door closes, another one opens. Let’s hope the next “Playing Chicken” door opens quickly.

Writing–January Projects

~ Kiki Writes ~ Leave a comment

January is going to be one busy, crazy month.

I’m rewriting/revising Spirited in Spite for a contest. The deadline is February 5th, but I’m going to try to have the novel done by January 30th. Yeah, considering most of the book has to be rewritten, there is no way this can end well. If I can get it in somewhat readable shape, I’ll be happy.

The contest is in three stages: pitch, excerpt, novel. I will declare this contest a success if I can get past the pitch stage.

Really, since there’s no entry fee, there’s nothing I’ve got to lose by doing this. The hard deadline, the goal, will help keep me focused. I’ve rewritten/revised one other novel, but I didn’t complete it in the sense that I would feel comfortable with sending it. I can’t imagine I can get this book perfect in about 30 days (okay, to be fair it’s more like 45 days since I actually started working on it in December), but what I will end up with when I submit my entry is going to be better and closer to finished than what I’ve got right now. There’s no reason for me to pass up the opportunity to really work on my novel revising skills in a specific time frame and with a definite goal.

There will be stress and frustration. Let’s just hope that it’s not so severe I end up pulling out my hair.

I’ve also got a few short stories that need to be finished from December. “Another Deadly Weapon” is done and ready to go. “How the Night Haunts” will be up on the blog shortly. The rewrites on “At 3:36” ended up separating the piece into two different stories, “At 3:36” and “Powerless”. “At 3:36” needs more work, but “Powerless” just needs some polishing up, I think. “Anniversaries” and the untitled short story need more work, too.

Aside from “Powerless”, every other story is going to wait in favor of the novel revisions. With “Powerless” done, I’ll have four stories (along with “Soul Sister”, “Playing Chicken” (the anthology it was going to be in was canceled), and “Another Deadly Weapon”) to shop around, which I plan to do in earnest. My goal is to submit a lot more short stories this year.

Let’s see how this all works out with my birthday and me being in Chicago for four days. Let’s just see.

Writing–Rejected Motives

~ Kiki Writes ~ Leave a comment

It’s time to come clean about Rejected.

While it was true that I self-published those nine stories to gain some experience in self-publishing and marketing myself and that I did want to put those stories to readers on why they thought the stories might have been rejected, I had another motive for publishing those stories.

I spent several years writing, revising, and submitting those stories, wash, rinse, repeat. While working full-time, my commitment to those stories was usurped in favor of a paycheck and the time and energy it took to maintaining it. When I finally decided to make a break for it and try to put together my own income through odd jobs, I came back to those stories and frankly, I didn’t like what I saw.

It’s not that I didn’t like the stories or thought that after several months of ignoring them that they suddenly became horrible. It’s just I was looking to make a new start. I wanted to start this go-round fresh. These stories were not fresh.

So I looked at them, arranged them, packaged them, and published them as much to put them out for people to read and judge them as I did to clear my own writing slate. Fresh start.

Not all of the stories written on that board during that time were wiped from that slate and put into that book. One of them, “Another Deadly Weapon”, was still out, waiting to be judged (it ended up being rejected). “Soul Sister” was finished, but isn’t a horror story, so it didn’t really fit in with the other stories, all of which are horror. “At 3:36” and “An Active Sleeper” were junk and not fit for publishing. So all of those stories ended up carrying over into this new go-round.

The mental effect of publishing those stories has been a great one. Those pressing weight of those stories, needy for homes of their own, aren’t crushing me anymore. They’ve got their home. Now I’ve got room, so to speak, to create new stories to try to house. That mounting pile of rejection has been swept out of my mental house. Now I can get to building a new pile.

I can always publish a sequel.

Writing–Surprise! Idea!

~ Kiki Writes ~ Leave a comment

Sometimes I’m going along, minding my own business, and BAM! I’m hit by a great idea for a story. Naturally, I’m excited by this prospect as ideas to a writer are like gold to anybody. The trouble is I sometimes get great ideas at the most inopportune moments.

I’ve already blogged about how I keep an idea notebook for these ideas. I also have a Post-It note program on my computer that comes in handy for these things (particularly if I come up with an idea for a story I’ve been trying to revise for months and I don’t want to lose it before I get a chance to try it). Both of these things are great. Sometimes I kick myself for not using my idea notebook more. But that’s because, like I said, I get my ideas during the most inopportune times.

The idea for “How the Night Haunts” came to me right before NaNoWriMo, while I was still struggling with the American Vampires outline. “Anniversaries” came to me during Nano. Both great ideas, both with rotten timing. I jotted the basic premise for both stories down on my computer post-its and hoped they’d be there in December.

I don’t mean that I was worried I might accidentally erase the notes. I mean that sometimes, at least for me, a good idea must be acted on NOW for it to be a good story. Giving it any time at all to cool down and it ends up being as appetizing as the skin on gravy. It doesn’t mean that the idea still isn’t a good one, but it does mean that it’s going to be more of a struggle for me to translate that good idea into a good story. Without those piping hot images and that burning need, my appetite for it isn’t as strong.

Some ideas, though, are made to last. The longer they sit, the more they simmer in the back of my mind, so that when I do get to them, I’ve got an even better idea of what I’m doing with the story, even if I wasn’t actively thinking about it. Those stick-to-your-ribs kinds of ideas are the ones that while acted on in a flash might be good, letting them roast a while makes them better.

My trouble is that I don’t always know which one is which. I lucked out this time with “How the Night Haunts” and I think I cut it close on “Anniversaries”. If I had waited any longer on that one, I think it would have burned. Some stories, I’m not so lucky on. The idea either doesn’t pan out on paper or I never get around to writing it in the first place because I can’t rediscover that magic that brought the idea to me in the first place.

But, I never throw an idea away.

You never know. The right time for that recipe might come around again. And I want to be ready if it does.

Writing–December Projects

~ Kiki Writes ~ 1 Comment

After spending a month (okay, it was more like three weeks) with a novel, December is short story month.

I have three new ones I’m looking to write. “How the Night Haunts” will be a freebie for a the blog. “Anniversaries” and an as yet untitled one have no definite intention yet, but I imagine I’ll be trying to submit them whenever I deem them ready.

I also have three old ones that are in need of revisions. I need to rewrite “At 3:36” with the new angle and fix the ending of “Another Deadly Weapon” because I’ve never liked it. And then there’s “An Active Sleeper”, which needs something, but I’m don’t know what yet. All I know is I don’t think I’m achieving the affect I want. I’m guessing that one is going to be the big struggle of the month.

All of that, plus working on getting Rejected on Kindle should keep me plenty busy this month.

Writing–Getting Published Is Habit Forming

~ Kiki Writes ~ Leave a comment

The first week of November, I received a contributer’s copy of an anthology I’ve got a story in (“Land of the Voting Dead” in Zombidays: Festivities of the Flesheaters). I’ve been anxiously awaiting this anthology because it was the first sale I’d made after quite a long spell of “no’s”.

Seeing one of my story in print has a funny effect on me. It makes me anxious to see another one in the same state. Getting paid for it is always nice and something I love, but seeing my story in an anthology is proof…PROOF!…that I’m really a writer and all of the doubters can suck it. Someone bought my story and put it in a book. Take that!

And then it makes me want to see another one of my stories in print.

While working the day job, the short stories fell to the wayside. The urgency behind selling my stories abated in the face of a regular paycheck. Worn down from an 8 hour workday and set in a bullheaded frame of mind that novel revisions had to be done first, I had no brain left for writing and submitting short stories. Piss poor excuses, but it was true.

But holding that anthology in my hands and seeing my name in the table of contents aroused that urge in me again. Working odd jobs to pay the bills instead of a steady one, the urgency is back. The need to have proof of being a writer is strong once again.

I’ve got two more stories that will be coming out in anthologies and while I anticipate a similar rush of euphoria when I get those contributer’s copies, right now it’s not enough. I need more stories out there to be considered. I need more stories to be sold. I need more stories to sell. I need to keep this train rolling.

Because I know when the next contributer’s copy shows up in my mail, that euphoria is only going to last so long before I realize that I’m going to need another fix.

And like any proper junkie, I need to do whatever it takes to feed my habit.

The Fiction Writing Life

~ Kiki Writes ~ Leave a comment

I’m sure I made a post about this before for Writing Wednesday, but I think it bears repeating for a Monday Megalomania because I feel that people not acquainted with writing for a living, or at least writing for publication, don’t understand how it works.

Most people that have a job leave their house, go to a place of work, make so much money an hour, come home and get a paycheck, either weekly or bi-weekly. Obviously, some people don’t have to leave their house. Some people are on salary. But whatever the variations, the basics remain the same. These are considered legitimate jobs.

I, on the other hand, am trying to cobble together some kind of day job out of selling Rejected, selling my jewelry, working jobs with DaLette, and anything else I can do in order to make money to pay the bills and have time to write for publication, in which I would also get money to pay the bills. None of these things are considered legitimate.

Why? Because it’s not a “traditional” job. I don’t get a regular paycheck. I don’t leave the house to do it. And a lot of people underestimate the amount of work that goes into the stories I write, thinking that I’m lazy and I’m not working hard enough to earn what money I do make from writing (or any of the other gigs I work to make money, but we’re going to stick to writing for now).

Allow me to illustrate the work that goes into a short story.

I get an idea. I decide to write this idea. So I write a first draft. Then I set it aside. Depending on the impending deadlines and how I feel about the story, I might set it aside for a couple of days or I might set it aside for a couple of months. It just depends.

Then I revise the story. And then I revise it again. And if I’m lucky, I can stop there and polish it up and call it done. But it’s not uncommon for a story to go through four or five revisions before I’m satisfied with it.

So, the story is as ready as it’s going to be at this point in time. I’ve got my prose all tight, the descriptions all lush, and the grammar so polished it shines. Now I have to submit it. If I don’t have a something in mind when I write it in the first place, the story might possibly sit there for a while before I can find a suitable publication for it. If I can find a suitable publication for it. That’s a risk I run, too. It’s entirely possibly that I write something that can’t be published (or at least, published for money; I aim to get paid for my work for the most part).

But, let’s say I have something in mind and so I send my story off. And then I wait. And wait. And wait. Depending on the deadlines, the reading periods, and many other factors, I can wait for months to hear back about a story. Most of the time, the waiting ends in rejection. And then I start all over.

But, let’s say my story gets accepted. Hooray! I’m getting paid! Except I’m not getting paid until the story gets published. And I’m getting paid the semi-pro rate (I won’t go lower) of 1 cent a word. Considering most short stories typically run anywhere from 1,000 to 5,000 words, sometimes as many as 8,000, I’m not exactly raking in the big bucks. Or the immediate bucks. Depending on what the contract says, I can be waiting for a considerable period of time.

For example, my last story to get published, “Land of the Voting Dead” in Zombidays: Festivities of the Flesheaters, was accepted in April of 2010. I received my check, 53 bucks, November 5th of this year. I wrote and revised the story in December of 2009. I then added a scene to it in February of 2010 in order to meet the required word count. I revised it again. I polished it again. And then I submitted it. I easily had a week’s worth of work in that story.

And that was one of the easier ones!

At this point, if I ever get “At 3:36” published, I know the paycheck won’t match the work I’ve put into it. It wouldn’t be a far cry to say that I’ve probably have a month invested in that story spread out over a couple of years and I’m not finished with it yet. That’s a lot of work for one story.

But I only get paid on delivery and only for the final number of words on the page. I don’t get paid for all of the words I put down and then took out. Or put back in. Or changed. I don’t get paid for the rewrites or the research. Just the finished product.

Now, I’m only speaking for short story writing. That’s the only writing I’ve got experience making money from. And it really bugs me when people imply that because I’m not making a whole lot of money doing it, because I’m not getting a regular paycheck, that I’m not working.

I beg to differ.

I work seven days a week for very little.

Why?

Because it’s my job. And I love it. And one day it will pay better.

But it will never be a typical job.

People need to learn to respect that.