I read a lot about trusting your audience and not spelling everything out for them, and I’ve often thought that’s an area I have some difficulty in — I always want to make_absolutely_certain that everything is crystal clear…which, I think, comes from a couple years of writing for the adult entertainment industry LOL  Alas, it is often to the detriment of the story I think.

Recently I wrote a story and resisted the urge to draw everything out for my reader, trusting them to be able to put one and one together and get two.  I took a deep breath and submitted it to a publisher — who rejected it.  However, I got some very enlightening feedback regarding it — it seems I may have left too much unsaid this time.

I think it’s going to take some practice to get the balance right on this one LOL

I just heard back from a publisher who asked me to make a few changes to a story and then re-submit it.  How nerdy is it that that makes me very happy?  How about that I said ‘that that’? 😉

I sent an email to Writer’s Market support on March 7th about not being able to add markets any more and on the 9th I got a reply, a very personalized, polite reply. I will share part of that here:

We’re currently fixing a huge customer database/customer service application tied to WritersMarket.com, which will significantly increase the customer service aspect of the site. When that is finished and tested (currently projected at 4/15-4/20), Add-a-Market is the very first thing on our list. It’s a much smaller job compared to the customer service application; so it should be done fairly soon after that mid-April customer service deadline. I know that still feels like a very long time (at least it does to me), but we are working to get it on there asap. In fact, we’re planning on adding it to the favorites folder part of the site, so that you only have to “add-a-market” one time, even if it’s one you submit to multiple times, and that will also allow you the ability to keep all your favorite markets together, whether they’re listed on our site or not.

That seems more than reasonable, so my current plan is to renew my Writer’s Market account and use it — but also report my stats to Duotrope and make donations there, because I really enjoy being able to see each market’s average response time and acceptance ratios.

I’m going mad trying to find all inclusive submissions tracker.  I used to love the one over at Writer’s Market, but then when they re-did their site they took away the ability to add markets that weren’t in their listings.  Then I started using Duotrope’s system, which totally rocks, but alas, doesn’t list all the markets I use and doesn’t seem to add new ones very quickly once I ‘suggest’ them.

My desk is getting covered with little bits of post-it notes as I try to record all the submissions that neither system will accommodate, and  all the rest of them are split between two systems — making it necessary for me to continuously cross-check everything before I can send something out.  It’s very tedious.

I think what I need to do is just create something of my own, but unfortunately I’m a bit of a technical moron.  I wouldn’t even know where to start.  I’m going to hit up my husband and see if he can whip something up for me, but he’s really busy teaching right now, so if anyone knows of a third system that might work better than the two I’m using, I’d love to hear about it before I lose my mind.

I’ve been incredibly busy of late.  With Christmas coming up, volunteering at my daughter’s school and working for clients I haven’t had much spare time left over for writing or submitting.  Maybe I was just burned out from NaNoWriMo though because last week I started writing again, short pieces mostly, but on Saturday I started working on a novel.  I even submitted a couple things to publishers today, so hopefully I’ll get back into some good work habits 🙂

Writer’s Market appears to be back to 100% again — yay!  I wish I had more acceptances to update it with and less rejections, but it’s all a part of the process right?

Speaking of the process — I’m looking for someway to email myself to remind myself about upcoming contests and reading periods for some of the markets I’m likely to submit to most.  I’ve heard rumors that Outlook can be taught to do this, but I haven’t figured out how.  If anyone wants to instruct me, or knows of a website/program that will email me at pre-scheduled times, I’d love to hear about it.

Writer’s Market released their new look today, and I admit — it looks wonderful…however, I can’t figure out how it works anymore LOL  I wanted to go and update the status of some of my manuscripts (one acceptance and one rejection) but I can’t figure out how to change that — and I’m really missing the ‘Quick List’ button.  With it I could see at a glance if I had any manuscripts that weren’t currently being considered by a publisher — without it I feel lost.

I’ve sent out an email to them begging for help, and hopefully they’ll reply.  Their submission tracker was my most favorite writing tool ever and I’ll be very sad if I can’t figure out how to use this new version.  I’ve got my fingers crossed that they are still working on the site and will add a quick list button and such — or that I’ve just been a goofball and missed the obvious.

If anyone out there knows how to update manuscripts with the new Writer’s Digest or has found a quick list button hiding somewhere PLEASE let me know.

In other, more cheerful news, I’m at over 30k in my novel.  Alas, the quality has taken a rather large turn for the worse, but it’s okay — quantity over quality right?  And if worse comes to worse I can always cannibalize what I’ve got so far 😉

Alright, time to go on another hunt for that quick list button!  Wish me luck!

‘They’ say if you’re going to be serious about writing for a living you need to have an ‘Author’ website.  Of course, ‘they’ say alot of things, but I suspect that in this case ‘they’ may be right.  So I’ve created this website…now I just need to think of things to put on it 🙂