Dear Distracted Author: Stop being so distracted!
In case you're wondering, I'm still here. Just been very busy. This time, however, it is not so much being distracted by all the networking via the Web, but mostly because of the Revisions book. On that note, I have news.
After sharing with my publisher just how ginormous the manuscript was becoming, she said we'll probably have to turn this one book into a series of three books. Up until then, she had this idea, but it didn't really take center stage just yet. We played it by ear. Then the decision was made to, yes, go ahead and serialize it. So now this one Revisions book will be a series of 3 books. The first one will cover editing, revising novels, and revising nonfiction books. The second one, which I have been working on this week, will focus on revising articles, poetry, song lyrics, and scripts. Now it turns out that it will cover something else, as well.
Earlier this year, my publisher suggested that a section on revising short fiction should be in the manuscript. I, in my naivete (or was it distractedness??), thought that short fiction writers could benefit from the section on revising novels, so I thought it wasn't needed. However, after putting together a rough draft of the second book, and analyzing what it covered, I went back to her saying, "You know, Liz, I think we should include short fiction." She probably saw that note and thought, THAT'S WHAT I SAID! LOL (Sorry, Liz.) So I put together a list of chapters to include for a section on revising short fiction, focusing specifically on the mechanics of short fiction and the elements which separate short fiction from book-length fiction. I have articles written up on short fiction and I'll be going through the unpublished ones to see which ones can be revised so that they can be chapters for this book.
That said, the hunt resumes for interviewees. This time, I will need to find writers of short fiction to interview and obtain quotes for this book. I will go through my database of writers to see who writes short fiction, but I welcome inquiries from writers not included in the original manuscript. That door will remain open -- even for scriptwriters, freelance writers and songwriters.
We are also going to get in touch with literary agents for a special "agent section," which will go into all 3 books.
And I'm adding new chapters to the "Getting Out of Revision Hell Alive" section (Book 3).
Unfortunately, however, all of this busyness has kept me pretty distracted from other things -- namely, book reviews I have on the table, checking up on the haunted houses book (though miraculously I remembered to e-mail my co-author about this last night), taking care of business with the newly-accepted children's book (MUST! GET! TO! POST! OFFICE! Or the mailbox before the mail comes), and checking out other opportunities.
Those opportunities include an invitation from one of the musicians included in the book to contact someone she knows about getting a song I wrote set to music (oh, joy!) and getting short stories ready to submit to anthologies. I have one I'm currently working on for stories for children, and I just came across another call for stories for an anthology looking for dark tales.
Now all I need to find is an anthology accepting science-fiction short stories, and I'll be all set!
In other news, I recently had a short story published in a brand new anthology called Inner Fears. My story is called "A Phone Call Away." Check it out!
Inner Fears
Finally, I'm holding a "launch special" for my poetry book, to celebrate its print release. Stay tuned!
After sharing with my publisher just how ginormous the manuscript was becoming, she said we'll probably have to turn this one book into a series of three books. Up until then, she had this idea, but it didn't really take center stage just yet. We played it by ear. Then the decision was made to, yes, go ahead and serialize it. So now this one Revisions book will be a series of 3 books. The first one will cover editing, revising novels, and revising nonfiction books. The second one, which I have been working on this week, will focus on revising articles, poetry, song lyrics, and scripts. Now it turns out that it will cover something else, as well.
Earlier this year, my publisher suggested that a section on revising short fiction should be in the manuscript. I, in my naivete (or was it distractedness??), thought that short fiction writers could benefit from the section on revising novels, so I thought it wasn't needed. However, after putting together a rough draft of the second book, and analyzing what it covered, I went back to her saying, "You know, Liz, I think we should include short fiction." She probably saw that note and thought, THAT'S WHAT I SAID! LOL (Sorry, Liz.) So I put together a list of chapters to include for a section on revising short fiction, focusing specifically on the mechanics of short fiction and the elements which separate short fiction from book-length fiction. I have articles written up on short fiction and I'll be going through the unpublished ones to see which ones can be revised so that they can be chapters for this book.
That said, the hunt resumes for interviewees. This time, I will need to find writers of short fiction to interview and obtain quotes for this book. I will go through my database of writers to see who writes short fiction, but I welcome inquiries from writers not included in the original manuscript. That door will remain open -- even for scriptwriters, freelance writers and songwriters.
We are also going to get in touch with literary agents for a special "agent section," which will go into all 3 books.
And I'm adding new chapters to the "Getting Out of Revision Hell Alive" section (Book 3).
Unfortunately, however, all of this busyness has kept me pretty distracted from other things -- namely, book reviews I have on the table, checking up on the haunted houses book (though miraculously I remembered to e-mail my co-author about this last night), taking care of business with the newly-accepted children's book (MUST! GET! TO! POST! OFFICE! Or the mailbox before the mail comes), and checking out other opportunities.
Those opportunities include an invitation from one of the musicians included in the book to contact someone she knows about getting a song I wrote set to music (oh, joy!) and getting short stories ready to submit to anthologies. I have one I'm currently working on for stories for children, and I just came across another call for stories for an anthology looking for dark tales.
Now all I need to find is an anthology accepting science-fiction short stories, and I'll be all set!
In other news, I recently had a short story published in a brand new anthology called Inner Fears. My story is called "A Phone Call Away." Check it out!
Inner Fears
Finally, I'm holding a "launch special" for my poetry book, to celebrate its print release. Stay tuned!
Labels: agents, anthologies, books, literary agents, publiahing, short fiction, short stories, writing, writing books
posted by Dawn Wilson @ 10:31 AM
2 Comments:
At 1:43 AM ,
Lillie Ammann said...
Dawn,
You do sound busy and distracted, but with lots of exciting good news. Congratulations.
At 7:54 AM ,
Dawn Wilson said...
Thank you, Lillie. :) I actually wrote down all the things I must get caught up on so that I won't be too distracted to remember them. Slowly but surely, I am crossing things off of that list. It helps!
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