Writing

Writ­ing about writing.

So close

Posted on by Patrick
fountain pen on notepad

I received this in the ol’ email inbox this afternoon.

Thank you very much for your sto­ry, and for let­ting us hang on to it for as long as we did. The piece has received more than one read, as our first read­er enjoyed it a great deal. Due to our cur­rent (the­mat­ic) pub­li­ca­tion needs, how­ev­er, we are unable to place this story.

[…]

Although we can’t use your work at this time, we thank you for think­ing of us and encour­age you to sub­mit again in the future.

The fun­ny thing is, they did­n’t tell me which sto­ry they were reject­ing, and I could­n’t remem­ber what I’d sub­mit­ted to their mar­ket. (I also could­n’t find my ini­tial sub­mis­sion in my out­box, but that was less sur­pris­ing; a lot of mar­kets these days are using Sub­mit­table or Mok­sha or some oth­er online sub­mis­sion gateway.)

Thank heav­ens for The Sub­mis­sions Grinder. I did a quick search on the mar­ket name, and found that, yes, I had sub­mit­ted a piece to them, wa-a-a-ay back in June 2020. Their sub­mis­sions page said that they don’t gen­er­al­ly send out rejec­tions, so if you did­n’t hear in about three months, assume you were not one of the lucky ones. I had assumed that, since Sep­tem­ber came and went with no word, that I was not one of the lucky ones.

Turns out I was right, but it seems I came clos­er than I thought.

Oh well. Once more unto the breach and all that. At least they liked the sto­ry; with form rejec­tions it can be very hard to tell.

PS: If you’re a writer and you’re not using The Sub­mis­sions Grinder, I strong­ly rec­om­mend you at least look into it.

Rejection → Rewrite

Posted on by Patrick
A torch burning in the dark

At the start of Decem­ber I heard about an anthol­o­gy look­ing for sto­ries on the theme of “Dere­licts”. The dead­line was tight—stories had to be sub­mit­ted by Dec. 31st—but I real­ized I had a sto­ry and so I slammed it out. I wrote 7,500 words about a colony world with a medieval-Iceland–influenced society—stratification into thrall, carl, jarl, and roy­al class­es, for instance—that had been set­tled by a swarm of faster-than-light colony ships. They were sur­prised when, two cen­turies after the colony was estab­lished, a very old, slow­er-than-light ves­sel showed up. They were even more sur­prised to dis­cov­er this new ship was emp­ty, except, per­haps, for a ghost.

I sent the sto­ry off on about Dec. 29th, and this past week I got the rejec­tion note. The anthol­o­gy received 1,400 sub­mis­sions, and could take only 20 sto­ries. The odds were not in my favour.

But—after a few min­utes of unhappiness—I’m OK with this sit­u­a­tion. The sto­ry was a tight fit at 7,500 words. There’s more to tell, I think, things I was forced to elide to fit the word-count lim­it. And I was nev­er real­ly hap­py with the title, either. I called it “The Smoke” but that felt like a place­hold­er title.

Where there’s smoke there’s fire, as they say, and I’ve decid­ed to dig into that. The new title is “Praise the Torch When ‘Tis Burned”, which ties into the Icelandic/Norse feel­ing I’ve got going on: One of the poems in the Poet­ic Edda is the Hávamál, the “Say­ings of Odin”, which fea­tures a stan­za that I’ve loved since I first read it: 

At evening praise the day, a torch¹ when burned,
A weapon when tried, a maid at wed­lock,
Ice when over it, ale when it is drunk.

It’s a very “don’t count your chick­ens till they hatch” piece of writ­ing. I have adopt­ed “Praise ice when over it” into my list of pre­ferred proverbs, part­ly for its wis­dom and part­ly because, where I live, you’re dri­ving on ice at least four months of the year.

So my plans for the next draft of this story:

  • New title
  • New focus
  • Improved world-build­ing

Wish me luck!

Pho­to by Igor Lep­ilin on Unsplash.

—
¹ Some trans­la­tions have it as “a woman when burned” or “a woman on her pyre”, and I don’t feel I’m the author to explore that.

December writing goals

Posted on by Patrick
Writer's Tears Irish Whiskey

It’s been a while since I did a “writ­ing goals” post, but this month I have a very con­crete goal, so here goes:

  • Fin­ish 1st and 2nd drafts of a short sto­ry for Dere­licts;
  • Route said sto­ry around for beta readers;
  • Pol­ish said sto­ry; and
  • Sub­mit said story.

(I keep call­ing it “said sto­ry” because I don’t have a title yet.)

And now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got some writin’ to do.

Alan v. Disney

Posted on by Patrick
fountain pen on notepad

Well, this is gross.

From SFWA: #Dis­ney­Must­Pay Alan Dean Fos­ter:

Disney’s argu­ment is that they have pur­chased the rights but not the oblig­a­tions of the con­tract. In oth­er words, they believe they have the right to pub­lish work, but are not oblig­at­ed to pay the writer no mat­ter what the con­tract says.

I’m not a lawyer, but, uh, that does­n’t sound right to me. (Nei­ther does Dis­ney’s wish to have Mr. Fos­ter sign a non-dis­clo­sure agree­ment before nego­ti­a­tions even start.)

In this David vs. Goliath fight, I’m on David’s side.

I’m in a podcast

Posted on by Patrick
fountain pen on notepad

Years ago I wrote a fun­ny lit­tle flash sto­ry, called “Stop Me If You’ve Heard This One”, and shopped it around a bit to the few comedy/fantasy mar­kets I could find. Nobody bit, so I shrugged and post­ed it here on my site.

Ear­li­er this year, I got a mes­sage out of the blue from one of the peo­ple behind a SF/F/H pod­cast called Plan­et Racon­teur. He’d stum­bled across my sto­ry and was inter­est­ed in adding it to their pod­cast. I said “Sure”.

And now it’s been post­ed, as the lead sto­ry in Episode 11. Enjoy!

Writing Retreat 2020: The Numbers

Posted on by Patrick
Cloudy prairie sky

My goals for this past week’s writ­ing retreat were:

  • Fin­ish the last scene in “The Slow Apoc­a­lypse”, first draft
  • 1,500−2,000 words a day in either Trans­la­tions or “Dried Flowers”
  • Pho­tos of the Milky Way (pos­si­bly a video) and Comet NEOWISE
  • Pho­tos of the countryside
  • Dai­ly bike ride
  • Some kayak­ing

Let’s see how I did.

  • I fin­ished “The Slow Apoc­a­lypse” on my first evening
  • I wrote 13,000 words between Trans­la­tions, aka Daniel, Daniel, Daniel, and “Dried Flowers”
  • I got all kinds of pho­tos of the Milky Way and the comet—even on the nights where clouds were fore­cast, there was usu­al­ly at least some time where the stars were visible
  • I also took all kinds of pho­tos in the daytime
  • I rode my bike every day, for a total of over 60 km (which sur­prised me)
  • And I went out in the kayak three times, cov­er­ing about 10 km in the lake

So, on bal­ance, that was a good week.

Con­tin­ue read­ing “Writ­ing Retreat 2020: The Num­bers” →

Series: Bike Ride Photos

The entire series: Down by the riv­er; Bike ride birds; The ex-gar­den and the weir; Snap­shots of a ride; Across Town; Black­bird; North Hill cam­pus; Lilacs and coun­try roads; A pop of colour; Back lane flow­ers; More Breniz­ers; The riv­er is high; A bird and a reflec­tion; Rideau Park; Writ­ing Retreat 2020, Day 7; Writ­ing Retreat 2020: The Num­bers; Storm dam­age, sun­flow­ers; Eleanor Kidd gar­dens; Scenes from today’s ride; All right, autumn can be pret­ty; Bike ride, April 10, 2021; Bike ride wildlife; Bike ride, May 16, 2021; Some flow­ers for you; Lilacs; Under the bridge; A fence, a tree, and the sky; Tur­tle Cross­ing; Ceme­tery crit­ters; On Reflec­tion; Week­end rides; Upon Reflec­tion; Deer and paparazzi; Sep­tem­ber Bike Ride; Corn & Sun­set; On Reflec­tion: Oct. 1st; Autumn Trees; A bit of graf­fi­ti; Novem­ber bike ride; Geese; Day 30; Quack quack; Skin­ny deer; Mon­day bike ride; Sat­ur­day snaps; Deer + Flow­ers; Bike Ride — July 17, 2022; The mead­ow; It seems to be autumn; Por­tal fan­ta­sy; Sla­va Ukrai­ni; Writ­ing Retreat 2023: Thurs­day bike ride; Bike Ride, May 20, 2024; Shy; Cana­da Day ride; A long ride; Cook­ie Ride redux; Writ­ing Retreat 2024: 6; Writ­ing Retreat 2024: The End; Bike Ride, Sep. 22, 2024; Today’s Ride — Oct. 6, 2024; Souris Val­ley; Bike Ride Pho­tos — May 19, 2025; Bike ride, May 24; Art in the trees.

Series: Writing Retreat 2020

The entire series: Writ­ing Retreat 2020; Writ­ing Retreat 2020, Day 1 & 2; Writ­ing Retreat 2020, Day 3; Writ­ing Retreat, Day 4; Writ­ing Retreat 2020, day 5; Writ­ing Retreat 2020, Day 6; Writ­ing Retreat 2020, Day 7; Writ­ing Retreat 2020, Day 8; Writ­ing Retreat 2020, Day 9; Writ­ing Retreat 2020: The Num­bers.

Writing Retreat 2020, Day 9

Posted on by Patrick

Ah, Sun­day.

  • Wrote 650 words in “Dried Flowers”
  • Biked anoth­er 8.75 km
  • Cleaned the cabin
  • Packed up
  • Head­ed home

It’s been a great week, and if I could I’d do it all again next week. But it’s nice to see my wife again. Also appar­ent­ly I need to do the day job if I want them to keep pay­ing me.

Series: Writing Retreat 2020

The entire series: Writ­ing Retreat 2020; Writ­ing Retreat 2020, Day 1 & 2; Writ­ing Retreat 2020, Day 3; Writ­ing Retreat, Day 4; Writ­ing Retreat 2020, day 5; Writ­ing Retreat 2020, Day 6; Writ­ing Retreat 2020, Day 7; Writ­ing Retreat 2020, Day 8; Writ­ing Retreat 2020, Day 9; Writ­ing Retreat 2020: The Num­bers.

Writing Retreat 2020, Day 8

Posted on by Patrick
Panoramic view of Lake Minnedosa from a kayak

Sat­ur­day:

  • Wrote about 650 words in Daniel, Daniel, Daniel, most­ly in an outline
  • Read more of The Knight—only two chap­ters left now
  • Found out on Face­book that my sis­ter-in-law has renamed her pear jam “Patrick Pear jam”—I can only assume this is because I’m an inces­sant evan­ge­list for the stuff (seri­ous­ly, try it on pork chops)
  • Tried to decide if that’s bet­ter than Pat Pota­to, or if it’s a lat­er­al move
  • Biked into town, osten­si­bly to get sun­glass­es (since I dropped mine in the lake last night while I was kayak­ing) and end­ed up tool­ing around for almost 10 km (I did get sun­glass­es, though it took a while to find a pair that weren’t a) wom­en’s or b) camo)
  • Wrote anoth­er 1,300 words in Daniel, Daniel, Daniel; I seem to have some­thing to aim at again
  • Kayaked for about 45 min­utes, this time with a cam­era (see the panora­ma at the top)

Here’s a quick snip­pet of some of the writ­ing recently:

Feb­ru­ary 30
Church bake sale (Make pie!)

Even though it was writ­ten in red ink, excla­ma­tion-point­ed, cir­cled thrice, and marked with an orange high­lighter, she for­got and had to take store-bought cook­ies that she unpacked onto paper plates and cov­ered in plas­tic wrap while she sat in the park­ing lot, fur­thest from the door, hop­ing no one would look in her car’s win­dows and catch her at it.

Mach 4
Stephen (Birth­day)

She gave him a card drip­ping with sap­py sen­ti­ment, because she was, after all, his moth­er. Also a mug she’d found online with a bird on it, cussing about meet­ings, that she thought matched his sar­don­ic, off­beat humour.

Avril 18
George + Judith (Anniver­sary)

Judith got a card, too. She was still fam­i­ly, even if she and June had­n’t spo­ken since the funer­al. June knew she had stuff to work through – they both did – and also that every­one grieves in their own way.

From the first draft of “Dried Flowers”

This is my last full day here at the cab­in. I’ll be clean­ing up and pack­ing tomor­row, and head­ing home.

Series: Writing Retreat 2020

The entire series: Writ­ing Retreat 2020; Writ­ing Retreat 2020, Day 1 & 2; Writ­ing Retreat 2020, Day 3; Writ­ing Retreat, Day 4; Writ­ing Retreat 2020, day 5; Writ­ing Retreat 2020, Day 6; Writ­ing Retreat 2020, Day 7; Writ­ing Retreat 2020, Day 8; Writ­ing Retreat 2020, Day 9; Writ­ing Retreat 2020: The Num­bers.

Writing Retreat 2020, Day 7

Posted on by Patrick
Minnedosa cairn with a plough on top

Fri­day:

  • I lay awake from about 4 am till about 5:30 am thanks to a cou­ple of thun­der­storms pass­ing through.
  • In the morn­ing, I biked about 6 km before it got over­ly hot.
  • While I was out on my bike, I took pho­tos for a cou­ple of panora­mas (one of which turned out as I’d hoped).
Minnedosa cairn with a plough on top
The plough cairn (panora­ma; 18 pho­tos, 50mm, f/2.8 each)
  • I wrote 500 words in Daniel, Daniel, Daniel, did some pre­lim­i­nary edit­ing of “The Slow Apoc­a­lypse” (though it might still be too ear­ly for me to work on this), and wrote 300 word in “Dried Flowers”.
  • I read a few more chap­ters in The Wiz­ard—as I approach the end, I’m torn between savour­ing it and find­ing out what hap­pens next.
  • I tried to come up with a coher­ent end­ing for Daniel, Daniel, Daniel, because while I know the final scene, I don’t have the sto­ry’s end­ing ful­ly fleshed out yet. It’s a bit frus­trat­ing, frankly; I’m the kind of writer that needs a sol­id end­ing before I start a project. I thought I had it, but the char­ac­ters are going their own ways.
  • I noticed the sky had got quite colour­ful about 9:15 pm, and stepped out­side in time to snap a pho­to of a love­ly sun­set. I only got bit­ten by 22 mos­qui­toes in the 5 min­utes I was out­side, too, so that’s a victory.
Sunset with clouds: blue, orange, pink, and indigo
Sun­set on a Fri­day evening
  • About 11:45 I went and got some pho­tos of Comet NEOWISE and the north­ern lights. (And anoth­er cou­ple dozen bug bites.)
Comet NEOWISE and aurora
Comet NEOWISE and aurora
  • And I man­aged to catch the Inter­na­tion­al Space Sta­tion as it went over­head, even though it tried to hide behind a cloud.
The International Space Station ducks behind a cloud
I waved to the ISS astro­nauts as they went by

All in all, a good Fri­day, even if it was a bit too hot to even think straight. (No sweet­er sin than air con­di­tion­ing, I tell you.)

Series: Bike Ride Photos

The entire series: Down by the riv­er; Bike ride birds; The ex-gar­den and the weir; Snap­shots of a ride; Across Town; Black­bird; North Hill cam­pus; Lilacs and coun­try roads; A pop of colour; Back lane flow­ers; More Breniz­ers; The riv­er is high; A bird and a reflec­tion; Rideau Park; Writ­ing Retreat 2020, Day 7; Writ­ing Retreat 2020: The Num­bers; Storm dam­age, sun­flow­ers; Eleanor Kidd gar­dens; Scenes from today’s ride; All right, autumn can be pret­ty; Bike ride, April 10, 2021; Bike ride wildlife; Bike ride, May 16, 2021; Some flow­ers for you; Lilacs; Under the bridge; A fence, a tree, and the sky; Tur­tle Cross­ing; Ceme­tery crit­ters; On Reflec­tion; Week­end rides; Upon Reflec­tion; Deer and paparazzi; Sep­tem­ber Bike Ride; Corn & Sun­set; On Reflec­tion: Oct. 1st; Autumn Trees; A bit of graf­fi­ti; Novem­ber bike ride; Geese; Day 30; Quack quack; Skin­ny deer; Mon­day bike ride; Sat­ur­day snaps; Deer + Flow­ers; Bike Ride — July 17, 2022; The mead­ow; It seems to be autumn; Por­tal fan­ta­sy; Sla­va Ukrai­ni; Writ­ing Retreat 2023: Thurs­day bike ride; Bike Ride, May 20, 2024; Shy; Cana­da Day ride; A long ride; Cook­ie Ride redux; Writ­ing Retreat 2024: 6; Writ­ing Retreat 2024: The End; Bike Ride, Sep. 22, 2024; Today’s Ride — Oct. 6, 2024; Souris Val­ley; Bike Ride Pho­tos — May 19, 2025; Bike ride, May 24; Art in the trees.

Series: Writing Retreat 2020

The entire series: Writ­ing Retreat 2020; Writ­ing Retreat 2020, Day 1 & 2; Writ­ing Retreat 2020, Day 3; Writ­ing Retreat, Day 4; Writ­ing Retreat 2020, day 5; Writ­ing Retreat 2020, Day 6; Writ­ing Retreat 2020, Day 7; Writ­ing Retreat 2020, Day 8; Writ­ing Retreat 2020, Day 9; Writ­ing Retreat 2020: The Num­bers.

Writing Retreat 2020, Day 6

Posted on by Patrick
Star Trails

Thurs­day:

  • Big break­fast, in which I dis­cov­ered that Trap­per Bites, eggs, and pota­toes are an amaz­ing combo
  • 1,000 words in “Dried Flowers”
  • 6 km bike ride
  • A bunch of macro pho­tos in the campground
  • Also met with the own­er of a “49-ish” Mer­cury truck (it’s a ’49, but it has A/C and an auto­mat­ic transmission)
  • 1,000 words in Trans­la­tions (or more like­ly Daniel, Daniel, Daniel)
  • And before bed, I set up my cam­era in the cab­in’s cov­ered porch, and took pho­tos till the bat­tery died about an hour lat­er; the clouds rolled in, but before they did I got the star trails at the top of this post.
  • Macro shot of a tree branch
    I think it’s a wil­low, but cor­rect me if I’m wrong
  • Willow leaves
    The leaves of a wil­low, with the lake in the very blurred background
  • '49 Mercury truck in bright orange
    ’49(ish) Mer­cury

[twenty20 img1=‘4135’ img2=‘4136’ before=‘Near’ after=‘Far’]

Series: Writing Retreat 2020

The entire series: Writ­ing Retreat 2020; Writ­ing Retreat 2020, Day 1 & 2; Writ­ing Retreat 2020, Day 3; Writ­ing Retreat, Day 4; Writ­ing Retreat 2020, day 5; Writ­ing Retreat 2020, Day 6; Writ­ing Retreat 2020, Day 7; Writ­ing Retreat 2020, Day 8; Writ­ing Retreat 2020, Day 9; Writ­ing Retreat 2020: The Num­bers.