1) Writing as much as my lazy butt allows me to.

2) Reading widely. Focus has tended to be on year’s best collections and anthologies, but I’m a quick reader, so there’s a lot of novels and non-genre work included in that.

3) Critiquing, both at Hatrack and a face-to-face critique group (which includes three Clarion graduates). I’d probably get around to a critique per week or so. The face to face critique group is reliably brutal as not much time is wasted on praise.

4) Telling my wife I’m researching writing on the internet instead of looking at Facebook. Some of the time I’m actually reading writing blogs (i.e. Hatrack, Nathan Bransford, Absolute Write, etc.)

5) Reading how-to books. I’ve really only taken this up over the past few months, though most of what I’ve read is stuff I’ve already assimilated from critiques and blogs (with a few exceptions).

Beyond that, I’m a bit stuck. I’d always seen myself as getting the basics of craft and voice down pat by writing short stories before even thinking about novels. As much as the two disciplines are very different, I can’t see myself even thinking about a novel before I have some level of success at the short story level (with success defined as being published somewhere for an amount of money). To be honest, the slog of write/rewrite/rejection is getting to me a little bit. Does anyone have any brilliant suggestions on how to improve?

Not yet. I'm slowly reducing the length of my stories from monsterous to slim. Most of the time, the problem seems to be packing too many conflicts into a short. I'm not sure I can write the kind of stories I want to in flash fiction format at the moment...it's going to take more work.

secondly, take a close look at your writing. Dissect it, compare it with those sucessful writers that made you want to write in the first place. I have taken a very critical self editing strategy in the last couple of weeks. Swap a crit with me today, and I will give you an example of my new approach.

Having read a good deal of your work. I would say that you are like me. That you have fell into the honorable mention rut. Just a detail or two separates you from Pro-rate publication.

So, I ask:
Why do you think you are getting no acceptance letters? Is there something specific lacking in your writing? Are editors giving you common feedback (ie, "Your voice is weak.") What do you have the most difficulty with when you write (Plot? Editing? Finishing?)

Along the same lines of questioning, what are your goals in writing? Self justification? Publication? Quit yer day job?

Then again, I do think it's help me, and I was never a natural "short" writer, and still have a tough time doing things under novelette length -- which is the length I've sold at so far.

I'd like to know what "an impressive mound" is, and if it's all from paying markets?

If you break it down like that, it makes me realize I’m whining without much justification. Perhaps it’s because my peers in the writing group are getting publication credits and I’m not…

I guess the main issue is that I’m not feeling like I’m making much headway on the ability to simply tell a story. The technical aspects of ensuring POV is consistent where necessary, word choice is tight, etc. is learnable IMO; I worry simple story telling (i.e. why does Dan Brown, Stephanie Meyer, etc. work for so many people) may be beyond me and I believe it’s even more important in a novel than a short story.

While accurate word counts are a little bit difficult (sometimes I end up re-writing in the same file) I’ve written about 120K of completed stories in that period. I’m not sure how many words the abandoned stories add up to as they’re all over the place.
Out of those initial 120K words, I’ve got eight stories I’ve considered good enough to send out (and a bunch more that I just couldn’t make work). Out of those eight, I’ve retired two because I just didn’t like them once I’d re-read them and I’d be a bit embarrassed if they did get published.

Two of those stories have been rejected eight times. Those two have been through the pro ranks and are now down to the token paying ranks. One of those has been rejected by a token-paying mag. Most of the remaining six are still doing at least semi-pro paying venues.

Terean, in terms of feedback I’ve mostly been getting form rejections from the pro-markets, though sometimes the “level” of the pro-market form rejection has been second tier. Places like Beneath Ceaseless Sky and Strange Horizons generally like the world building and imagery, but the plot doesn’t thrill them (thus my concern about story) or alternatively I get comments such as “liked the idea and the writing was good, but the plot didn’t grab me.” While I try and follow the maxim of constantly upping the ante and creating more problems for the protag, the plot issue doesn’t seem to be going away.

Regards,

Nick

They could also be really helpful for keeping each other motivated. By exchanging goals, one could help another stay on task, things like that. Someone to brainstorm plot theme, other issues that go into a story before it is even drafted. Annepin and I used to plot workshop in IM once aweek. Forget about critiques. That helped me more than anything I have done to improve my craft.

Well, I can be a jerk. I'm up for it.

Btw, what ever happened to Annepin? She was really good, I haven't seen any of her work on Hatrack for ages.

1) Consider cutting your market list to only those which are pro-pay. Token and no-pay markets don't matter on a cover letter when you're sending your stuff to the pro-pay markets, so as long as you're getting rejections, at least get them from the pro-pay scene.

2) Are your writing group companions selling to pro-pay markets, or token-pay and no-pay markets? I suggest that sales to less-than-pro-pay aren't necessarily a good meter by which to gauge your progress. For you personally. Pro-pay sales are pro-pay sales. Everything else.... is not.

3) Your 120K word sum makes you a "young aspirant" in my book. THIS IS A GOOD THING!! I sure as hell never created 120K in my first two years of trying. It probably took me four years to get that much. Sounds like you're driven and want to work.

4) Having said that, the old saying that you have to write (roughly) 1,000,000 words before you start getting to your sellable stuff, are accurate in my case. Took me at least 850,000 to break in. Not everyone takes that long, but it took that long for me.

5) So while you might look at your friends, and despair, just ask yourself if they're selling to pro markets and whether or not they also have only 120K in the tank. People with 500K or better in the tank are just further down the "road" from you. You will get there. Just keep writing.

6) That last part? Just keep writing, man. It's frustrating getting rejections. It's frustrating feeling like the people around you are "moving" and you're just "standing still." Truth is, the only way yo stand still is to not write at all. If you're putting your back into it -- and you have even a little bit of talent -- you will move forward.

7) Other than all this, I recommend you decide if you want to be a novelist or a short fiction writer -- or both -- and read accordingly. Pay attention to what you read, how it's built, etc. One practical exercise is to take a book or story you REALLY LIKE -- as in, this one knocks your socks off -- and find a very good passage in that book or story, and type it out in standard manuscript format. Word for word. You will be ***STUNNED*** at how this teaches your writing brain to view prose. Stunned. When you let those "pro" words filter through your fingers and wind up on your page, it's almost like channeling the author for a second.

I tried recently to write a short story, and it was tough. I am impressed with you guys that do it. I really have no idea how to string a decent, satisfying plot in such a small word count without sacrificing characterization or world building. For me at least, plotting is so much easier in novels, where you have time to build tension and characters before the climax.

"I worry simple story telling (i.e. why does Dan Brown, Stephanie Meyer, etc. work for so many people) may be beyond me and I believe it’s even more important in a novel than a short story."

"Places like Beneath Ceaseless Sky and Strange Horizons generally like the world building and imagery, but the plot doesn’t thrill them (thus my concern about story) or alternatively I get comments such as “liked the idea and the writing was good, but the plot didn’t grab me. While I try and follow the maxim of constantly upping the ante and creating more problems for the protag, the plot issue doesn’t seem to be going away."

So, I'm going to go out on a limb here and say your biggest "problem" to "fix" is that you write well, but you don't tell stories well. Your prose, sentence structure, all that stuff, is great... your plot and story structure... not so much...

(By the way, this is my main self-diagnosed problem as well.)

I would suggest attacking this in a few different ways. Find the one that works best for you, and start fixing it until a new, larger problem arises or you get publishified.
Some suggesticals:
-Write flash fiction concentrate on telling a story as concisely as possible.
-Write some potent scenes, even if they don't tell a whole story. Sometimes to do this, I take a scene from a movie that didn't end up the way I wanted it to (you know, where the couple storms off in a huff instead of arguing, or the protag misses the bomb, or whatever. The stuff that makes you want to throw popcorn at the screen?) and rewrite it with an alternate outcome. Grab about 5 of said scenes when you are done, and form a story out of them.
-write more short stories. Flex those plotting muscles.
-Go to the dark side and write a novel. It will force you to focus on plotting, perhaps more than you have been able to do with only short stories.
-Try Campbell's hero's journey. Sure, you may be writing formulaically, but you may be finding stuff that works for you.
-Try the snowflake method (google "snowflake writing method") Its an outline technique that may help you plot better stories.
-Try reverse outlining, a method that was proposed by a hatracker some time back ( http://www.hatrack.com/forums/writers/forum/Forum1/HTML/005766.html )
-Try some books on plotting. Again, you may find you are writing formulaically, but you may find stuff you like.
-Try the Ayn Rand method - I call it that because she usually wrote more background material for her books than the book itself. Its like outlining on steriods. This method usually works for me. The better I have it planned and laid out, the freer stuff flows from my fingers at the keyboard.

MAP, I'm starting to think of writing a novel alongside the short stories (and, now, flash). I've got a short story which I think could be expanded into a novel if I do enough planning (though I always think my stories have more potential than they do...at least until the first rejection letter comes back).

Terean, thank you for all your suggestions. It would be greedy of me to add to your critique list when so many other people on Hatrack have already helped me greatly.

Regards,