And it begins all over again

Whew, made it through a full week of work post-vacation! Though I got to say, it was painful getting up at 6 a.m. again. But, I need money to feed myself and the kitties, so back to the grind it is. As is the norm, I come back to assignments that didn’t belong to me, but surprise! They are mine now. At least, it’s job security, even though it’s going to be challenging to get them done on top of my regular assignments and copy editing schedule… and we haven’t even received our special tab assignments yet.

I do have to say getting up getting up at 6 a.m. and reintegrating into the office was very inspiring, because it really made me want to get my creative writing out to hopefully earn enough money that I could at least go part time, which a couple of my coworkers have done recently for varying reasons. They have just made the whole part-time route look like so much fun!

During my vacation, I did start considering strategies to achieve such a feat, by looking at what I have. I have one completed novel, “Passage,” which I haven’t queried since my move, other books in its series in varying states of completion, several short stories lying around and a SciFi Novel halfway done, not to mention odd bits and pieces of writing projects. This is too much writing sitting around and not doing anything!

Now that I am largely stationary in my home (still got stuff at my dad’s house though), I cannot justify having so much writing not moving as it were. I started to pick up the momentum during vacation and submitted another short story to a literary magazine for speculative fiction … it got rejected, which seems to be a reoccurring theme no matter what I’m peddling. But I’m not allowing it to get me down; I intend to submit it to another similar magazine that takes shorts of the same genre and who knows maybe they will be the right fit.

If anything, the experience is making me angry, only angry in a good way. It’s building a fire that is intent to break through the doors of the publishing world. The experience is also further highlighting knowledge that I have stuffed in the back corners of my mind: It is hard for a first-time writer to get anything published, even their short stories.

But that is alright, because I’m intent to make it happen; however, I’m doing a bit of a game change, especially the more I learn about the approaches other writers have taken and observe the changes that are happening in the publishing industry.

When I began the querying process for “Passage,” I started by querying agents. However, when I resume querying, it won’t be to agents. I’ve decided to take another route: I will do my own homework and, hopefully yet this month, start querying a few of the larger publishing companies that still take unsolicited manuscripts. I will also begin looking at smaller presses that might make a good fit for my book.

Self-publishing is also emerging as a strong possibility. It’s no longer the dirty word of the publishing industry and has a real strong movement of indie writers publishing their own works. I do admit there is something very appealing about having complete control of my works. So while I’m putting together packets for publishers and presses, I’m also beginning to put my manuscript together in preparation of self-publishing it. I’m quite fortunate to have skill sets that will save me money when it comes to self-publishing, such as having the graphic design skills and programs necessary to make a professional cover. In fact, I’ve already begun piecing it together, and so far, I think it looks swell.

On top of getting “Passage” moving again, I’m going to work on building up my resume, which means getting short stories out and, hopefully, picked up by various literary magazines. It’s a tall order, but it’s something I have to do to get where I want to go. I will also be tackling the remaining books in The Mortal Wars series in case I do go the self-publishing route with “Passage,” because I will want sequels out every year or every year and a half. The SciFi Novel is also going to get a lot of effort put into it because I can see it being particularly marketable at this time to agents and publishers, but then again, I could be wrong on that front, lol.

I’m certain I will receive several more rejection notifications, but hopefully they will only serve to kindle the fire. In meantime, I’m going to take inspiration from Larry Correia’s experiences selling his book, which was rejected numerous times but, through cunning marketing practices, was picked up by a major publisher after he self-published it.

Cheers everyone and hoping your own writing projects are also going swimmingly.