For the past few months I’ve used Duotrope to track my fiction submissions to various markets. Previously I was using Google Sheets, with different sections of one large spreadsheet to track stories and submissions, markets, and responses. The sheet worked great for a long time, but once I had over twenty stories, hundreds of responses from publishers, and dozens of markets to track, the spreadsheet solution became unwieldy. I started to miss things, and in one cases submitted a story twice to the same publisher. I also started to submit fewer stories, simply because of the difficulty in using the spreadsheet. Time for a new solution!
Category: Fiction Writing Page 3 of 7
Russell James has been writing daily, apparently without any extended breaks or even weekends off, since 2001 (personally I feel pretty good if I write four days out of seven). I admire that kind of consistency, even if I can’t particularly relate to it.
I can relate to having my wife as my first reader. There’s no one I trust more with that raw, flawed draft.
I enjoyed reading Russell’s responses to my Word Craft questions, and I hope you do too. Please welcome Russell James to Word Craft!
-J.D.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Tell us a little about yourself and what inspired you to become a writer.
Author Russell James
Iâm currently a technical writer for a Fortune 50 company. When my wife and I used to go on long drives, Iâd say âYou know what would be a good story?â and then tell her about a plot idea I had. Eventually she said âWhy donât you write these stories down and get them published.â I said âBecause no one would ever pay to read something I wrote.â But I did end up trying what she suggested, and here we are.
As a fellow RPG enthusiast and miniature painter, I can relate to Tor author Michael Haspil. A few things stuck out and especially impressed me from Haspil’s responses, including:
- Good discipline in regards to suppressing impulses to revise or fact-check while getting the first draft down (I need to work on this).
- Redundant and systematic backup (I do this too).
- The use of FATE dice, StoryForge cards, and Nordic runes for inspiration and brainstorming — great idea!
Please welcome Michael Haspil to Word Craft.
-JD
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Tell us a little about yourself and what inspired you to become a writer.
Iâve been a storyteller all my life. A large part of what made me want to become a writer came from attending military school at New York Military Academy. There, my friends and I played a lot of role-playing games and even made up our own. The school had its own small literary magazine and I submitted some stories. People adored them and that really helped me. I continued writing short stories for my high school magazine âSlant of Lightâ and I even placed in a couple of writing competitions too. Then I joined the Air Force and, regrettably, I put my pen away for a while. Glad to have picked it back up, though.
Up until now Word Craft has exclusively featured my fellow Flame Tree Press authors, but this week I’m officially opening Word Craft to authors with other publishers. Please welcome Betsy Dornbusch to Word Craft! I enjoyed reading her honest responses and I can relate to many of them, especially managing to succeed at writing despite the many distractions life offers.
Those who have read the previous Word Craft Q&A’s may notice that my questions are evolving, and that process will continue. I’ve also added a new “Additional Reading” section at the bottom — previous posts I’ve written that relate to the author’s responses in some way.
-J.D.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Tell us a little about yourself and what inspired you to become a writer.
I wrote since fourth grade  and took creative writing in college, but life got in the way and I quit. Then after the birth of my second child I started writing a book Iâd been noodling for years. That turned into Archive of Fire, my first novel published in 2012.
New England author Brian Trent writes both science fiction and fantasy. He’s an early riser who gets his 5-6 hours of writing started at 5 a.m., which by my math means the work whistle goes off no later than 11 in the morning — not a bad lifestyle! But of course a writer’s work is never done. Please welcome Brian Trent to Word Craft!
-J.D.
ABOUT YOU AND YOUR BOOK
Tell us a little about yourself and what inspired you to become a writer.
Writing has been in my blood since I was very youngâI still have the wordless illustrated comics I used to draw when I was in my single digits. The desire to tell stories was there at the beginning, to create worlds I could play in. As I got older, I realized that I could also use stories as little laboratories to examine anything I wanted: different narrative techniques, unique characters, the potential impact of a speculative technology on the world, the potential development of society in the future.
Science fiction is still my preferred sandbox. I do write fantasy, history, and horror, but Iâve always been drawn to the rational structures and extrapolative methodology of sci-fi.