When do I get to read it, you ask?

Detail of man reading "The Three Kingdoms"

After reading my post about finishing the first draft of my novelette Izzy Crow, my brother asked, When do I get to read it? I'm afraid the answer is, not for a while. I think of a story idea, sit down and write it out, and that's really where things are just getting started. I followed my own advice with this story and wrote fast and let it be a big, bountiful mess, which will need a lot of taming before it resembles a finished story. 

One of my favorite short story writers, George Saunders talks about about his approach to story being an iterative process. He explains that even if he doesn't know exactly what a story is about when he starts it, if he keeps returning to it over and over again through revisions, the true meaning of the story kind of accretes (Check out the article and listen to the whole interview here). I think this is true. In any creative pursuit, it becomes apparent that while you can work faster, there are no shortcuts.

Here are the steps in my process as it is today. It may change and evolve as I continue to push myself to become a better writer.

First is the idea of course, usually followed by a little preliminary research. I don't factor this into the time it takes to produce a finished story. I keep a collection of ideas simmering in my journal, and when I have a spare minute or two I'll poke around the Internet for information that will help grow a particular idea until I've got enough to start writing. For example, for the story I'm working on this week (remember a story a week!): I'm reading about the different kinds of environments tidally locked planets might have. I am actually doing this concurrent with writing the first draft.

• First draft. "Ground Zero" can mean either the point directly below an exploding nuclear bomb, or a starting point for some activity. In writing, I think both definitions are apt. This set of half formed characters and events have to go from my brain to the page and even when I start with something, it feels like starting from nothing. The process can be quite disfiguring, in that what you end up with can be pretty unrecognizable when compared with the original idea, but that's not always a bad thing.
• First read through with notes for big changes. This is where I assess what I got with my first attempt. Theoretically I could abandon a story at this point, but I haven't done that yet. I usually do a little additional research here, filling in missing information and searching for specific, vivid details to add.
• Second draft. Here I implement all the stuff I got from the first read, making big changes. Reshaping by cutting big swaths out and chunking in new material including said detail (from a hopefully brief trip to the land of research). At some point around here, my understanding of the themes of the piece usually come into better focus, which may cause another sub-round of cutting and chunking.
• Third draft. These are smaller adjustments, smoothing it all out, paragraph and sentence level work, style, tone, tweaking metaphors and language to highlight said theme. This can take a long time. Writing a good sentence is hard.
• Critique. Now I'm ready to let a few people see it. Slugtribe, my in-person critique group meets the 2nd and 4th Tuesdays of every month, or I can send it off to the Online Writing Workshop, crits usually take about a week to come back from that site. I find getting feedback from others essential to the process. This is also a chance for me to step away from this story for a few days. It's amazing what I'll see when I look at it after a break. 
• Final revisions. Assessing all the critiques and incorporating the useful comments AND a final proofing read through (yup, still finding typos).

first read through

Each of these six stages can take a week or more, and that's a minimum, what with hubby and kids and the dog and life intervening and all. Some stories are harder than others, they put up more resistance, require more revisions to really get at the nut of the thing. This year I am trying out drafting a NEW story every week, so I am working on the new thing in the morning and revising older stories in the afternoons and evenings. I expect I will be writing more flash fiction (stories under 1,000 words) and probably some poetry on weeks when I want to devote more time to revising a longer story.

So, finally the story is finished. Time to start submitting it.

Notice I didn't say "time to submit it" I said "time to START SUBMITTING it." So far, all of my published stories have been submitted to a minimum of 3 markets and a maximum of 15. That's 15 rejections before an editor said yes. Some markets will respond very quickly, within a week, but many take a month or two or three. Zombie Envy, just published this month, and another one that is forthcoming (which I will get to announce soon!) were finished in EARLY 2012. Maybe as I get more story-writing skillz, I'll get on a faster track here. But I know that plenty of great stories also get rejected because they don't fit the theme or aesthetic of a given publication. The only thing to do is send it out, forget it, and get back to work on the current story.

So, I hope to finish Izzy Crow by the end of February or early March, then I'll start sending it out. When it gets accepted for publication, believe me, you'll be the first to know!

The Belated Turkey of Gratitude

This journal's almost finished.

I love Thanksgiving dearly because it is a chance to relax with family and practice gratitude for all the things we have. I am committed to insulating my family for as long as possible from the encroaching BLACK THURSDAY. One day in our not so distant future only apostates will celebrate Thanksgiving, everyone else will participate in the sport of competitive shopping where credit card-wielding hordes crush the doors of big box stores, trample the weak and prove their worth by purchasing discounted items so that they may return home with an electronic gizmo as proof of their commitment to consumerism... So, in the face of my fear that the practice of gratitude is losing ground to the practice of getting, here's a list:

31 things about writing and storytelling for which I am grateful.

1. For finishing a journal and looking back on the glorious, sloppy scribbled pages, pictures pasted in, notes sticking out brain dump.
2. For starting a brand new journal with all those blank pages were anything could happen.
3. For stationary stores and everything in them.
4. Specifically for the Pilot P-500 extra fine (for when I'm feeling gel inky) and Pilot Razor Point II (for when I'm feeling felt-tippy).
5. For writing apps and software like Dropbox, Evernote, and Scrivener that make writing on screens efficient and fun.
6. For the public library, a well of books for the whole family, and a place where I can write without being required to buy something - because I'm not always hungry or thirsty when I feel like writing.
7. For coffeehouses and diners for when I am. 
8. For my ten minutes of freewriting, where I can bitch and moan to a sheet of paper that is bound for the recycle bin.
9. For the way that writing has taught me to be a keen observer of the world around me and of my own responses to it.
10. For all the nascent, fragile little story eggs that fill my head, even if they can be a bit distracting rolling around up there.
11. For how writing has given me something to aspire to. Mastering storytelling is serious fun.
12. For creating a world, entering it and discovering something, or someone, unexpected there.
13. For how writing has taught me to stretch and grow my imagination. To imagine worlds stranger than our own and the characters who can live in them.
14. For how writing has made me broader in my thoughts and braver in my actions. A good story is built on experiences. Good storytellers are experienced. 
15. For how good characters encourage me to step out of my comfort zone and look at issues from more than one perspective (file under how to write a good villan). 
16. For writing until I realize the way even if I have to spend thousands of words. Sometimes those who wander ARE lost.
17. For the camaraderie of my writer's group. 
18. For meeting new people who are willing to give honest, constructive opinions in an effort to make us all better at what we're trying to accomplish.
19. For the privilege of having another writer share his or her unfinished work with me.
20. For all that I've learned about writing by learning how to give a good critique of someone else's story.
21. For the work of busting apart a draft and putting it back together.
22. For reworking a sentence until it rings like a bell.
23. For publications that accurately gague and post their turn-around times for submissions. It's easier to be patient if I have some idea how long I have to wait.
24. For slush readers who deal with their monumental slush piles with alacraty.
25. For all the editors who have read my submissions -- all of them. Even when they send a rejection, I know it took time to read my story and many have taken a few extra minutes to comment on my submission. I am grateful for their time and their valuable insights.
26. For writing podcasts like Writing Excuses and the Coode Street Podcast that talk about writing and Escape Pod and PodCastle that keep my ears entertained with stories.
27. For semipro zines like Clarkesworld, Lightspeed and Daily Science Fiction that are committed to finding and putting great stories out there on e-readers, in print and as podcasts.
28. For how the practice of STORYTELLING has enhanced and sharpened my enjoyment when reading, hearing and watching other stories in books, on podcasts and at the movies. Especially when someone else tells a story in a completely surprising and original way.
29. For the magic that is a good story, which is more than the sum of its parts.
30. For sitting in the sun with a good book.
31. For the journey.