On April 26 I sent my story "A Singular Being" to Asimov's Science Fiction, after extensive, exhaustive editing. After completing the fourth draft I realized I'd never actually read my copy of The Elements of Style by Strunk & White, so I did, then proceeded to "Strunk-&-Whiteify" my story before sending it out. How both Strunk and White would hate the way I've made their names into a verb!
Strunk-&-Whiteify, verb
To edit a piece of writing for fluency, to simplify, to OMIT UNNECESSARY WORDS, OMIT UNNECESSARY WORDS,OMIT UNNECESSARY WORDS!
"Being" lost about 100 words in the process. No, this wasn't my first submission , but I wanted to make this one count. I love "Being" passionately, and I love Sheila Williams and her benign reign over Asimov's almost as much.
So by the time I was done I had been working exclusively on that one project for 2 or 3 weeks. Once the ms. was on its way, I felt a little lost.
I think I'm over it now. I'm returning to a process that feels better to me, taking turns between a number of projects. I have 7 to choose from.
5 comments:
That's also the basic rule for writing promotions, usually about half the words can go. Sometimes even more. It's not good to be too wordy for prose, but it's deadly for spoken copy. I empathize with you. It's taken me about a year to really get back in gear and write after sending something off to an agent. I couldn't believe how traumatic it was. I need to get my butt in gear and do a mass (or at least multiple mailing) and get serious about this thing. If I send out ten manuscripts, I'll probably have to lie down for a week. I get hit by the cost of printing complete manuscripts to send out, but that's what most of the agents say they want to look at for fiction. Anyway, good luck with sending your story out into the world to live and breathe on its own.
I'd like to hear more about what happened with this agent. (By e-mail if you prefer.) Was it just the sending of it that was so traumatic?
Sending print manuscripts is stressful. But submitting by e-mail SHOULD be just as stressful because you really should spend at least as much time making sure it's letter perfect. It's just that once it's perfect, all you have to do is click, not print labels, make sure THEY'RE perfect, get 2 envelopes, make an SASE, get to the post office, make sure the PO clerk understands the concept of an SASE and that you have enough postage to cover both the mailing of the ms. itself and the SASE... So many steps.
Good like with your story, Linda. Hopefully you'll post an acceptance announcement!
Sue
I mean "good luck"
--sue
Thanks, Sue! I hope so too! :-)
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