Deferring to other people and Janey-on-the-Brink-ism

More links to keep you informed, to begin with:

• Excerpts sell books
• Finding the Will to Keep fighting for your writing
• JA Konrath talks more about his self publishing ebook experiment<~~Very interesting read

And all of this brings me to a painful bit of truth about myself. I know I’ve been doing a lot of linking to other writers lately, and in part it’s been because I’ve been sick, and in part because there are just so many people saying great things. But in part because I feel that I’m sort of frozen in time, in progress right now.

Rot is out, Diener is out. I have no more contracts, I’ve acted on the best chances for more publication available to me right now (that means I’ve written for and submitted to the editors who have directly invited me to do so and at this point I’m just waiting to hear how things turn out). I’ve pursued much of the promotion I intended for Rot (especially considering it’s a small press novella that won’t be widely available in stores, so the promo plan is more to keep it gaining reviews and reader reactions and dig in for the long hall rather than a big burst and vanish, like books often do.)

I am working on new stories. I’m over 10k into a new novel and I just finished a really good short story last night. I’m keeping my work out to the markets that are open. But there just isn’t anything going on.

Now that can change quickly, but until then I have to just keep moving forward and letting most things gain or lose momentum on their own.

There are lots of people out there with more experience than me, more awareness than me and more knowledge than me. They are also wonderfully vocal people, who commonly share their experience and knowledge. So in the face of so much wonderful information and people who, frankly, put it better than me I find myself with very little to say other than “Yeah, what they said.”

Which is also the case with my submissions. It’s called Janey-on-the-Brink. I’ve blogged about it before. But what it comes down it is I am getting the best possible rejections in response to my work, but not yet consistently selling. Please keep in mind that Rot was accepted in January and Diener was accepted last year. Since then I’ve gotten a number of really positive, really personal rejection from places I never thought I’d submit to in the first place. I mean, I’ve gotten a number of “Final round, but we ran out of space” rejections and even one that said the story was rejected mostly because it was third person and they were looking for first person stories (which is the opposite of what most markets seem to look for.)

On one hand, it’s utterly ridiculous that I am that close and just not making it. On the other, as a critic of myself I can’t help wonder what element I’m missing in my work that’s holding me back.

Several people whose opinions I trust have said the element that I’m missing is timing, luck, serendipity, if you will. They have a good point. But again, as a self-critic I can’t help thinking I just must be doing something wrong.

This is what’s hardest about publishing, it’s so very subjective and good work goes unbought all the time. Readers have a glut of good fiction, poor fiction and knock-off fiction to buy. But on this side, I have to decide which is more important to work on, the horror stories that I’ve been able to establish myself in, or the urban fantasy novel which has a much higher chance of breaking me into a large audience? Do I trying to duplicate the level and feel of Rot to try to be consistent as a writer and build an audience by proving my work to be reliably what those readers want? Or do I do something new, something different to show my versatility and to try to capture more promising markets?

I’m not looking for answers, because there aren’t any. There’s just hedging your bets and hoping you made the right choice. but that leaves me (and many other writers) appearing to do nothing, while keeping their heads down and hoping for some forward momentum.

So if it seems that I’m quiet lately (which I won’t be probably for the rest of the week, since I have a few things saved up to blog about) this is why. And if you’re in the trenches fighting as well, good luck! And keep going.