Tags
Absolute Write, Absolute Write Anthology, AW, MacAllister Stone, productivity, Publication, Roleplaying games, Waypoint LRP
So, the topic of this months blog chain for the AW forum is Second chances. I had to have a bit of a think about this topic as I actually could not think of an occasion where I could honestly say I remembered my being given a second chance. I am sure there were actually lots of occasions but my memory was not presenting them to me in an easy to access way. I suppose I could have talked about how I realised that I had actually met my wife several years before meeting her ‘for the first time’ but that seems a little too personal for a writing blog and, besides, I am not sure it quite fits the topic as intended. So, I was a little stuck…
Then it occured to me that this is the AW blog chain and late last year the AW moderators announced an anthology for members to submit to and I remembered that I had a second chance right there in that process.
First, some history…
Macallister Stone, the overall owner and moderator of Absolute Write announced a call for submissions for a speculative fiction anthology by members of the AW Forums. This thread became one of the longest forum posts in history* and currently stands at 3244 posts. I talk about it in an earlier post Mistress of Suspense. Flush with recent success in publishing (i.e. one short story published…)I decided to risk my luck against the no doubt thousands of really very good writers and see if I couldn’t get a story into that anthology. So, I tidied up Dances with Drums, a story set in a world I created for the LRP game Waypoint. It was SF(ish) and I was rather proud of it, though it had yet to be picked up. I sent this off and hoped for the best.
It got rejected.
But there were some rather nice comments given, including one which said that the world building was interesting and very well done. I had some problems with trying to give too much information in one sentence, however…
Given that the deadline was still far away and the rules allowed for this, I decided to throw another hat into the ring and sent off An Element of Desire, my contemporary fantasy which had also not yet found a home.
This, my second chance, fared somewhat better. I got a response saying that they really, really liked this and that it was being put forward to the ‘second round’. At this point, it basically came down to what space there was available for the stories to fit in the anthology. I was tentatively optimistic…
At this point MacAllister showed the world how she was a Mistress of Suspense (see the thread and my post for the full story) as she kept us all on tenterhooks for ages while, slowly, the second rounders were whittled down to a list that fitted into a normal sized anthology.
I didn’t make the final cut. Sometimes second chances don’t come out either. However, this showed me that there was a market for the things that I write. All I need to do is polish it up – tidy up some issues with grammar, for example. The one sale was not just a random fluke. Both stories went out to beta readers as soon as they were rejected and I am in the middle of revising them both for submission to other markets sometime in the near future. In the meantime, I am writing other things…
If you want to read the final anthology, it is now available for you to buy from a number of locations, all of which are linked from this url:
http://absolutewrite.com/absolute-visions/
When you buy it and read it, remember that these were the stories which beat my exceptional efforts. Therefore, they must be absolutely phenomenal…
*Well the longest I have ever seen…
If you want to follow and comment on the other posters in this blog chain, feel free to click the links below…
Turndog-Millionaire – http://turndog-millionaire.com/ (link to this month’s post)
orion_mk3 – http://nonexistentbooks.wordpress.com (link to this month’s post)
Ralph Pines – http://ralfast.wordpress.com/ (link to this month’s post)
magicmint – http://www.loneswing.com/ (link to this month’s post)
Tomspy77 – http://thomaswillamspychalski.wordpress.com/ (link to this month’s post)
LilGreenBookworm – http://themayhemofwritingsahm-style.blogspot.com/ (link to this month’s post)
LiterateParakeet – http://lesliesillusions.blogspot.com/ (link to this month’s post)
AFord – http://af12.webs.com/ (link to this month’s post)
writingismypassion – http://charityfaye.blogspot.com/ (link to this month’s post)
SuzanneSeese – http://www.viewofsue.blogspot.com/ (link to this month’s post)
Bogna – http://bemaslanka.wordpress.com/ (link to this month’s post)
kiwiviktor81 – http://storygenerator.net/ (link to this month’s post)
randi.lee – http://emotionalnovel.blogspot.com/ (link to this month’s post)
These Mean Streets – http://ohno-anotherwritingblog.blogspot.com/ (link to this month’s post)
areteus – https://lurkingmusings.wordpress.com/ (link to this month’s post)
Domoviye – http://living-working-in-china.blogspot.com/ (link to this month’s post)
pyrosama – http://matrix-hole.blogspot.com/ (link to this month’s post)
julzperri – http://www.fishandfrivolity.blogspot.com/ (link to this month’s post)
Nissie – http://www.paperheroes.net/ (link to this month’s post)
in_one – http://quirkythomas.blogspot.com/ (link to this month’s post)
sambgood – http://www.samanthabagood.com/ (link to this month’s post)
Lurking Musings 
Oh my goodness! I submitted three shorts for the anthology. They liked my third submission, but it too did not make the final cut. Still, I know how you feel. It’s a validation of sorts to have someone read your work and accept it on some level, even if it doesn’t make it into print. 🙂
It’s a great experience. Thanks for sharing this. Another AW member who also made a cut!
There were a lot of entries sent in and it was actually good to even get through the first cut so I am quite happy to have got that far. Plus, the help I got has improved my writing overall.
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Ooh, congratulations, especially with getting that far! I know they’re always tough to try to get into, but from what little experience I’d had there it’s a learning experience all the same!
Yeah, it is actually good to get rejection with feedback because it tells you where you went wrong… that means you can put it right.
I am hoping that they plan to do another anthology this year but I think the stress was too much 🙂
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Hey, I remember the SpecFic anthology! I submitted too and even made it to Round 2, but they wound up going with a theme that my sci-fi piece just didn’t fit into. But wasn’t getting as far as you did such a rush? I hope you find a good home for your pieces!