Writing links: travel writing contest and getting published with academic presses

It's Monday and I'm in my usual post-book slump, having finished Ride Around Missouri: Shelby's Great Raid 1863. It's my latest American Civil War book for Osprey Publishing and as you can see from the link it's already available for preorder and at least one fine person has already preordered it! I've discussed here before why readers preorder books. It's a sign of loyalty and interest, and I'm glad they show that!

Enough blather about this Midlist Author. I promised some writing links. Transitions Abroad is running a travel writing contest that's well worth a look if you are a student writing about travel. You can win up to $500 plus publication!

The other link comes from fellow writer Dianna Graveman, who recently attended a panel on getting published by the academic press. She gave a link to a post by Beth Mead, Lindenwood University's MFA Program Director took notes on the publishers' panel that are well worth a read for anyone writing literary fiction and thinking of submitting to an academic press.

My thoughts on my page 99

As I mentioned in my post on What the Blogger Stats Page tells You about your Blog, I like to check out the data relating to Midlist Writer. In my last post I presented page 99 of my novel and asked for input. More than fifty of you read the thing but only one person left a comment. That just goes to show how many lurkers there are on the average blog! I'd really be curious to know what my readers in Colombia and Latvia think of my writing.

Anyway, thanks for the input, Sioux.

This scene shows our young band of Confederate bushwhackers riding through the woods of mid-Missouri after killing a Unionist civilian. They had never killed a civilian before but did it because they were told he was a spy who had gotten a local secessionist hanged. There's more to this, of course, and the ramifications of their actions power the rest of the novel. It's interesting that this page shows Jimmy, one of the two protagonists besides Union Captain Richard Addison, in an entirely passive role. He's usually in charge of the bushwhacker gang but he's so stunned at what they've done that he's momentarily given up trying. He will be given another chance to step back and wash his hands later in the book, and his choice will determine the ending.

So is this a good page? Well, it does have tension, and gives a bit of insight into some of the characters, but I'm not entirely happy with the Southern dialect. That's a tricky thing to get right, especially the Missouri dialect. Plus I have to put it back into the 1860s. It's something I'm still working on.

So. . .if any of you lurkers out there want to post page 99 of your novel on your blog, feel free to put the link in my comments section. I'll be sure to read it and give my two cents' worth.

The Page 99 Test

Ford Madox Ford suggested that if you want to know how good a book is, you should "open the book to page ninety-nine and the quality of the whole will be revealed to you."

A new website plans to let aspiring and published authors upload page 99 of their work for public scrutiny. The Page 99 Test isn't running yet, so I've decided to jump the gun and post page 99 of my Civil War horror novel A Fine Likeness here to see how it stands up. Regular readers of this blog will know that this novel made it to the finals of Dorchester and ChiZine's Fresh Blood contest before losing. Oddly enough, five months on, the novel's fan page is still attracting hits. The manuscript currently squats malevolently in ChiZine's submissions pile.

So here's page 99. Let me know what you think. I'll post my own thoughts in my next post.

“This the right way?” Hugh asked.

“’Course it’s the right way,” Morgan said. “You think I don’t know where I’m going?”

“Don’t seem the right way,” Hugh said.

“It ain’t,” Elijah replied.

“Shut your mouth,” Morgan said, looking around at the woods uncertainly. “What’s that old devil thinking making us come all the way out here for anyways? Why didn’t we meet back at his cabin?”

“Probably afraid we’d get followed,” the Kid said.

“Damn it, we should have made that road by now. He said head north five miles and we’d hit it,” Morgan grumbled.

“We would have if we’d gone north,” Elijah said.

“Course we’ve been going north!” Morgan shouted. “We’ve been going north the entire time, haven’t we Jimmy?”

Jimmy didn’t reply, looking down at the ground as the Kid led his horse.

“Don’t ask him nothing,” Elijah said. “He’s been told his end and that’s a hard thing to take. And we ain’t been going north the whole time. When we took off from the Schmidt place, remember how we cut along that streambed? That made us move east a ways before we straightened out. We’ve passed the road.”

Morgan frowned at him, not wanting to believe, but he knew as well as the rest of them that Elijah never got lost in the woods.

“Jimmy, what do you think?” Morgan asked, bringing his horse alongside him.

“I don’t know what to believe,” Jimmy said.

Learning from losing

Aw crap.

I just heard from one of the judges at the Fresh Blood Contest that my Civil War novel didn't make the cut this round. I lost by five votes!

The contest has been an interesting ride, and while I'm bummed about losing I did learn a lot and am proud not only to have made the top ten finalists, but to have made it to top five before the public votes favored the other books.

When the voting was up to the judges, what mattered was my writing and I did fine. But the later rounds are by public vote, and it is essentially about how well you market yourself. I started a fanpage on Facebook and hit up people for votes on various newsgroups on Facebook and Yahoo. I also promoted it on my Twitter account.

The problem was, I went on assignment to Ethiopia and Somaliland for two months just when I needed to raise my public profile. With all of Ethiopia still on dialup, I was at a major disadvantage, and learned firsthand about one of the troubles facing writers in developing countries. But of course that was only part of the problem. I'm sure there was more I could have done to promote my book in the early stages when I was in Europe. Should I have been a bit pushier? Joined more newsgroups? Started a MySpace page? There are probably several things I'm not even thinking of here. Feel free to share them in the comments section because they may come in handy one day.

I believe A Fine Likeness will get published, and that it deserves to be published. It's a good story based on detailed historical research, and is now being peddled by an author who is a little wiser about the need for self-marketing.

Thanks to everyone who voted, especially those friends who bugged their own friends to vote, and to those who only know me through the Internet but had faith in my writing. I'm extremely grateful and proud to know you. If you're still interested in the contest even though I'm out of it, I suggest you vote for Heart of the City by Lisa A. Koosis. From a writer's point of view I think it's the finest submission (besides mine, ahem) and the one I was most worried about. I'll be voting for it now that I'm not voting for myself.

The image is by Alexander Gardner of a dead Confederate sniper at Gettysburg, courtesy of the Library of Congress. Yeah, it's probably disrespectful to this poor bastard to be using this, but it's topical and reflects how I feel.

Still in the running for a publishing contract

My Missouri Civil War horror novel A Fine Likeness is still in the running for a publishing contract. It's a finalist in Dorchester Publishing's Fresh Blood Contest. After making it through the slush pile, I and the other eight finalists had our first chapters analyzed by the judges. Only five made it over that hurdle, and now it's up to the public to decide.

For this round the public is judging cover copy, often called the back cover blurb. The judges were pretty positive with mine, although they made some fair criticisms. Drop on by the contest website and check it out. If you like my stuff you can vote by sending an email to freshblood (at) chizinepub (dot) com with the subject line "Fresh Blood Vote: A Fine Likeness by Sean McLachlan". You should get a confirmation that you voted. Voting ends this Wednesday, April 14.

I've put a lot of work and research into this novel, which inserts supernatural horror into real history. Jesse James even gets a bit part. I'd love to see it get into print!

You can also check out the book's fanpage here.

Why writers should go to conventions, even when they don't want to

A few days ago a writer friend invited me to Odyssey 2010, also known as Eastercon, an annual fantasy/science fiction/horror convention here in England.

At first I didn't want to go. It was 25 pounds for the day, I didn't know anyone, and it was more of a fan con than a pro con, unlike others I've attended such as the World Fantasy Convention or the London Book Fair. Plus I'd just arrived in Oxford, my favorite town, and wanted to enjoy it.

My wife convinced me to go and I'm glad she did.

After a short drive to a Heathrow airport hotel (convenient for out-of-towners, soulless for everyone else) my friend and I split up and we wandered around the convention. There weren't any panels I wanted to see until the afternoon so I headed to the dealers room. If I wasn't going to make any professional connections I would at least have fun stuffing my bag with books! I got a decent haul. Prices were lower than at previous cons I've been too. I'm not sure if this was luck or the financial crisis, but there was lots of vintage stuff on sale cheap. Even the new books were discounted.

I also made some unexpected professional connections. I met a medieval researcher who knows some specialists in medieval firearms, the subject of my upcoming book and perhaps a future one. I also met the owner of Atomic Fez Publishing, a new Canadian small press, who I'll be interviewing in an upcoming post, and lots of pleasant fans besides.

Most importantly I met Brett and Sandra, co-owners of ChiZine Publications, two judges in the Fresh Blood Contest. My book is a finalist in that contest so it was interesting to meet them. They invited me to a party that evening, and of course I accepted. My ride was leaving before then but a lifetime of Third World travel made me unconcerned with such trivialities.

Continuing to wander, I attended a hilarious and informative speech by Dr. Ben Goldacre on Bad Science and bumped into a Swedish friend who I didn't know would be there. We then started sampling Rosie's Scrumpy Cider (7.3% ABV) and buying more books. I made it to a panel on swordplay (another future post), drank more cider, and managed to stay sober enough to be presentable at the ChiZine party.

Publisher parties at conventions are an interesting mix of aspiring writers, published-but-unknown writers, famous writers, editors, artists, and the occasional why-the-hell-are-you-here oddity. Besides meeting two famous names (including one who gave me a ride to Oxford, I told you it would be no trouble), a photographer for the Romanian edition of Penthouse, and various Goths, I got to chat more with Brett and Sandra. While getting to know them better will have no effect on my chances of winning the contest, that's up to you, I did learn that they're smart, fun folks who love what they do. I could work well with these people. So even if I lose, they're getting a manuscript from me.

All in all, I had a great time, bought some books, got material for future blog posts, drank some good cider and mediocre wine, saw old friends, and made professional contacts. So if you're thinking of not going to that next convention, rethink. They're almost always worth your time.

I just wish that the next day when I was playing with my son in the park my wife didn't notice a postcard sticking out of my back pocket and say, "What's that!"

It was a sample from the Romanian edition of Penthouse.

Voting has started in the Fresh Blood contest

Well, it's finally started. I and the other eight finalists in Dorchester Publishing's Fresh Blood Contest had our first chapters analyzed by the judges and now public voting has begun. My Missouri Civil War horror novel A Fine Likeness got off without too many slings and arrows. The chapters, judges' comments, and voting information are up on ChiZine's website.

You know, I wasn't nervous about this contest at all, even though a publishing contract is the grand prize. Perhaps organizing my trip to Ethiopia kept my mind off it, but now that voting has started I'm getting a wee bit obsessed.

You can vote by sending an email to freshblood (at) chizinepub (dot) com with the subject line "Fresh Blood Vote: A Fine Likeness by Sean McLachlan". You can insert a different title and author, of course. If you do, feel free not to tell me about it. :-P

You can also check out the book's fanpage here.

I'm a prize-winning poet (NOT!)

A friend who used to revel in the easy living of Madrid recently returned to the high-powered grind of Dubai. It's her fault I got into blogging, and therefore it's her fault you're reading this, so blame her. Anyway, she had a competition on her blog to win a copy of Super Freakonomics: Global Cooling, Patriotic Prostitutes, And Why Suicide Bombers Should Buy Life Insurance. All we had to do was give a reason why we wanted the book and the two best entries would get copies. I sent this limerick:

A friend of mine lives in Dubai
(for reasons I’m not sure why)
she has a neat book
I’d sure like to look
at flag-waving hookers, oh my!

OK, that's pretty crappy, but as a limerick on a friend's personal blog you can't expect much more, and hey, I won!

So now I can honestly say I'm a prize-winning poet, but I won't. The reason I won't is that waaaaay too many struggling writers make fake or wildly exaggerated claims about their success, like using the meaningless title "Pulitzer Prize Nominee" or boasting of all their self-published publications. I've ranted about this before in greater detail. It seems some writers will grasp at any straw in an attempt to make themselves look good.

They should save their energy. Pros (like editors and agents) can see right through it. It's not like me bragging about being a "prize-winning poet" will lead to a career in poetry, now will it?

Photo courtesy Duncharris via Wikimedia Commons.

My novel is a finalist in Dorchester's "Fresh Blood" contest!

December is turning out to be a good month. Not only did a short story of mine get published, but my horror novel, A Fine Likeness, is one of ten finalists in Dorchester Publishing's "Fresh Blood" contest. Grand prize: publication in mass market paperback and limited edition hardcover. Sweet!

I knocked out a pile of other entries, now I have to knock out these other folks. There will be several rounds over the coming months on Dorchester's website where we put up plot summaries, first chapters, etc. Each month the person who gets the least votes from the public gets eliminated until only the "Fresh Blood" is left standing. Talk about extended stress!

My novel is set during three weeks of the Civil War in Missouri, and other than the main characters and various paranormal events, most of the events and people are real. Here's the back cover blurb.

A Confederate guerrilla and a Union captain discover there’s something more dangerous in the woods than each other.

A Fine Likeness is a tale of two enemies struggling with inner demons, and discovering they face a far more tangible one. Jimmy Rawlins is a teen-aged bushwhacker who leads his friends on ambushes of Union patrols. They join forces with infamous guerrilla leader Bloody Bill Anderson on a raid through Missouri in support of a Confederate invasion, but Jimmy questions his commitment to the Southern Cause when he discovers this madman plans to sacrifice a Union prisoner in a hellish ritual to raise the Confederate dead.

Richard Addison is an aging captain of a lackluster Union militia. Depressed over his son’s death in battle, a glimpse of Jimmy changes his life. Jimmy and his son look so much alike that Addison becomes obsessed with saving him from Bloody Bill’s clutches. Addison must wreck his reputation to win this war within a war, while Jimmy must betray the Confederacy and his friends to stop the evil arising in the woods of Missouri.

New Year's Resolutions: Ten Months On

At the beginning of the year I posted my New Year’s writing resolutions in order to pressure myself to keep on track. Let's see how I did in September and October. Yeah, I skipped a month. I was busy going from Oxford to Missouri to London to Madrid, researching and writing as I went.

Write 7,000 words per week minimum, 10,000 preferred.
I've been keeping up the word count, helped by my job at Gadling. I've written more than 60,000 words for them, enough for a short book. My nonfiction books keep me busy too.


Get through that huge list of magazine article ideas I'm going to pitch. As I send them out, the list will be added to, so this is a perpetual goal. Same goes for several book proposals I have.
I haven't sent out any new pitches for two months, being too busy with other stuff. I really should send out more though.

Search for another paid blogging job.

This is no longer a goal now that I'm blogging for Gadling, but I have been casually looking for a second blogging gig. Nothing has come up. I already blog about travel, so I want something in a different subject like history or archaeology. Unfortunately nothing along those lines have come up. Most blogs want someone to blog about tech or pop culture or other things I have no interest in.

Finish a how-to book on writing that a publisher is interested in.
This project has been put on the back burner since I'm in crunch time for one of my Osprey military history books.


Try to get an agent for my fiction and nonfiction.
Working on it. Still no luck.


Do another round of edits on all three of my novels.
I've already done this. I also wrote a summary for my Civil War novel, which I submitted to a contest.


Write my next novel, set in London and Oxford.
I did some writing these past two months, although not nearly as much as I like. I've been struggling with this one and having a lot of nonfiction work doesn't help. I'm still only a quarter of the way through the first draft, about 22,000 words.


Finish two short stories and two novellas I've been fiddling with.
Fiddled a bit with one of the short stories and both novellas, but haven't made too much progress.


Write and send out "Willoughby: England's First Great Explorer", a book proposal I was supposed to write last year (whoops!).
Still haven't done anything with this proposal.


Increase my online presence.
I've been slacking off on my personal blogs, as you can see, but my work with Gadling is gaining ground. Several of my posts have made it to the front page of AOL, which gets me lots of hits and tweets. One of my stories got more than 400 diggs and 200,000 hits last week! that made me feel good.

All in all, a decent two months. the main focus has been blogging for Gadling and research and writing for Osprey. Since these two markets pay and pay on time I really shouldn't complain, but my fiction has taken a beating. I'm gearing up to do some serious work on that front once I get past my deadline with Osprey on Dec 15. The new year is always a good time to start a new novel.

Book Review: Writing to Win

“Award-winning writer.”

What writer doesn’t want that attached to their name? We all dream of winning some grand contests, and even experienced writers will often enter one or more contests a year.

But with the multitude of contests out there, where does one start their search? Moira Allen of Writing World has an answer with her book Writing to Win: The Colossal Guide to Writing Contests. Weighing in at 350 pages, this book provides hundreds of contests for every style and level of writing imaginable, from short story competitions for unpublished science fiction writers to literary awards for experienced novelists. Screenplays, poetry, flash fiction, and just about anything else is covered too. Romance writers will like the extensive list of RWA-sponsored contests. Apparently a lot of people win at love! Prizes range from miniscule to staggering, and sometimes include a publishing deal to sweeten the pot. Nor does Moira limit herself to only North American contests. While they make up the bulk of the listings, there are contests from Europe too.

The book starts out with a helpful essay on how to enter contests, picking what contest is best for you, and how to spot scams. She certainly doesn’t pull any punches with the notorious Poetry.com! She also gives another word of warning—contests come and go with frightening rapidity. Despite this being the 2009 edition, two contests I checked out—SpecFicWorld’s Annual Speculative Fiction Contest and the Aeon Award—have both been cancelled or have gone on hiatus. No book of lists stays current for long. (Which is why you should get the online edition of Writers Market and not the book) but Moira thankfully gives an extensive list of contest websites that will keep you up to speed.

But don’t think those websites mean this book is superfluous. The advice at the beginning is alone worth the price of entry, and the listings are user friendly and browseable, allowing the reader to discover contests they might not find if they were actively searching for what they thought they wanted.

Writing to Win: The Colossal Guide to Writing Contests is available here. Moira has several other books available through her Writing World store and Lulu store that are worth checking out. I've already reveiwed an interesting book on medieval warfare.

Midlist Writer Wins Premio Dardos Award

Donna over at Donna's Book Pub has awarded me the Premio Dardos Award. "Premio Dardos" means "prize darts" in Italian, and the award is given in recognition of cultural, ethical, literary, and personal values transmitted in the form of creative and original writing. In the lonely business of writing, it's always nice to be appreciated. :-)

By accepting the award, I must follow two rules:

1) Post it on my blog along with the name of the person who granted the award and a link to his/her blog.

2) Pass the award along to blogs I find worthy of this acknowledgment and contact each of them to let them know they've been selected.

Thanks Donna! I'm going to think about my candidate(s) over the weekend and announce the awards Monday.

More Writing Goals for 2009

Speculative fiction writer LaShawn M. Wanak contacted me about her writing goals for 2009. She looks like she's going to have a pretty full plate, including paring down a long novel and writing a short story every week. Ouch. If I was more of a short story writer than a novelist, I'd probably try that, but novels are what I prefer to read and write. I guess she'll be spending 2010 sending out 52 stories!

She's got last year's goals and accomplishments listed too, including gettting Honorable Mention in the Writers of the Future contest. Great job!

Her blog has lots of interesting rants, news, and reviews. Go check it out.

Writer's Digest Best Website Award

Writer's Digest recently announced the winner of their 2008 Best Writer's Website Contest. The winner was Claudia Luiz, and I think her site looks very professional. It's artsy without being busy, well laid out, easy to navigate, and has lots of content without being overwhelming. I'm not sure it's the best writer's website out there, since I've seen plenty that were as good as this, but it's certainly better than my own, which I really need to update and reorganize. I'll get right on that. Really. Just as soon as I have a good chunk of spare time from writing. Whenever that happens.

Weird Book Titles

One of my favorite literary awards comes from The Bookseller. Every year they give an award to the book with the strangest title. Last year it was the relationship advice book If You Want Closure in Your Relationship, Start With Your Legs. Other faves are Reusing Old Graves and How to Avoid Huge Ships. Now writer Tim Sanders has penned a summary of the all-time winner Rural Greek Postmen and Their Cancellation Numbers.

I wonder if this helps their sales?

National Novel Writing Month and other Endurance Contests

In a comment on my "Thousand Words Before Email" posting, Bob mentioned he participated in National Novel Writing Month. NaNoWriMo, as it's affectionately but rather awkwardly referred to by participants, is a challenge to write a 50,000 word novel in the month of November. That's about 175 pages.

Ouch! Yes, it's a lot of work, but with dedication it can be done. There are 30 days in November, so it comes out to only 1,667 words a day. That's not to hard to do, most weary midlisters like myself do that, but doing that every day is a bit brutal. You better have your novel outlined before November 1 or you'll be in trouble!

Of course, the first draft you get from this typing marathon will be pretty shoddy, but that's not a bad thing. Like many writers, I find the first draft far more difficult to produce than later edits, so a time crunch can really help. I've never tried NaNoWriMo, but I did participate in the 3-Day Novel Contest a few years ago. That's a contest where you have to write a novel over Labor Day Weekend. First prize is publication, and an automatic prize is knowing you can do it.

Did I win? No, but I finished. I wrote a 25,758 word mystery set in McMurdo Station, Antarctica. Yes, that's technically a novella, but I wrote that sucker in three days so I get to call it a novel if I want to. Looking back on it now I can see why I didn't win. While it succeeded as a story, it failed as a mystery. If you caught one clue early on you automatically knew who the murderer was, and if you didn't, you were out of luck. But hey, I didn't know I had to be good, I thought I just had to be coherent!

I certainly wasn't coherent at the end of it. Almudena, who was pregnant at the time, showed herself to be a true writer's wife and moved in with her mother for the entire time so I could go crazy all by myself.

A few things helped me through. First, I got a leg up on the deadline by starting at the stroke of midnight. I had a detailed outline in my head (which is within the rules, you just can't have anything written down) and I wrote furiously for a couple of hours, pounding out the first chapter and starting the second. Then I went to bed. When I woke up, I started again. I did nothing but write until the deadline 72 hours later. I did sleep about six hours a night, because serious sleep deprivation kills my productivity, but I did nothing else. Oh, I drank a bit. OK, more than a bit.

Even though the mystery aspect of the story failed, I must say the novel held up pretty well considering the circumstances. I allowed myself three hours before deadline to edit, and managed to smooth over some of the more ragged prose. I also caught my main character's name changing about halfway through the book! Yeah, these things happen when you're rushed. It explains a lot about journalism, but that's another story.

If you haven't tried one of these contests, I highly recommend them. It proves to yourself that you can hit that word count, that you can actually finish a novel in a short amount of time. Deadlines don't seem so scary afterward. I haven't done it again, because I got what I wanted out of it the first time, but it was a weekend well spent.

And that novel? I haven't revised it yet. I got distracted writing a couple of other novels that I'm now shopping around. One day I'll dust off that mystery and rework it. It's a draft just waiting to be revised, and it's always good to have a couple of those in your files for the times when you're not sure what to write next.