The Persistence of Submitting

gday gentle reader

 A story I wrote way back in the last millennium (1993) under the working title Time Loop won an Honorable Mention in L Ron Hubbard's Writers of the Future contest in 4^th quarter 2021.  This is a significant in a couple of ways.

 

First of all, it means I have won and Honorable Mention in every quarter of 2021. It also makes it the 6^th Honorable Mention in a row, 7 out of the last 8. (3 out of  4 in 2020 - 4 out of 4 in 2021) This was also my 18th consecutive quarterly submission and the 12th award BUT three of the 18 are repeat submissions (reedited of course) so in fact I have only sent 15 original stories for 12 awards. 

You may be right in thinking the Covid pandemic has improved my writing/editing. For it certainly the bum's been on the seat for hours longer.

Second of all, this is at least the fourth time I've submitted the story. In the early days I didn’t keep good records of what I sent where, only how much I wrote, trying to fulfil Hemmingway's idea that the first million words are practice. Persistence is everything.

Bear with me gentle reader while I begin at the beginning, a very good place to start I'm told. In 1993 I wrote Time Loop longhand, then typed up my scribble on a portable typewriter and submitted a paper copy, except this never happened. I never submitted a single story before I had a computer able to print a perfect copy, that’s not to say to a perfect story, but a perfect copy of whatever story I had written.

My first 1980 computer, a TRS-80 Model-1, even after expansion from cassette tape storage to 5 ¼ floppy discs couldn’t cope. It wasn’t until 1996 when I opened "Books with Connections" an internet café bookshop in Blackwood with 2 computers I had built to my specification, that I felt it at last worthwhile transcribing Time Loop and my full-filing-cabinet's worth of handwritten stories.

Now let's cut back to the chase. Some current members of the Blackwood Writers Group, (formed in the bookshop that same year, 1996), with long memories will know the story. It was workshopped under the title, The Persistence of Memory. I sent the workshopped story to Eidolon and Altair, probably in 2000, but didn't make the cut.

After my first success submitting to WotF in 2017, I reworked Persistence (it's short title) changing the protagonist source of overnight wealth from shares to crypto currency and sent it to WotF for the 2nd Qtr. 2018. It didn’t rate a mention, honourable or otherwise.

Once more into the breech. The contest coordinator had once suggested previously submitted could be resubmitted. The first time I tried this produced an Honorable Mention and so I did it again with Persistence now retitled Days of Future Passed (from a Dali painting to a Moody Blues album) for the 4th Qtr. 2021 and you know the result, another Honorable Mention.

It sort of validates Robert A. Heinlein’s Rule 5. "You must keep the work on the market until it's sold." (Or wins something)

Ooroo until my next post.  I hope you had a Merry Christmas and lets all hope 2022 is a better new year

 

Rob

PS One may think that because all my posts are about the WotF contest, I don't do anything else. you'd be wrong. but that's another story.   

The story is out there.

gday gentle reader 

I've been experiment with Twitter and story telling but except for the briefest flash fictions, the medium sucks. My much published (online an in print by Antipodean SF) 500 word story "Trojans" took 12 post and had to be massaged, not just to fit, but for each tweet to end on a cliff-hanger so readers would return.

In my considered opinion nobody, not even my 5 Followers, read it. So now I tweet links to stories.

I'm preparing an anthology, titled Colony Worlds, (a theme I like) all Honorable (USA spelling as per certificate) Mentions I've received from my submissions to  

L. Ron Hubbard's
Writers of the Future Contest

I'll begin with the first 2 chapters of The Descent of the Kestrel now up on my website https://www.rob.bleckly.com, with more chapters and further stories to come. Why 2 Chapters? It's told from two alternating POV's (points of view). Constructive Criticism is always welcome, no story is ever so finished it can't be improved.

 The Descent of the Kestrel 

9,300 words written 2011 won me an HM in the 3rd quarter 2017 exactly 20 years after my first HM in the 3rd quarter 1997.

In between I wrote the oft mentioned still unpublished 600,000-word trilogy which obviously improved my skills because 20 years on the competition quality is a lot stiffer, the award categories expanded, and an HM is no longer a finalist.

The story is a prequel, the first of five set in my trilogy world "The Restoration Legends."

Doing this now was promoted by my latest HM, the fourth in a row, which means my Silver Honorable Mention and the Semi-Finalist can be left out of the anthology. As posted earlier these two form the opening and concluding parts of a Novel (yet another colony world) It's the sagging middle part that needs work.

until my next post (might post about why I like writing colony worlds)

ooroo Rob

A Fascination with Numbers

 

gday gentle reader,  

Me and WotF

On further analysis (see my previous post) of my eight (8) award-winning stories over 4 years of consecutive submissions to L. Ron Hubbard's Writers of the Future Contest, I  have yet to get a mention in the second Quarter that runs from January 1 to March 31.

As Spok would say: Fascinating. Is it that I slack off during our southern hemisphere Summer, or does the northern hemisphere Winter put more northern hemisphere bums on writing seats for longer periods? I shall turn up the aircon and try harder this quarter.

Word Counts

And one more fascinating thing about my most recent Silver Honourable Mention The Starbuck Chronicles, but let me digress a moment.  

Back in 1999 I won 2^nd prize in the 1st Aurealis Millennium competition for a story that was and had to be exactly 1000 words not including the title. But wait there's more, most of my early submissions to Antipodean SF, under the mistaken impressions that Ion wanted no more than 500 words, were close to and often exactly 500 words. By now you're starting to get the picture. 

The Starbuck Chronicles,  

my Silver Honourable Mention has exactly 750 words (not including Chapter# and title) in each of its 17 chapters. 

 I am now left to wonder if unbeknown to the judges, the pattern (the rhythm if you will) of the chapters, played part in the win.  Did it lift it up to Silver H M or lower its chances of attaining higher or did it not make a scrap of difference. Nevertheless, I enjoyed the challenge of making a longer story hold together despite the self-imposed artificial strictures.    

 ooroo Rob