A Dose of Validation

I wrote a 300 word pitch for Noah's Custodian to enter the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award contest last month. I've never written a pitch for a novel in my life.. not hard to believe since I've only completed one novel in my life.

Anyway, I received the incredible news today that I've made it through the first round- one of 400 entries to survive in the SciFi/Fantasy/Horror category, and now the first three chapters will be read by 'select Amazon Vine reviewers' who will provide some feedback! The top 100 move on to the quarterfinals.

Regardless of whether my novel advances, I'm thrilled to at last get some unbiased, third party, complete stranger reviews of my work. Sure, it'll only cover the first three chapters, but at least I'll have an inkling if its good enough for the readers to want more, and if not, why not. But, making this first cut provides some validation that my premise, my original idea, grabbed enough attention for some complete strangers out there to pick mine out of a pile of likely a couple thousand entries.

I've said in this space a couple of times now- authors are not the best judges of their work, nor the best editors. I told a friend today I'm only 85% happy with my book, and I'll never be 100% happy even if it finds a traditional publisher with the attendant professional editing. But a dose of outside validation does lend a certain peace of mind: yep, it's not a bad idea. Someone thinks I might really have something here.

On another front- I'm a couple of chapters away from finishing my short story The Deathcheater's Diary, which I'm planning to submit to the 'Writers of the Future' contest that runs on a quarterly as well as on an annual basis. I'm hoping to make the April 1st deadline, but that is likely pushing it. If not, I have until July 1. Ironically, if Noah's Custodian somehow is selected as an ABNA winner, I'd be disqualified from WotF. So July 1 is the drop dead date.. just in case.

Doesn't hurt to be optimistic, right?

Another No for Noah.. and some advice

I found out this week that Analog magazine has passed on publishing Noah's Custodian as a serial, which isn't surprising. The head editor himself responded to me (at least according to the signature) and simply stated that Analog rarely publishes serials and my offering wasn't quite strong enough. And, that's OK by me, since I've already published it.

Being a new Sci-Fi novelist, an interesting article caught my eye exhorting us to understand ten things, sort of a ten commandments for newbie sci-fi authors. One rule that jumped out at me- and I agree with- is that authors are the worst judges of their own work. I agree. While I may be able to fix grammar and spelling, perhaps even some structure, it is impossible to step back enough to truly judge to work from an objective point of view. I'd prefer to have someone else do it, but I can't justify the cost of paying someone to edit my work at this point, and it is incredibly difficult to get published. Kind of a catch .22. The trade off, naturally, is the inexpensiveness of books offered directly by authors- especially those that have not been professionally edited.

Check out 10 Things That Every Brand New Creator of Science Fiction Should Know.