{"id":1231,"date":"2019-05-21T11:37:43","date_gmt":"2019-05-21T15:37:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/victoriafeistner.com\/?p=1231"},"modified":"2019-05-21T19:18:03","modified_gmt":"2019-05-21T23:18:03","slug":"so-how-goes-trying-to-get-published-victoria-set-backs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/victoriafeistner.com\/blog\/2019\/05\/21\/so-how-goes-trying-to-get-published-victoria-set-backs\/","title":{"rendered":"So How Goes Trying To Get Published, Victoria: Set-backs"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\u201cThe best laid schemes o’ mice an’ men
Gang aft a-gley.\u201d<\/p>Robert Burns, “To A Mouse”<\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

In March 2019 I shared happy news<\/a>: I had an editor for The Curve of the Corridor<\/em>, aka Space Crazies. As I noted at the time: “No set deadline yet. I\u2019m setting aside the summer to incorporate her edits and hope to have the manuscript ready for queries in time for #PitMad in September”. You’ll note that there was no set deadline and yet I needed enough time to both do the edits, send it for critique, and have it ready for PitMad in September. Both of those things couldn’t be true.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Truth was, we had <\/em>talked about deadlines. Back in January, when the editor-in-question and I first started talking about Curve<\/em>, I shared my biggest worry: that it would take months of waiting on my end and no work would get done. The novel has a lot of moving parts, a lot of POV characters, three different timelines. Possibly four. It’s complicated–too complicated for me–and I was worried that it might be too tricky for a novice editor just starting her freelance career. It had already languished for six months in a beta-reading limbo, accomplishing nothing, and I did not want that to happen again. I wanted firm-footing, even if that meant proceeding slowly, and the editor-in-question agreed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I could give you a detailed timeline of what happened next, but as I started to type it out it only served to make me angry all over again, so, suffice it to say: it was a garbage winter, everyone was having problems, I was knee-deep in the creative swamp that was Fletcher & Cooper<\/em>. When deadlines needed to be pushed back here and there I was amenable. A two-week reading period turned into two months. Two months to do the full developmental edits turned into four.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The finished edit was supposed to come back to me April 30th. That due date was extended one last time to May 15th.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\n\n\n

No plan survives contact with the enemy, goes the saying, but I’d take it a step further: no plan survives contact with reality<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That being said, certain things invariably pin down others. Schedules often need a foundation, a starting point. For me it was a work-back deadline: I needed Space Crazies back in May so that I could take the rest of May plus June and July to edit feverishly (possibly sponsored by RedBull or Monster). I gave myself August to send to critique partners (whom I was already lining up). While waiting for their feedback I would work on the query package. Being ready for September’s #PitMad seemed hard, but achievable.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\n\n\n

So when the email I was expected on May 15th came in, revealing itself to be an apology letter–not only was the work not done<\/strong> but she was dropping me as a client<\/em> because she’d overstretched herself–that entire schedule dissipated into a cloud of red vapour.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It took me two days to calm down enough to reply.<\/em> I can honestly say I haven’t been that angry in a very, very long time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Exactly what I was worried about back in January: six months of waiting coming to nothing. There had been numerous chances during check-ins to tell me that it wasn’t working, that I should make a back-up plan, but instead I got updates and gushing and assurances that everything was clicking along the tracks just fine.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\n\n\n

So here I am in the third week of May with a now-useless summer schedule. I still need to find a new editor–preferably an experienced one with references I can check–but even if I had managed to contact one on That Wednesday, it would be months before I’d get Space Crazies<\/em> back, and more months after that to do the work suggested. If I am lucky, I might make December’s #PitMad. That’s a year and a half after I finished my own edits of the manuscript.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Without Space Crazies<\/em> to submit, my submission goal of 200 subs by the end of 2019 relies on assorted short fiction (currently I only have 4 pieces worth sending out) and queries for Blackout Odyssey<\/em>. And BOO, unfortunately, is looking pretty bleak. (But that’s a post for another week.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I’d gone to sleep on the Tuesday with a solid schedule, a working plan, and woken up on Wednesday to disarray, and I am still trying to figure my way out. Here we are. Where is here? Not sure yet.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I don’t have an ending. There is no conclusion. This post is adrift as I feel.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hopefully I’ll have better news next week.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I went to sleep on the Tuesday with a solid schedule, a working plan, and woke up on Wednesday to disarray<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":200,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,8,68],"tags":[90,83],"class_list":["post-1231","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blog","category-productivity","category-so-how-goes","tag-editing","tag-space-crazies"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/victoriafeistner.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1231","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/victoriafeistner.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/victoriafeistner.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victoriafeistner.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victoriafeistner.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1231"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/victoriafeistner.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1231\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1234,"href":"https:\/\/victoriafeistner.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1231\/revisions\/1234"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victoriafeistner.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/200"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/victoriafeistner.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1231"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victoriafeistner.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1231"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victoriafeistner.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1231"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}