Concerning new year’s resolutions
New Year’s is my favorite holiday. I love goals and lists and spreadsheets and numbers, and I love seeing what I can do if I keep practicing. Every year, I set 3–5 resolutions, and usually at least one of them is related to writing.
This year, that one went well.
The best resolutions are typed furiously into one’s phone notes while avoiding sleep.
This looks like an outcome-based goal—and not even a particularly measurable one—but there’s a process goal embedded within it. I knew this goal would require writing more than one story. I also knew that, to find out whether my stories were anything like “excellent,” I would have to subject them to the scrutiny of people who judge such things.
2024, by the numbers:
New stories completed: 24
Submissions to contests and magazines: 112
Rejections (so far): 59
In pursuit of my resolution, I wrote, and I learned, and I put myself out there, and I received a great deal of polite rejection notes. Like many short story writers, I track and celebrate rejections, but every single one of them does sting.
But . . . I also won two short story contests with substantial prizes: NYC Midnight and Writing Battle. I’m proud of these successes. I love fiction, and I’ve been writing fiction all my life, and I’ve never received public acknowledgement for it before.
So why now?
It was in no way obvious to me why I had this result. Why this year, after a couple decades of writing? Why those two particular stories, when so many others got tossed directly in the round file?
My favorite story that I wrote this year still sits unpublished on my hard drive, having been sent off to twelve contests or magazines and counting, with its greatest accomplishment being an oh-so-slightly personalized rejection note from Apex Magazine.
I will be living off those nine extra words after “Unfortunately” for the foreseeable future.
The people who judge contests and run magazines like some of my words (which is wonderful), but they don’t like most of them. Not even the ones I think are best. Worst of all, I don’t know why, which means I don’t know why I succeeded at my resolution.
More facts and figures:
Total words written, across all projects: 285,065
Average words per day: 781
I think that’s a lot of words? Some of my writer friends tell me that is a lot of words. Still, it’s fewer than I wrote while focusing on novels in 2023 (748k) or in 2022 (records fuzzy, but similar to ’23).
So. The numbers say that the people who judge contests and run magazines like a very tiny minority of my words. The “why” of my successful resolution is still uncertain, but the “how” is starting to look a little clearer.
For me, it’s a numbers game.
I need to write a whole lot of words to eke out a few good ones.
This isn’t true for everyone. I’m privileged to know a few exceptional, award-winning authors who call themselves “under-writers,” who draft lean and then painstakingly fill out their stories in editing.
Could never be me.
Personally, I achieve concision only after backspacing through enormous swathes of hard work. I have never known how to just do it slowly and correctly the first time. Maybe you do! Maybe you’re an under-writer, and the reflection I’m doing here will not benefit you at all. Please take note of the law of equal and opposite advice, and listen to or ignore me accordingly.
What’s next?
I haven’t made a specific writing-related resolution for 2025 yet. I’m waiting to see if I get into a few different programs:
Still, I feel confident that regardless of whether these particular paths work out for me, my high-level plan is clear. When a strategy works, you should seriously consider simply doing it more.
In 2025, I intend to write more words and show them to more people.
What will you do this year?
I went to 3 conferences in 2 months. Here’s 5 things that I learned.
Why 5? Because 3 + 2 = 5. Logic. Duh.
I’ll go ahead and answer your questions up front. Yes, I am still tired.
No, I’m not crazy. At least, the voices in my head say I’m not, but you can’t really trust those guys.
I went to Killer Nashville in Franklin, Tennessee; the PNWA Conference in Seattle, Washington; and the Rocky Mountain Fiction Writers Conference in Aurora, Colorado.
Get ready to be tip slapped.
1. Bring Snacks
Most of these conferences are in hotels that are in the middle of nowhere. You won’t leave those hotels unless you drove to said hotel or rented a car. And honestly, even if you have a car, you’ll be so busy with classes and workshops and networking (yeah, networking is part of it), that you probably won’t have a lot of time to go get food.
Say goodbye to the sun, my friend! There’s a good chance you won’t see it all weekend.
Since you won’t be leaving, and hotel restaurants are about as reliable as a McDonald’s ice cream machine, I highly recommend you bring snacks. In Tennessee, we went to Target. For PNWA, I went to Costco and went ham on the snack aisle. In Aurora, we got a half a dozen bagels from the Einstein Bagels in the Denver airport.
Life savers all. Seriously.
Truth fact: Your brain burns calories when you think hard. Bring snacks. Eat snacks. Be a snack? I dunno. I might have lost the thread.
2. Downtime is your friend
This might sound bonkers coo-coo crazy pants, but oh well. If you’re the kind of person who likes to look at the schedule ahead of time and plan out your days, first: hello, fellow type-A brain. I see you. I feel you. Second: pencil in at least fifteen minutes of downtime for yourself.
But, Emily. You told me I’d be networking.
Yup. But only extroverts who have ingested large amounts of cocaine can network all day without their very essence draining out of their eyeballs by the end of the night.
So, plan a little chunk of time to give yourself a break. Take a nap. Listen to a podcast. Read a book. Watch shit TV. Take a shit, for all I care. Whatever your little heart desires. No matter what it is, give yourself a little bit of time to just be yourself.
Without it, you will be nothing but a husk by the end of the conference.
And as you drive off into the sunset, you’ll realize you left something behind.
Your soul. It’s still at the hotel. A ghost now, wandering the halls of the Embassy Suites with dead eyes and a slack jaw, shoving translucent business cards at terrified patrons for all of eternity.
And as those patrons lie awake at night, they shake with fear. They know what’s coming. They’ve heard it before. They’re terrified to hear it again, yet they can’t seem to stop listening for it. In the petrified silence, your soul-ghost whispers, “Who are you pitching this weekend?”
Nobody wants that.
Trust me.
Downtime.
Take it.
3. Have a pitch. Even if you’re not pitching.
If you don’t have an agent, there’s a good chance you’re taking part in the shit storm that is pitching—or just interacting with—an agent or thirty.
For those that don’t know, pitching is the abominable love child of speed dating and interviewing. It is arguably the most self-masochistic thing writers can do to themselves. (You know, apart from actually writing. Har. Har.) Pitching is honestly a totally separate blog. Maybe even a podcast. Inez! Put it on the list!
Anyhoo, even if you’re not pitching, you will absolutely, without a doubt, be asked these three questions in rapid succession:
What genre do you write in?
Are you currently working on something?
Tell me what it’s about.
And if you don’t have at least a line or two describing what your book is about, you’re going to look like a fish gulping for air on a hot pier.
Why a hot pier, Emily?
Because I’m painting a freaking word picture. (And this is what happens when I eat crunchy peanut butter and chocolate chips for breakfast and lunch.)
4. Go to shit.
You’re there to connect with people. The only way to do that is to go where the people are. So, my little word goblin, put on your human flesh mask and go to the open bar, the author signings, the shitty hotel dinner. Talk to the people. Make the friends. I got a full manuscript request from one of my dream agents over dinner in Colorado.
Go. To. Shit.
5. Pay attention to the contests
Not every conference will have a contest, but if they do, pay attention. This is a good idea for a couple reasons.
If you enter the contest and win, you’ll probably get money. And being paid for your work is, you know, nice.
Even if you don’t enter the contest, go to the award ceremony. By attending the ceremonies, I learned: in Colorado, they’re looking for a more literary style of writing. Killer Nashville is basically looking for spy novels (as far as I could tell). And PNWA is looking for fucked up minds like mine. (Not to toot my own horn or anything, but I won that one. Toot. Toot.)
Conference season is buck wild. It’s exhausting. And, honestly, after a while, they all kind of feel the same. But, I met so. many. cool. people. I learned a metric shit ton both about myself and writing.
There’s a definite blueprint for how these things go. Once you get the hang of it, use it to your advantage.
Keep an eye out for next year’s conferences and start making those plans. Just keep these tips in mind and you’ll be fine. Maybe. Probably.
Extra Pro Tip: DRINK WATER. It’s good for you. Hell, you’re basically a water demon as it is. Hydrate, you little devil you.
. . . about writing advice (the free kind)
…about writing advice.
Writing advice is everywhere and it seems like everyone has an opinion. For example, there are hard-and-fast capital “R” RULES for every type of writing. Except that some of them can be broken—not that anyone can quite agree on which ones. Or the perennial debate: Tropes—good or bad?
There’s a deluge of advice on story structure, world-building, story archetypes. And a lot of it is expensive. Paid seminars, writing conferences, MFAs, pocket MFAs, online courses, workshops—it can really add up. I recently saw a Writers Digest University online course on blogging for $249. My wallet whimpered. Is the bang worth the buck? How do you sort through the noise? What’s the “best” advice that won’t break the bank?
My answer might sound like a cop out. Sorry, not sorry. Because, honestly, the best writing advice is whatever advice makes you a better writer.
Ok. But I don’t have the unlimited dollars to spend on try-fail cycles. To that I say: YouTube. Blessings upon the creators who have spent so much time putting up amazing, useful, exciting stuff on a platform you can access for free.
And that means . . .
“BE A VORACIOUS CONSUMER”
When so much advice is available for free, come to that buffet hungry. You never know what will work for you—for your method or your story. Be insatiable in your curiosity. If you’re new to writing, try things out; if they don’t work, drop them and try something new. If you’re not new to writing, try things that resonate with what already works for you. You never know what’ll take you to the next level. There’s definitely “crappy” advice out there—but sometimes, the act of trying something “crappy” makes you a better writer in the long term.
CRAFT YOUTUBE GAMECHANGERS
“AuthorTube” and “BookTube” and adjacent sectors of YouTube are jam packed with phenomenal free advice and analysis. Of these offerings, I have come back to these three resources many . . . many . . . many times:
Brandon Sanderson’s Creative Writing Lectures
Overly Sarcastic Productions: Trope Talks
Abbie Emmons: How to Write a Novel with the 3-Act Story Structure
Brandon Sanderson needs no introduction. An absolute master at his craft, his insights into all aspects of building the fantasy novel were priceless. And totally free. He’s put his 13-week BYU Creative Writing course lectures online. And they’re brilliant.
Everything produced by Overly Sarcastic Productions is highly entertaining. But when it comes to writing, their Trope Talks are . . . chef’s kiss. Although they focus primarily on movie content, their analysis of story and the structure of over 90 tropes is so, so, so good.
Finally, Abbie Emmons’ series on the 3-Act Structure is a wonderful, concise, back-to-basics primer. Her conversational style is easy to follow. Even if I already “know” the material, her presentation has frequently helped me unstick myself from a particularly sticky story situation. It’s a good playlist to have lurking in the background (particularly if you’re a pantser . . . sorry, “discovery writer” like me).
My other favorite channels? Reedsy, Storygrid, The Fantasy Writer’s Toolkit, and Story Garden Publishing have consistently produced materials that I’ve used to troubleshoot my work. There are certainly others, and I’m always on the hunt for new stuff. If you have a favorite, drop it in the comments or share the playlist.
If you’re more of a book learner, there are some amazing resources—see our Library section for some excellent suggestions—that you can also pick up from your local Library or through Kindle Unlimited (if you’re subscribed). And if you’ve got memberships to Autocrit, Plottr, and/or ProWritingAid, they frequently have free online courses, workshops, and summits (more on those later).
But if you’re like me and you like to squeeze in some learning between a full-time day job, part-time writing schedule, and adulting responsibilities, watching a few free writing videos with coffee in the morning or just before you fall asleep can really get the creative wheels turning. And who knows, you just might stumble on the solution to a thorny problem or an approach that gives you fresh motivation or a second wind.
HAPPY WRITING!