Feeling Famous, Impatient, and Excited

Well, for only having one flash fiction story in one anthology out, I am feeling pretty famous.

I've been mentioned on two blogs (R.L. Naquin's and K.R. Smith's), I've had over a dozen people tell me they've bought the book, several of my friends (writing and otherwise) have posted links to the book on their own Facebook walls, and I have a whopping 58 likes on my Facebook page! I'm not very good at self-promotion, but this has been a blast and everyone has been so incredibly supportive. All of this and it's only a 1000 word story in a publication's first anthology.

I can't wait for the day I sell an actual book. The internet might explode. All thanks to the amazing support of my friends, family, and writing peers. I'm starting to understand how it's possible for people to be successful at self-publication.

I'm nowhere near ready to publish a book though. Much to my chagrin, when my friend told me about Harper Voyager accepting unagented manuscripts for two weeks in October. Oh how I wish one month was enough time for me to whip one of my novels into shape. Harper Voyager is the sci-fi/fantasy imprint of Harper Collins, which as you probably know is one of the big names in publishing. This is a cool little project they are doing where they're looking to showcase new talent via ebook.

If only I had known about it a month or so ago. However, I think this trend will start becoming more and more popular with the big publishing houses. The market is making a huge shift, and these big houses have to adapt to keep up. So hopefully this won't be a one-time thing. I have a novel or two I think would fit with their other authors (which include George R. R. Martin, Raymond E. Feist, Robin Hobb, Sara Douglass, and Peter V. Brett).

In other news, my submission rate has stagnated as I sit waiting to hear back on 7 stories and a collection of 13-word flash fiction. Of course, one of those is Tor.com, which I don't expect to hear back from until around this time next year. But some of the others are a little past due, and I'm too shy to query them. I'm getting impatient.

I also haven't written anything new in awhile. I'm working on this month's flash fiction for the Confabulator Cafe, but I'm having trouble putting it together. I have a fabulous idea, but I can't make it work. Something is missing from it and I can't figure out what.

I've got a couple of ideas for National Novel Writing Month percolating, though. I'm getting excited. I am a bit out of practice, writing anything longer than 1000 words, but I'm looking forward to it. I wrote around 162,000 words for two novels last year and burned myself out pretty badly, but I think I'm ready to try again.

I'm All Sorts of Official Now

I've been toying with the idea of creating an author/writer page on Facebook for awhile. It seemed silly, though, since I didn't exactly have any publishing credits, and short of plugging the Confabulator Cafe and this website, I didn't have much to post about.

Now, my very first published work will be available for purchase at the end of this month (I'll share the details as soon as I have them). Also, at the rate I am submitting stories, hopefully I'll have another credit or two to add to that soon. So I thought to myself, "self, you deserve an author page, now that you've gotten a paying writing gig."

And so my official FB author page was born this week: Sara E. Lundberg.

I am up to 10 whole likes already. Woohoo!

I still need to take some time to figure out how to promote it and link it so people can find me easily, and I need to work on adding content (it's a bit naked right now), but it's a start. Oh, and eventually need to make new business cards with the FB page address. Argh! I still have over 200 from my last batch. I don't give too many out.

This whole self-promotion thing is a strange beast. It feels weird for me to do. It's against my nature, really, to brag about myself and my accomplishments. I'm not exactly modest - I'm a writer, after all, which in and of itself begs for attention - but my self confidence level isn't quite high enough to put myself out there in these ways. I have to push myself to do it, and always wonder if I'm going too far.

At any rate, that's my big news this week.

Well, actually my big big news this week was receiving payment through Paypal for my story! It was a small, token amount (I can't even buy a gallon of gas with it) but I am ridiculously excited that I got my first "paycheck" for writing. Teehee. I'm officially a paid writer.

This is really happening.