Link(s) of the Month: Submissions Without Duotrope

Well, last month's "Link of the Month" post went well...

I've still got mixed feelings about the Duotrope situation. I can see ways in which their site can be useful and provide enough value to be worth $5 per month. But I've gotten such a negative sense from how the folks behind Duotrope have handled the transition that I'm really disinclined to be a part of funding the site going forward.

So I've been working in recent days on doing my submissions without using Duotrope. For the most part, it's been going fine. With that in mind, here are some links that other folks might want to keep in mind if they aren't going to use Duotrope.

Ralan.com - If you're writing speculative fiction (SF, fantasy, horror) then you should be able to get nearly as much market information by going to Ralan as you could get at Duotrope.

Dark Markets - For horror-specific information, this site looks to be very useful.

Google Drive - If you're going to be tracking your own submission information manually, you'll most likely want some form of spreadsheet. You could certainly use Excel or another PC-based program, but if you don't already own software like that, Google Drive is a free alternative. (If you do use a PC-based program and want an easy way to have access to it on multiple computers, Dropbox is a good alternative.)

Sarah Hans' Blog - One of the things I liked on Duotrope was its calendar of upcoming submission calls. A decent percentage of the information from my Upcoming Deadlines posts was drawn from that calendar. Sarah puts up monthly posts with quite a few submission calls.

Hopefully, if you decide to go Duotrope-free, some of those links will help out. If you have other links you'd like to recommend, please feel free to note them in the comments!

Link of the Month: Duotrope

EDITED to add a link to my December 1, 2012 post on Duotrope's move to a paid subscription model.
EDITED a second time to add a link to my December 5, 2012 post on deciding to leave Duotrope.

Duotrope is likely best known for its extensive database of markets for short fiction and poetry. While that's certainly the core feature of the site, there are a number of ways which writers can use the site to their benefit.

• The Theme Calendar is one of the major sources which I use for generating the monthly Upcoming Deadlines posts. Currently there are over 200 listings in the calendar, primarily for short fiction submission calls.
• The Interview page has a collection of over 500 interviews with editors of various periodicals. For publications you are not familiar with, this can be an additional way of learning about the preferences of the people who will be reviewing your submission.
• The Market News and Updates page is a very quick way to see what entries have been added to the market database in the past week.
• Finally, the Submission Tracker allows you to easily stay on top of your current and historical submissions. If you've got a lot of stories or poems out at market, this can be extremely useful.

If you haven't already used Duotrope, it's definitely worth your time to check it out. Are there any features of Duotrope which aren't mentioned above which you have found useful? If so, please mention them in the comments.

Link of the Month: Write 1/Sub 1

Among the things which I credit as having helped me to develop a stable writing routine, the online "Write 1/Sub 1" community is high up on the list.

"Write 1/Sub 1" is based on a philosophy attributed to Ray Bradbury of writing and submitting a short story every week. Several years ago, some writers developed a shared blog to experiment with carrying through that philosophy though with the option to have a monthly, rather than weekly, commitment. It's also a routine which could be used by those writing poetry rather than solely short fiction.

I first came to interact with W1S1ers through the forum devoted to the topic on Absolute Write's Water Cooler. (Two links for the price of one this week!) They're a friendly and supportive group of people and include a number of writers who are at a similar stage of their writing career as me. In fact, since W1S1 writers tend to have a fair amount of story "inventory" I've ended up sharing Tables of Contents with many of these writers whom I've grown to become friends with.

Deciding to follow the W1S1 spirit, particularly if you're up for the weekly routine, encourages you to write regularly and to get your stories out on submission. This doesn't mean you should shirk going through multiple drafts if a story requires that and no one's going to kick you out of the club if you miss a week (or a month) or ten. But like many of the other things we've discussed on this blog and that I talk about in "Write Every Day", W1S1 can be a part of your support structure for your writing career.

If you're working at developing a routine of writing short fiction or poetry and especially if you're having some difficulty getting over the initial hurdles of submission and publication, I would definitely encourage you to join in the discussion at the blog, the forum, or both places. I think you'll find it well worth your time.

Link of the Month: NaNoWriMo

It may still be summer here for a little while longer in the Northern Hemisphere, but it's also just over six weeks until the first of November and with that, the beginning of National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo).

I've got a whole chapter in "Write Every Day" about my experience with NaNoWriMo and how it might fit into developing a Daily Writing Routine. Here is an excerpt:

If you're excited about the idea of trying to write every day but nervous about doing it "on your own" here's an option to at least consider. You could jump into the deep end with tens of thousands of other people in November for National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo).

[...]

The first thing I would suggest if you're going to try to use NaNoWriMo as a springboard to developing daily writing habits is to put your focus specifically on those habits and not on "winning" NaNoWriMo by getting to 50,000 words. If you've struggled to be consistent with your writing in the past and find that having the support of the community around the activity helps you write each of the 30 days but you "only" end up with 25,000 words, I would say that you'd have an accomplishment there to feel good about. The goal, then, would be to keep that rhythm and energy moving forward into December and beyond.

So, if I'm saying that trying to meet the stated NaNoWriMo objective of 50,000 words needn't be your top priority, why am I mentioning it at all? Simply because there is so much energy and support in the community around the event. The NaNoWriMo website has forums filled with conversations, particularly during the month itself. If you live near a decent-sized city you can also find scheduled "write-ins" where groups of people working on a novel that month will get together for part of a day at a coffee shop, library, etc. and hang around and write together.

If you're a writer who likes to have things planned out to some degree before you starting writing, now would be a good time to consider your approach if you want to participate in NaNoWriMo this year.

As for me, I'm not likely to actively do NaNoWriMo this year. I still need to revise last year's novel if I want to see it published some day and I don't need to be piling up more unfinished work. But I'll probably try to latch on to the energy around the month online and maybe try to go to a write-in or two.

Are you thinking about doing NaNoWriMo this year? If so, are you planning in advance or just intending to hit the ground running 11/1 with only the beginning of an idea?