{"id":182,"date":"2015-03-03T16:48:55","date_gmt":"2015-03-03T16:48:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.gwendolynkiste.com\/Blog\/?p=182"},"modified":"2015-03-03T16:48:55","modified_gmt":"2015-03-03T16:48:55","slug":"once-lost-gone-forever-going-back-to-school-as-a-writer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.gwendolynkiste.com\/Blog\/once-lost-gone-forever-going-back-to-school-as-a-writer\/","title":{"rendered":"Once Lost, Gone Forever: Going Back to School as a Writer"},"content":{"rendered":"

Over the weekend, my dark fantasy story, “Once Lost, Gone Forever” made its debut in Electric Spec’s 10th anniversary issue<\/a>. In the last six months, I’ve been fortunate enough to have almost thirty stories accepted for publication. But out of all of them, this one probably taught me the most about the twists and turns from concept to publication.\"Once<\/a><\/p>\n

Writing is a constantly changing beast. Some stories come together with few obstacles and find a literary home on the first try. Others take weeks or months to coalesce and then find themselves mired in slush pile after slush pile. As a writer, this can be both thrilling and exhausting, but above all, it’s a learning experience. So with that in mind,\u00a0here are a few things I’ve learned from the adventure that was “Once Lost, Gone Forever”.<\/p>\n

1. Writing coming of age stories can make you far too wistful (but it’s all worth it).<\/strong><\/p>\n

Though it’s weird to even write this, I’m thirty-one. That means being sixteen was officially fifteen years in the past, almost half my life ago. I’m not the kind to reminiscence very often, but when you’re penning a tale about adolescence, you almost can’t help but think about your own. That can make you crazy, nostalgic, angry,\u00a0amused, bemused, and a whole lot of other emotions. But provided you can funnel at least a little of that into the finished piece, the struggle is not in vain.<\/p>\n

2. Challenging (read: taboo)\u00a0concepts aren’t for everyone.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Though it is primarily\u00a0a coming of age story, “Once Lost, Gone Forever”\u00a0is one of the most subversive pieces I’ve written.\u00a0I don’t craft\u00a0austere teenagers.\u00a0My incarnations\u00a0drink, carouse, have sex.\u00a0Even though many adolescents do all of those things (in spades), writing about it is\u00a0enough to put off some publishers. But that’s not all:\u00a0in this piece, my two\u00a0female leads–Inali\u00a0and Melissa–also cross paths\u00a0with numerous adult men who try to\u00a0physically\u00a0(and\u00a0sexually) harm\u00a0them. In submission guidelines, many publishers specify “no underage sex” and “nothing that victimizes women”, and while this is considerate on the surface, such guidelines\u00a0don’t allow for a full exploration of themes and experiences. But I won’t go into that here. I’ll let you read S. G. Larner’s article that says basically everything I feel on the topic<\/a>.<\/p>\n

3. Don’t give up on your own work.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Because of how challenging the piece was, I honestly didn’t think it would ever see the light of day. The first couple places rejected it outright, and though I was disappointed, I wasn’t surprised.\u00a0Because of that,\u00a0I almost didn’t submit it to Electric Spec at all. The magazine\u00a0only publishes five stories with each quarterly issue, so the exclusivity alone was daunting.\u00a0But six weeks after submitting—six weeks filled with self-doubt over the piece–I received word that the story had passed into the magazine’s final round of consideration. That\u00a0fact all by itself\u00a0excited me. Even if it wasn’t selected, at least the editors enjoyed it enough for it to advance. Then, the day after my birthday, I received the acceptance. It was a hallmark moment of my career so far, vindication that all the boundary pushing in the story had been worth it.<\/p>\n

4. Good editors are worth their weight in gold<\/del> words (okay, they’re worth gold too, but words\u00a0make better currency).<\/strong><\/p>\n

At this point\u00a0in my fiction writing career, I’ve already worked with\u00a0a slew of\u00a0incredible editors. However, with Electric Spec, this was the first time I ever had a heavy edit on my work prior to publication.\u00a0I had long been waiting to go through line-by-line with an editor, and it was an amazing process. I learned not to get so attached to anything, even titles (farewell original name,\u00a0“Truth and Dare”!).\u00a0As an author, I needed this experience, and I am better for it. Plus, it didn’t hurt that the Electric Spec staff knows what they’re doing. Lesley Smith is a fantastic editor, and I would recommend every speculative fiction writer to submit something to Electric Spec. That’s how great\u00a0working with them\u00a0was.<\/p>\n

5. Sometimes, writing about your own writing process is laborious.<\/strong><\/p>\n

I’ve started and erased this very blog about three times. Because the process behind “Once Lost, Gone Forever” was such an intense one, my thoughts about it are scattered. Even when Electric Spec asked for a short piece (about two paragraphs) about the story, it took me a full week to pull something together (which you can read here<\/a> if you’re so inclined). This made me realize how much I need this very blog to help me organize my thoughts on the writing experience. Because as authors, we’re constantly asked about how we come up with our ideas, so\u00a0we better\u00a0have something\u00a0comprehensible\u00a0to say about it.<\/p>\n

6. Having a husband who does artwork is AWESOME.<\/strong><\/p>\n

I’ve always loved\u00a0illustrations\u00a0paired with horror fiction. Right now, I’m reading Hauntings: Tales of the Supernatural,\u00a0<\/em>an anthology\u00a0that comes complete with\u00a0drawings from none other than the late, great Edward Gorey. In my spare time, I\u00a0also sometimes enjoy searching fan art\u00a0related to\u00a0Shirley Jackson and Ray Bradbury. You know, just because it’s fun. Having illustrations (like this blog’s main image)\u00a0that\u00a0represent each of my stories is basically a dream come true, one that almost sounds too good. Even though my husband and I have been together for a decade, I was almost bashful about even asking him if he’d be willing to help me\u00a0create such images. It just seemed like such a massive, long-term undertaking. But in his patented laidback attitude, he did the proverbial “Shrug-and-Sure”. Now we work together,\u00a0discussing what images and scenes\u00a0best represent each of my stories and how to bring those images to fruition.\u00a0Every brainstorming session is\u00a0like the greatest montage ever. It also helps to make writing—which is quite a solitary profession by its nature—a little more collaborative, even if only in the “post-production” phase.<\/p>\n

7. Missing friends makes for great inspiration.<\/strong><\/p>\n

While my husband was involved with this story via his artwork, he wasn’t the only person in my life that had a role in “Once Lost, Gone Forever”. The initial concept for\u00a0the story\u00a0came about the week after my best friend from high school left Ohio for a new life in\u00a0Arizona.\u00a0Returning to\u00a0the wistfulness\u00a0invoked in\u00a0the first point, missing someone who played such a huge part in your life helps everything to come into clearer focus. Consequently, I\u00a0became madly inspired to create something that would celebrate\u00a0our aptly misspent youth. Because I for one cannot draw or paint or create any other form of art (and since I’m still a poor starving artist), the only gift I can really give anyone is\u00a0with my writing.<\/p>\n

So Barb: this one’s for you. Thanks for giving me\u00a0so many great memories that you’re still inspiring me decades after we first met.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Now I turn this conversation\u00a0back to\u00a0all you authors out there: what’s the most important lessons you’ve learned about writing so far? I’d love to hear the\u00a0myriad of\u00a0experiences that have helped to shape\u00a0your careers. After all, we’re all in this together.<\/p>\n

Happy reading!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Over the weekend, my dark fantasy story, “Once Lost, Gone Forever” made its debut in Electric Spec’s 10th anniversary issue. In the last six months, I’ve been fortunate enough to have almost thirty stories accepted for publication. But out of all of them, this one probably taught me the most about the twists and turns […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-182","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-fiction"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gwendolynkiste.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/182","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gwendolynkiste.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gwendolynkiste.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gwendolynkiste.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gwendolynkiste.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=182"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/www.gwendolynkiste.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/182\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":215,"href":"https:\/\/www.gwendolynkiste.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/182\/revisions\/215"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gwendolynkiste.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=182"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gwendolynkiste.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=182"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gwendolynkiste.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=182"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}