View From the Bushes

Last night I got double the amount of writing done (actually revising) I had scheduled for myself. Not bad, if I do say so myself. It may be too early to tell, but I think I'm better at writing consistently than I was the last time I tried. Of course, it would be pretty sad if after a year and a half of blogging every day I wasn't at least a little bit better at writing on a schedule. Part of the reason I pushed myself yesterday is that I wanted to finish revising the first chapter so that I could get it out there to my 'readers' (the people who've agreed to help me with scathing criticism and much-needed editing).

While I was writing last night I paused briefly (while chatting with someone who's also considering entering the open call) to estimate how many submissions I thought WoTC would receive. One of their previous open calls, the "Maiden of Pain," got 498 submissions. Of course, there are two big differences between that open call and this one. That open call only required 10 pages, not a completed novel; that would obviously have a tendency to depress the number of entries. The other big difference was that "Maiden of Pain" had a specific theme and a specific setting already specified, while the current call is "write whatever you feel like as long as it could be shelved in the science fiction/fantasy section," so that would obviously have the opposite effect. The question is whether the reduction caused by the length will be greater than or less than the increase caused by the more open specifications.

Obviously I hope that the net balance is fewer entries, but in my gut I think there will be more. So lets say there's a thousand. Then the question becomes, what sort of entries will those be? A lot of the freelancers I know are already so booked with projects that they're having difficulty finding the additional time required to write a novel on top of everything else, whereas whipping out the 10 pages necessary for the MoP open call was no big deal. My analysis would be that even though there will be more entries in the novel call, there will be about the same number in both that are truly competitive, which I'm going to peg at a 1/3, or 166. Obviously that's just me pulling numbers from where the sun don't shine, but don't you feel better for having waded through my meaningless reasoning?

Carpe Diem Quam Minimum Credula Postero
Ross