That’s what I’m wondering about right now with my latest project, Star Wanderers. The full-length novel isn’t complete yet, but the first part forms a self-contained novelette that has been sooo much fun to write.
The story takes place in the Gaia Nova universe, about five hundred Earth years before the events of Bringing Stella Home. The main character is a 20-something boy who, as is customary in the outworlds, left his home to wander the stars, searching for a suitable place to settle down and start a family.
While visiting a remote space station, he unwittingly gets roped into marrying this girl, whose father is trying save her from starvation by sending her away. The problem, though, is that neither the boy nor the girl speak the same language.
So basically, he just wants to drop her off at the next port and be done with it, while she thinks that she’s his wife and is trying to live up to those expectations. Over the course of their voyage, though, they gradually fall in love and become a couple. That’s where the novelette ends, and the second part of the novel begins.
Because I’m a total dork, I looked up all the major tropes in Star Wanderers on tvtropes. Here’s just a few of them:
- Accidental Marriage
- There Is Only One Bed
- False Start
- But I Would Really Enjoy It
- The Reveal Prompts Romance
- Determined Homesteader’s Wife
- Couple With Language Barrier (needs editing)
So yeah, I’m really excited to share this story with people. The only problem is I want to submit it to the Writers of the Future contest, and I’m not sure if they’ll consider it if it’s already self published. The contest guidelines say that all the rights remain with the author, and defines “professional publication” as something with >5,000 sales/downloads, but that doesn’t say whether it’s okay to publish the piece you’re submitting. I’ll probably have to shoot someone an email or something.
In any case, I’ll probably put up the first part of Star Wanderers before I publish the novel. For everyone who’s signed up for the newsletter, I”ll probably give it out as a free ebook. If Writers of the Future is okay with it, I’ll do that in the next month or so; if not, I’ll submit it to the contest first and wait to see what happens.
But either way, I really want to share this story!
You know, Writers of the Future has a decently fast turnaround. Why not wait? It also says “Entries may not have been previously published in professional media” Even if none of your stories have hit 5,000 copies sold yet, the potential is there for it to, so I bet they would disqualify it if you published on Amazon.
Lol. I waited 5 months to hear from WotF about my entry which I submitted at the beginning of the quarter. If you submit yours before October 1st, you’ll be submitting at the end of the quarter–which means you’ll know how it did in December, I’m guessing.
Why not just hold off publication? It sounds like less hassle for yourself and for them to get back to you and it’s not like you’re going to just stop writing in the meantime….
Yeah, that’s a good point. I’ve got some other stuff to publish, so I’ll probably just do that in the meantime.
I agree with Laura C. Send it into Writers of the Future and bring home the grand prize Joe. Here…I’m packaging up some “e-patience” for you and sending it to you via telepathic vibe…
Yeah, I’m just going to wait to epublish until I hear back from them. Not sure if I’m going to bring home the grand prize, but since Dean Wesley Smith is one of the judges, I’m probably not going to make many changes in the revision, other than switching out some scenes and adding others in (DWS is of the opinion that first drafts are almost always better than any subsequent revisions). But hey, one can always hope. “May all your dreams come true except one…”
DWS has obviously not compared my first drafts with subsequent ones. I am definitely a reviser.