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Welcome to the (un)official site for science-fiction and fantasy writer Bryan R. Durkin!

Sunday, October 3, 2010

Networking!

I'm great at learning things. Sometimes it just takes me awhile to decide that I want to learn them. Networking is one of those things I read about in the various books I have on getting published, but it involves actually interacting with people, and I'm not too big on that. Which is why I have a blog, instead of having a conversation about all this with someone. Lack of social skills aside, networking is a pretty crucial piece of your strategy to get your book from manuscript form to the bookshelf. For example, sometimes you can find the perfect agent by yourself. But for many of us, we come up with a list of agents that represents only a fraction of the available options. In other words, we need to know people who know people.

I've made a couple advances in my previously non-existent networking strategy this past week. The first thing I did was mention my blog to someone, which ended up with me being asked to give a presentation on what I've learned to a creative writing class. That wasn't originally what I had intended, but at the very least, I'll probably end up learning more stuff through the experience. Time will tell if it's a good thing or not.

The second event happened when I was investigating a possible agent online. I happened across a writer's forum that seems to be pretty extensive. It's a home for writers of all experience levels, including several that have been professionally published. It looks to be a great place to look for advice on both simple and complicated questions. Writers can also share their work there in order to receive critiques on it. I just joined it yesterday, so I'm still exploring the site, but it looks like it will be well worth my time.

Nothing new to report on my effort to get TSS published. I did sent another e-mail query yesterday. I haven't received any other responses back yet, so no news is good news I suppose.

In regards to my Bounty Hunter Quartet project, I finished an outline for the rewrite of Book I, and have started the manuscript for it. I've reached about five pages so far, and hopefully that will be up and running at a good speed shortly. I did decide to go ahead with the high fantasy aspect of it, as opposed to the urban fantasy version. It just didn't seem right to convert the project from its original genre, since I've spent so many years envisioning it as high fantasy. But, the brainstorming process has given me some leads for ideas on possible future urban fantasy projects. I'll keep you updated on how it goes.

Here's the link for the Absolute Write Water Cooler: Absolute Write

2 comments:

  1. Hi. I just linked in from AW. It's good to find a blog that talks about the things I'm going through with my writing.
    Best of luck with getting published.

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  2. Thanks very much. I hope that whatever information I put up here well at least help point people in the right direction.

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