Tuesday, February 28, 2012

Six Years Later, We Can Finally Snoopy Dance!

In the spring of 2006, I started on a long and incredible personal journey. Vehicle of choice? Pen and paper to start, which was soon upgraded to keyboard and monitor.

For the first couple of years, the journey was filled with bumps, potholes, detours and right turns taken at Albuquerque. In 2008, a good cyber friend of mine suggested that I try my hand at blogging, and thus, a blogger was born.

For the next two years ('08-'10), I practiced my craft on this blog and tried to soak up the knowledge of my fellow writers as well as my fantastic readers, either on their blogs or here on my bog, that they were gracious enough to give to me. In 2009, I had reached the first milestone in this journey of mine, when David Cranmer, editor-in-chief of the fantastic e-zine Beat To A Pulp, took a gamble and published a short story of mine (Cedar Mountain), which not only gave me that all important first writing credit but gave me a fantastic boost of my confidence as well.

Two years later, after diligently applying the tips that such diverse writers as David, Elaine AshDavid Barber,  Charles Gramlich, Jane Turley and Travis Erwin were gracious enough to give, I got my 2nd short story published (Red Stripe) at another fine e-zine.

In between having those two stories published, I was inspired to not only get serious with my writing, but to get published in the traditional sense of the word. Thus, Line 21 was born.

From February 2010 thru the spring of 2011, I wrote, polished, edited, re-wrote, and re-edited this novel until it shined. When it was ready (thanks in large part to my very good blogger friend M, who writes this fantastic blog and allowed me to pick her brain more times that I can possibly mention), I decided to pursue a two-pronged approach to the submission process, in that not only was I going to target agents, but I was going to target publishers as well. I also decided that I would chronicle this latest submission process with a page on my blog.

July 2011 found me at the doorstep of Solstice Publishing, which I had first learned about in 2010 from a blurb written by U.K. writer Jack Martin. I e-mailed my submission to them and by January 2012, I got a semi-rejection, which I wrote about here. I took the editor's feedback to heart and spent the next month revising and polishing, then resubmitted. For my efforts I received another round of fantastic feedback, which I took to heart and revised yet again.

That final revision produced three curious things: last week's cryptic post.

This video: 


And this announcement:

I DONE GOT MYSELF A PUBLISHING CONTRACT WITH SOLSTICE PUBLISHING!

Details to follow in the coming weeks, but for now, let's all celebrate the fact that for the first time in a very long while, I am again a somebody.

21 comments:

  1. Woo hoo! That is great news and I am very proud of you.

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  2. WooHoo, Go G! A huge congratulations to you, can't wait to read the details. You must be thrilled, and I'm raising my coffee cup in a toast to your forthcoming book ... Cheers :)

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  3. Hell Yeah!!! Congrats. Not only do I give Solstice credit for picking you up, how nice of them to actually give you some feedback along the way. Congrats!!!

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  4. Congratulations!!! That is absolutely fantastic news :) I can't wait to hear more :)

    Sarah Allen
    (my creative writing blog)

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  5. Chris: Thankee.

    Lynn: Thankee.

    Joanne: Thankee. I am very thrilled at this point. Six very long years and I finally grabbed that golden ring.

    Bearman: Thankee.

    It really was a very cool thing for them to do. When a business does something like that, it will forever have a loyal customer/client.

    Sarah: Thankee.

    Hopefully in the coming weeks I'll be able to give everyone all kinds of details and snippets, but for now, I'm going to savor the moment.

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  6. Very sweet shout out, thanks :)

    But it's all you! Soooooo happy for you! You deserve it! I am doing the Snoopy dance for you.

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  7. M: Thankee. And you're more than welcome.

    And while yes, it was all me, I still wouldn't have been able to make it as believable as possible without being able to pick your brain about the opposite sex (among other things).

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  8. WOW!!! Congratulations G, I'm so happy for you. All your heard work has finally paid off. You deserve it!

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  9. Awesome news!! Congratulations, George!!!! :)

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  10. Joe: Thankee, thankee, thankee.

    It's been tough hard road and I'm glad I finally found the end of the tunnel.

    Lisa: Thankee, thankee, thanke.

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  11. That's wonderful! I'm very happy for you. :-)

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  12. Wonderful. Congratulations. You must be over the moon. We will all do a Snoopy dance with you.

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  13. LGSquirel: Thankee.

    I am definitely over the moon and well into the cosmos with this. It's definitely the greatest feeling imaginable.

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  14. Hooyah! That's fantastic news!!! You must be out-of-your-mind happy. And, G, you always were someone in my book :)

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  15. Angela: Thankee, thankee.

    I was on pins and needles while I waited for them to accept my last revision, but now I'm simply ecstatic about it.

    I'm more than ready for this new chapte in my book of life to unfold.

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  16. G- Absolutely Marvellous:)) You did it! Pat yourself on the back you deserve it:)

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  17. Jane: Thankee, thankee.

    I've been patting myself on the back for the past couple of weeks now and I think that both my back and my hand are pretty sore from doing so. :D

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  18. Woo hoo! I'm so glad I dropped in. Great news!

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  19. Pamela: Thanks for stopping by to say hi.

    Yup, it is fantastic news and thanks for the congrabulations. :D

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Go on, give me your best shot. I can take it. If I couldn't, I wouldn't have created this wonderful little blog that you decided to grace with your presence today.

About that comment moderation thingy: While yes, it does say up above I can take it, I only use it to prevent the occasional miscreant from leaving thoughtless and/or clueless comments.

So remember, all of your comments are greatly appreciated and all answers will be given that personal touch that you come to expect and enjoy.

G. B. Miller

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All the content that you see here, except for the posting of links that refer to other off-blog stories, is (c) 2008-17 by G.B. Miller. Nothing in whole or in part may be used without the express written permission of myself. If you wish to use any part of what you see here, please contact me at georgebjr2006@gmail.com