Today, Karl Dandenell tells me about how perseverance (and writing what excited him) is what cracked a hard nut for him.
Lucky 13. That’s how many times I had to submit my novella, Between the Stars I Found Her, before it found a home.
At the 2018 Worldcon (San Jose), I attended a mentoring session hosted by the Science Fiction & Fantasy Writers Association (SFWA). I was paired with Julia Rios, a talented writer/editor who managed Worlds of Possibility. She heard my pitch about two projects I was considering: a second-world fantasy based on ancient Yemen, and a science fiction story set in a socialist paradise that included cloning and personality transfers (i.e., functional immortality).
Julie said I showed more interest in the second idea and encouraged me to pursue it. She was right.
The result was a novella, Between the Stars I Found Her. My POV character is Mylene Vandenberg, whose ex-wife commits suicide. I wanted to explore themes of grief and loss, especially when the concept of true death had become rare.
The story really clicked for me when I put Mylene on a solo journey that takes her far from Earth. She and her ship, The Flying Dutchman, stumble across the corpse of an astronaut lost over a century before. That gave me the opening to play around with several puzzles—who was this person? How did their life pod get into deep space?
The answers could lead Mylene back to Earth. Full circle, as it were.
Easier said than done, certainly. The draft became a story which was rejected several times. I kept at it. My helpful critic group correctly pointed out that the story was too short (and boy were they right), so the story grew into a novella. It was rejected again. And again.
On the thirteenth submission, I found an editor (Mark Bilsborough at Wyldblood) who liked it enough to help me develop Between into a proper novella. Mark had published several of my flash fiction stories and I was happy to work with him again.
The novella’s journey wasn’t an easy one, I’ll be honest. Writing Between the Stars forced me to do research and—Gods forbid—write a real outline rather than simply banging at the keyboard for a few thousand words and call it a draft.
There was also Mundane Reality™ that many writers face: jobs and family and COVID, etc. Somehow, though, it all came together in a shiny wrap-around cover that you can hold in your hand. Imagine that.
In retrospect, I’ve learned a few important lessons. First, my idea for a secondary world fantasy novella/novel wasn’t bad, but I was trying to write something I thought would be popular (Everyone loves epic fantasy, right?) rather than telling a story that meant something to me. Bottom line: listen to your Muse. She knows the score.
Second, you have to back up your Muse with perseverance. And patience. The best stories sometimes take years to find the right editor, the right agent, the right publisher. And even if they do, shit happens. (Buy me a cup of tea and I’ll tell you all about it.)
I’ve often remarked to friends that I hesitate to write longer stories because I’m not willing to let the characters live in my head for at least two years. Well, Mylene lived in my head much longer than that and I still like her a lot.
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Karl Dandenell is a graduate of Viable Paradise and a Full Member of the Science Fiction & Fantasy Writers Association. He and his family, plus their feline overlords, live on an island near San Francisco famous for its Victorian architecture and low-speed traffic. Karl has published over 50 works of short fiction in the United States, Canada, and Great Britain. Follow his occasional posts at Bluesky (@karldandenell.bsky.social) and read more about of his fiction at www.firewombats.com.
