Critique and Revision Process

After I finish putting a story together, I am not sure that it all works. And there are probably plenty of typographical errors and maybe a grammar and/or punctuation mistake. Here is my method that has evolved over the years.

First, the story goes to my Gang of Three. I thanked my gangster friends, by name, in my acceptance speech at Writers of the Future in 2011. We are writers. We trust each others. We understand the genres we write in. We love history. We have an acquaintance with literature.

Our Gang of Three critiques are "soup to nuts." Does the plot work? Is it boring? Are there unnecessary scenes? Does the plot work? Were you ever confused about the action? Did any words sound wrong? All of it.

Then I revise. My gangster friends are generally convincing, so I take about 80% of their suggestions.

Next I send to a few writer friends who do not necessarily "get" the genre I'm working in--historical speculative fiction, mostly. Since the gangsters understand me, it's great to hear from people who are a little less on my wavelength. Once a friend pointed out how confused he was through two pages. He was not exactly sure what was going on. The problem was remedied by changing "man" in the first sentence of the story to "rider." I thought the horse in sentence two was obviously underneath the dude.

Next I throw it open to Codex, a forum for new writers, though some of the "new" writers joined a few years ago and are now highly successful. They take things apart well. By this time I have many of what I recognized as "kinks" worked out. So I usually have to consider advice seriously before I change things. However, sometimes I get a review from a friend on the forum that I immediately agree with and make lots of small revisions. The big revisions are probably done by now, though.

Finally my wife reads the story. She's a fabulous reader. She can spot all the errors that crept in from the revisions. And she reads for story and flow. Now and then she'll give me a suggestion that leads me to undo revisions that writers suggested. I trust her.

Sometimes I send to friends, but usually I never hear from them. Most are not that interested. Heck, if the world's greatest romance writer was a friend, I doubt I'd be that interested in reading her latest take on girl hates boy, girl is put in position that she can't get away from boy, girl gets interested in boy, boy gets interested in girl, then a big misunderstanding . . . See, I don't get it.

Somewhere in there I may send the story through my larger group--Stonepile Writers. But we only do six pages at a time (1500 words), so the only complete stories I would see critiqued are flash fiction. I don't do much flash. I crawl 40 page stories through, six pages at a time, though. It's good to participate. And I sometimes get a few good suggestions that I would possibly agree with. But by now the work is polished.

This seems way too complicated. But it gives me confidence that I have honed the story into the best form possible before submitting it to a seriously critical reader--a slush reader or an editor.

Idea Stories

A long time ago I talked about how I built an idea story. The idea came from saying, "We know that people vote in elections using names of dead people. But what if the living voted in an election for the dead." I was satisfied with the story. But it never sold to a speculative fiction magazine or anthology. I think the biggest problem was that the editors wants to see on the first page that this is really a speculative fiction story--wants to have someone casting a spell or projecting their consciousness onto the internet.

Suffrage has a vicious military incursion, matched by decisive explosive violence, followed by brief, intense sorrow, and then the zombies arise in the aftermath and the real crazy stuff starts. I never found a reader who said, "I stopped reading after the second page because I didn't see zombies." Readers glowed about the story. But writers have to take the business as it exists and under those conditions, Suffrage was not marketable without a big named author on the masthead that said, "Oh, yeah, you'll get zombies, baybee." I gave the story to my local university press. I'm glad people got to read it.

Then I formulated another idea story, set on an outlying planet in the reemerging galactic empire. I wrote almost the whole thing, worrying that it might become boring, then watching it become boring. The problem was that, unlike Suffrage, I only took a cursory amount of time to create characters, and the characters were mostly described by their professions. It was like science fiction from the 1950s.

Now I think I figured it out. The two characters from the empire were not just professions. They were student and teacher. Teacher is taking advantage of gaps in knowledge of the reemerging empire, to travel around and do good on a planetary scale. He has had five successes. But the empire is horrified that this loose cannon is interfering on a massive scale with social development--those interventions could have been horrible disasters. So the teacher is an outlaw.

He contacts his student so that he can do another intervention. She has the ability to work inside the empire and get resources to help him. That's the first page or so. She gets to the planet and he points her toward personally discovering the problem that he wants to solve. She agrees. She investigates--where the most ink is spilled.

Then she decides. Then comes the ending.

This story does not have the Suffrage problem. However, when the story was "all idea" it was dead. Adding the drama was the hard part.

My Card

Sad Truth About Writing

When two economics professors meet, they talk about economics. When two writers meet, they do not talk about writing. That is part of my experience from meeting lots of professionals at Writers of the Future 27.

When I meet an economics professor, I want to know what area he/she does research in. I want to know what his/her approach to the area is. For instance, in this vein, I might tell another economist that I wrote my dissertation on terrorism. I looked at problems of terrorist bargaining and have published a lot about terrorism and the media. My favorite work I did on the subject showed that if terrorists vie for media attention, then there is an upper bound on the amount of terrorism as they shove each other off the front page and bore the public with more and more events. Then we would talk about what we're working on now.

Two writers talk about the kids and about the crazy thing that happened last week at Costco. They may talk about the business--how a publisher is trying a creative way of cheating them with a new contract offer. But they do not talk about what they just wrote or what they are writing. I have a theory as to why this is true.

Writing is like farming. When two corn farmers meet, they do not show each other pictures of their favorite ears of corn from the last harvest. "Oh, look at the silk on this one! It is enchanting."

There are thousands of farmers. There are thousands of writers. There are tons of corn. There are tons of manuscript pages. When a writer sends a manuscript to an editor it goes into a huge pile, called slush. There are thousands of other manuscripts there. Eventually someone--usually with a lowly station, "reads" them. Maybe they read a paragraph or two of them. When you have to pick one manuscript from a possible two thousand, you are not looking for small flaws that will exclude. You are looking for something that grabs you by the throat. And everyone's throat is different. Here is an article by Mike Resnick, who has published a few million words and has a stack of the top awards in his field.

Professional writers are accustomed to this view. Many writers produce lots of manuscripts and realize that they're going into a big pile--though well-known writers' manuscripts go into a smaller big pile than the slush. And well known writers will see plenty of rejection--which is not personal.

Writers do lots of writing. They see lots of writing. They do not want to talk about writing.

What about economics professors? I am in a class of professors that teaches and does research. And in my area of the profession, twenty-five publications in twenty-two years is considered great. I read about economics--for fun! I love to listen to economics podcasts.

Maybe when two of a different class of economists meet, they are more like farmers and writers. Some economists sit in front of a computer screen all day and churn out spreadsheets showing that this part of an company is efficient or that part is not. When two of these meet, I doubt they say, "My new spreadsheet technique works so well! Look how I pivot those tables. It makes everything so easy."

If writing is so boring, why am I now talking about writing? I'm new to writing--look at the luster of the kernels of this ear! It brings tears to my eyes.

Of The Future

In a week I leave for the Writers of the Future workshop, book signings and awards ceremony. The idea is too big for my head.

Sundial will be published in the best selling science fiction and fantasy anthology in the world.

WOTF will pay for me to fly to and stay in Hollywood for a weeklong workshop conducted by two excellent, successful authors--K. D. Wentworth and Tim Powers.

I will be able to meet authors who are new forces in the genre and authors who are venerable powerhouses.

"Calm, calm," I keep telling myself. But I don't listen.

First Time Writer

I saw another first time writer tonight.  They always start their stories the same way.  Two years ago, I was one of them.  Here's the story.

Jorgamundor laced up his left work boot, stained with oilfield muck.  Jenny was still sleeping.  Jenny had been so upset lately.  But Jorgamundor knew why.

He remembered when Jenny's mother had yelled at her in front of him last week.  His poor wife had been so ashamed.  "She never loved me," Jenny had sobbed to him that night.  And now she walked around morose all the time.

Yesterday Jenny had even forgot to pick up Smolish, their 6 year old, from school.  Now Jenny was worried that the school might report her to social services.  And they might, too.

Then Jorgamundor put on his right work boot.

First time writers want to tell everything all at once. So it's twitch a finger, long flashback, twitch another finger.

It's cute, in a way, seeing it being done over and over.  "Awww, wook at the widdow witer.  I wemember when I was wike that."

Now I have other problems!

Unforever

She's a witch from ancient Egypt. She watched Moses kill a man and hid that knowledge. She had a spiritual experience that led her to believe that because she had chosen right, she would never die. She exalted in the knowledge.

A few thousand years later, she wants to die. She sees a raider kill a federal agent in wartime. She knows that this is her karmic chance--that if she turns in the raider she will be allowed to die.

But is she falling in love with the raider? And if she lets him live, she will keep on living, and he will die and leave her alone for thousands of years.

Romance?

As a guy, I am deficient in writing about romance. But other than the writing, I have displayed some decent romance chops.

I have thrown multiple surprise parties for my wife. I have surprised her with romantic gifts. On one Valentine's day, I called her to the door as she was getting ready to go out. She was met by a barbershop quartet that serenaded her (I got to take their fee off my taxes, since they were a gift that I got from donating $60 to the local NPR affiliate--yeah, that part is not romantic).

Finally, on another Valentine's day, we dropped the kids at some friends' house and went out to eat. Over dinner she said, "This is so nice. I wish we did not have to go home."

I said, "We don't. I rented the honeymoon suite at the hotel across the street and dropped the kids' clothes and toothbrushes at the babysitter's earlier." And I really had.

But when my characters find love, it is usually a practical thing. Abe's family had died and so had these two women's husband. Jake Fox was forced to marry Aline Elliott by her father, Wiley. Wiley thought Jake was probably going to die and was hoping that Aline could inherit Jake's property. Bryton fell head over heels for Tonjan (literally), but she ended up rationally choosing the High Priest--but Tonjan is a Priestess of Aatar, and they are like that.

And on the horror side, one happily married couple is destroyed by her unfaithfulness--she chooses her past over her husband. And one husband has clearly invoked a power that has possessed him and will soon result in his killing his wife and child.

It is time I try to do a seriously romantic story.

Gang of Three on Cemetary Ridge

The Gang of Three liked Cemetary Ridge. They did a great job of helping me adjust the wording to maintain the reader's trance. The little flash story is now more clear and harmonious.

I had to leave a day early for my meeting on a coastal island. The last straw was when one of the organizers warned me about massive construction on the last 60 miles of highway, which would cause me to be late to the first session. So no Stonepile this month.

Virtual World Literature

Everquest II, the interactive online game, has introduced "player-written books."

Players can buy virtual notebooks for their virtual characters, write about 700 words in them, save them, reproduce them, and sell them for virtual money.

I have my first story planned. I'm not sure about copyright--I bet Sony will claim it--so I'm giving the it away for only virtual money. I am going to use a tidbit that I learned in Empires of the Sea, as a pattern for my first story.

I'm still planning, but here's what is there so far. Pestal Pickworthy, a gnomish scientiest who has ambitions to be a seige engineer, has tried to approach the barbarian commander of a doomed fortress, only to be rebuffed as an inconsequential pest.

Finally Pestal corners the commander's jester, who had been left for dead, and convinces the jester to tell the commander about Pestal , who understands that the ogre trenchworks will see no success at the gates, but will endanger the fortress's ravelin, which has a fatal flaw.

The jester departs, then eventually a detachment comes from the barbarian commander for Pestal. Pestal is elated and attempts to spill all his advice to the commander, only to learn that the commander merely wishes to replace the fool, who died of injuries, with Pestal, whom the fool recommanded as the most entertaining raving lunatic left in the fortress.

Pestal's hissy fit leaves the barbarian in stitches. Pestal becomes violent and is judged to have outlived his usefulness as a fool. The commander orders Pestal to be flung from the catapult toward the enemy.

As the commander watches the gnome fly and hears his screeched curses, he realizes that the ravelin is, indeed, vulnerable and moves at once to shore it up.

Pestal miraculously survives and attempts to enter through the weakness in the ravelin just as it is sealed.

I'm sure there's a moral in there somewhere. 700 words, huh . . .?

Honorable Enough

Killing Words won an honorable mention in Writers of the Future, the big science fiction and fantasy contest.

On one hand hand, this is only an attaboy, because to a professional outlet an honorable is a certification that, according to one judge, this story was not the best, and they only want to publish the best.

On the other hand it's nice that a professional author put a stamp of quality on the story. Ann C. Crispin did not get Killing Words at all and thought it was a horrible mess. I disagreed, but not audibly, since she is somebody in writing and I am nobody.

So I'm putting the certificate up on my wall.

Formality

Writers get rejected a lot. I previously wrote about one successful short fiction writer's massive rejection. When agents reject a book idea they almost always say, "I am not the right agent for your work." That is a "it's not you, it's me," answer, but the writer knows that it really means, "it's you--it's all you."

One magazine rejected my first story with a few comments, chief among them being, "I never got a feeling for your main character's hopes and dreams." True, Killing Words does not start with "Riva hated her life in the temple and wished she were anywhere else, but especially with her family."

I did start with Riva examining her bruises, showing fear/panic at the day's deadly activities, and having four reactions in three pages that showed her missing various things about her family--weaving those reactions into the narrative. I thought, "Well, her hopes and dreams are there, but the editor did not get it. I will see lots of that in my career."

I checked the next story I sent to this editor, Bryton Wyld, to make sure that I had clearly shown that Bryton wanted an idealized love--his hopes and dreams, ya know.*

". . . white and gold statues of Telor and Scyntella appeared as if they had come to life, standing over the doorways of their twin houses of worship. Porp smacked Bryton on the back of the head, knocking his floppy black hat over his eyes. Porp said, “You stopped in the street.”

Behind the cart, someone screamed, “Move!” And a messenger kid shoved Bryton and groused, “This is a street, not a pig farm!”

“Really original!” Bryton called after him. The sight of the gleaming husband and wife had absorbed Bryton. Embarrassing."

Most of the story is about Bryton pursuing that ideal love--oh, and trying not to get killed where possible. Again, the editor replied with, "I never got a feeling for your main character's hopes and dreams." I concluded that I was still too subtle for the editor.

But another suspicion had been working on me. It is an "it's not my fault" suspicion, so I put it on the back burner. I had noticed that the editor never announced an upcoming story without listing rather lengthy credentials for the author. Maybe what was really going on was that the editor did not see an impressive list of previous professional sales in my cover letters, so that my stories never really stood a chance.

I looked over Knickknack, then rewrote the beginning. This time I had my main character, Jane, trembling with excitement at the prospect of leaving her family's gypsy camp to visit a real city, focusing all her efforts on making sure she does not mess up her chances to go. Whatever else Knickknack's flaws were (for instance, lack of subtlety), Jane would scream her heart's desires at this editor.

Of course, the editor replied with, "I never got a feeling for your main character's hopes and dreams." So now I get it. That is this editor's form rejection. It may mean, "You are not going to make your first professional sale here." Or it may mean something else. But it does not mean what it says.

Sometimes it takes me a while to catch on.

Steampunk, Lincoln, John Brown, and Mormons

My latest story idea involves having a genius among the Utah territory Mormons discover and use uranium as nuclear fuel for steam engines. Invention in the territory zooms forward, but the society has remained relatively insulated, with only scattered wild tales emerging.

One of the Mormon inventors heads east on a religious mission in a nuclear/steam powered tank and encounters Bleeding Kansas, in the person of John Brown.

Also in the mix is Abe Lincoln who suffered a crushing depression, chucked his former life, and headed west to make a new life. In Kansas he became the leader of an abolitionist mob.

Both sides of the battle over slavery try to get access to the Mormon's inventions, but Abe has his own agenda, related to his views of the economy.

There will be plenty of bombs and blood and butchery by both sides--and some humor-- to chug and clank and rattle the story along.

Finished?

I think I finished Founder. I have never attempted anything quite like it. It may be good. It may be horrid. I am not sure. Usually I have a better idea about things.

What makes Founder hard for me to comprehend is the style. I won't tip you off as to what makes my head buzz and spin when I read it--maybe it is painfully obvious or maybe I have gone barking mad. But when I would try to write another scene, I would have to refer to the previous scene and the writing style would make my eyes cross and I would have to stop.

I am ready to get back to something more conventional for me. My long-term project is Bryton Wyld. No fancy stuff, just plot, character, setting, motion, motion, motion. So that is probably what's next. I have 10,000 Bryton words. Another 5-10 and before I know it I'll have another novel. This time I'll have one with a hook! (Except that who knows if anyone will bite at it).

I have talked about Ben Franklin before, but I have found that he is probably overused in speculative fiction. I would love to do more steampunk, but I'll need to work up an idea first.

So, back to the drawing (writing) board.

Inspiration?

Ann Crispin (famous sci/fi author) said in a workshop that when she cannot figure out what to write, she scrubs her bathroom floors. Sometimes it takes two bathrooms, and sometimes she gets all the way to the kitchen.

I get ideas while walking. Things start to fit together when I have the pulse raised, but do not have anything to concentrate on. The shower is another place where I am stuck for a while without anything else to think about. Sometimes ideas strike me there.

Now and then I have to work out big plot things, like who knows what and when do they know it, and why would they do the thing to get them from A to B. Sometimes I just envision the next part of the story.

Today, for instance, while walking I was thinking about the next part of a scene. The husband is driving home. He sees this spooky guy who has taken an unhealthy interest in the husband's wife. The spooky guy is walking on a lawn in his neighborhood, the opposite way of the husband's house, as if he is coming from that way--and there is no reason for the guy to be in this neighborhood, except to visit the wife, who is home alone. The spooky guy, oblivious, walks behind a house. The husband pulls up in the driveway and runs around the house, but does not see the guy. He looks for places the guy could have gone. Did he duck into the sun room of the house?

As I was out walking I decided that the husband should whip out his cell phone and call home. But there is no answer. The guy is somewhere close by. But there is no answer at home, so he's got to speed home at once.

Maybe that sounds like a little thing. I think it adds to the atmosphere and builds suspense. I will make some headway on the story tonight, then walk to work tomorrow.

I will be done with the story by the end of the month if my shoes hold out.

Antagonists

Timur Mohammed Akbar Mirza Mughal: The grandson of the last Mughal Emperor of India

Sergeant Zerstorend Engel: A zealous, xenophobic Austrian policeman

Stephan Geist: A collector of artifacts in Ramas

Lord Rall: A son of Rovish, the God of Luck

Verletz: A priest of Telor, the God of All Things Known

Jemmin Weller: The greatest thief in the most corrupt city in Ramas

Sir Ragal Tak: The most stupid and violent of Baron Navee's Baron's Men in the most corrupt city in Ramas

Veluin: The High Priest of Silas

Sarge: The tyrannical majoritarian leader of a troop of Union cavalry attempting to round up the perpetrators of the Colfax Massacre, the largest outbreak of violence following the Civil War

Furnace Angel: A hare lipped redneck that crashes the filming of a program designed to expose child predators

Saddam Hussain: You know him, you love him

Lucien Boucher: A Haitian who promises to introduce people to their departed relatives

Protagonists

Vincent Renaud: A French-born monk in an Austrian monestary (circa 1857), afflicted by a severe panic disorder

Jane Geist: A gypsy girl who is her clan's greatest hunter, taught the thieves' trade by her uncle, and taught to mingle with society by her educated father

Bryton Wyld: Does not know his father is Rovish, the God of Luck, lives with his mother, an avaricious merchant, in the most corrupt city in Ramas, the main continent in the Arch of Time universe

Riva Tanner: Died in a fall at age 10, retrieved from the Spirit World by her father, a Priest of Jair, upsetting the balance of the universe, entered in Jair's order to endure the grueling training of a battle priestess

Julian Granger: The arrogant son of the benevolent ruler of the most insignificant barony in Ramas

Jake Fox: A backwoods boy living in Reconstruction Era Louisiana, orphaned when his father died at the Battle of Mannsfield and his mother died of pneumonia, raised by his brother

Dan Held: Cameraman on a reality "police" show, grandson of the leader of the Cajun revivalist movement, a failed attempt for those with Cajun descent to get back to nature

Jenna Dean: A kindergarten teacher with a love of genealogy

Staff Sergeant U. P. Smith: The driver for a retired Lt. Colonel, now working for a defense contractor in Iraq

Beginnings

Beginning stories is usually easy for me. Ending stories is usually easy for me. The middles are not bad either. But after all the sharpening is done before anyone but me sees it--what I call the "first draft," the part that I find that I usually need to revise the most is the beginning.

It seems to me that the beginning should be the part that needs the most revision. Even though I generally have a plan for writing, I have the least information about the eventual shape of the story at the beginning. By the end, I know how just about everything works. I wrote about one of these processes before.

The Bryton Wyld story has had the most beginnings so far, surely because I had the Bryton character before I had any idea about the story. By the end of the story, I knew what the meaning was, but then I needed to close the loop--back at the beginning before I knew what the story meant.

Here is the first beginning. I still like it. It has conflict, it gets you into the corrupt city where people are stealing and getting shaken down and violence is always lurking.

But the story ends up being about Bryton finding that he will live in the city, but not fully be of the city. He finds a limit as to how much of his soul he will sell--whether he would cheapen his love for someone who rejected him in order to sell herself to the highest bidder. I discussed that here--sort of.

After knowing the ending, I needed a new beginning that showed Bryton actually wanting the things that he ends up valuing above all in the end.

Here was what I came up with.

--------------------------

As Bryton negotiated Godsway’s big curve, his eyes were dazzled; in the morning sun, the white and gold statue of Eleir looked as if she had come to life, standing over the doorway to her house of worship. She had the muscles of a blacksmith, but she was all woman. How did they do that?

Traffic had parted ahead, so Bryton pulled ma’s handcart faster, barely avoiding a gigantic pile of horse manure. “There’s no horses on Godsway,” he grumbled. As he righted himself, his forehead bumped into something metallic and reeking. The handcart’s momentum shoved him into it.

Cue the first beginning with Tak and swords and blood.

--------------------------

Today, upon reflection, I thought that the statue should not be the woman, but a more realized symbol of what Bryton wanted. And I decided to contrast more sharply, with a scene and not just two images, the purity of Bryton's ideals (statue) and the corruption of his environment (manure on the road). Here it is.

--------------------------


“Porp, there’s no percentage in cutting purses,” Bryton told him under the chattering, calling, and chanting on the cobbled street between the gods’ houses. “Don’t take cheap risks--we’re not kids anymore.” Bryton pulled Ma’s handcart along Godsway and Porp tagged along, scanning the crowd.

“Ha! Jemmin cuts purses. You saying she’s a kid?”

“She’s perfect, so there’s no risk. Look, get away from me. If you get caught near me, I can’t run. Ma’s tapestry is worth way too much for me to abandon.”

As Bryton negotiated Godsway’s curve, the white and gold statues of Telor and Scyntella appeared as if they had come to life, standing over the doorways of their twin houses of worship. Porp smacked Bryton on the back of the head, knocking his floppy black hat over his eyes. Porp said, “You stopped in the street.”

Behind the cart, someone screamed, “Move!” And a messenger kid shoved Bryton and groused, “This is a street, not a pig farm!”

“Really original!” Bryton called after him.

The sight of the gleaming husband and wife had absorbed Bryton. Embarrassing. He tugged the cart into motion and said, “Go cut your purses somewhere else, Lord Porp.”

“Daydream somewhere else!” Porp laughed and sifted into the crowd.

Bryton pulled ma’s handcart faster, barely avoiding a gigantic pile of horse manure. “There’s no horses on Godsway,” he grumbled. As he righted himself, his forehead bumped into something metallic and reeking. The handcart’s momentum shoved him into it.

Cue the first beginning with Tak and swords and blood.

--------------------------

The imagery--statue/manure is separated so much that it is less meaningful. But we do have conflict and the corruption revealed and Bryton not happy with some aspect of that corruption. I think this is a step forward. I am not sure it is the final step.

Old And New

At the writer's workshop I attended, we learned about the novel, Tom Jones, by Henry Fielding. I had heard of the book, but luckily had not read it. I use the term "luckily" because the instructor said that Fielding opens with twenty pages about the English countryside.

I have tried to read Melville, but he takes three pages to say something like, "The first mate was self-conscious because everybody knew he was poor." He used so many words! I try to write without using words.

By the time you get to Dashiell Hammett's The Maltese Falcon, many of those words are gone. Hammett leaves in enough detail to paint the picture, but does not try to dazzle the reader with prose.

Hemingway.

My own experience and training with writing is heavy on showing, not telling, the reader the story, paring down the prose to keep the story moving. I have found readers, though, who are accustomed to, "West Varth was in the low lands of Hamfarth, where the Juberries bloom. The Juberries were the sweetest berries in the world, except for the JuJuberries."

I have not found many of those readers, but they are invariably lost in my writing. They're looking for Tom Jones, but they won't find him in the Snows of Kilimanjaro.

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P. S.: Remember the part about writing without using words? That part was a joke.

Short Stuff

Professors submit research to journals and are often rejected. We almost always receive detailed feedback. When rejected we may revise and submit to another venue, but sometimes the feedback is off-base, so we submit without revising.

An author of around 100 published pieces of short fiction spoke at the workshop I attended. She said that on average each of her published pieces was rejected 5.5 times. One piece was rejected 32 times before being published in a professional publication.

Some of the workshop attendees are afraid to submit. I have read about that problem, but I do not suffer from it. Since I only began writing short stories last year, I have not submitted even one of them five times.

Looks like I have work to do.