Muse Musings

To Lighten the Mood...

2011-11-26T03:15:00.000-08:00

I was doing my almost-daily crawl of the damnyouautocorrect.com archives when I stumbled upon this gem. This is what I imagine dirty talk between two aspiring writers sounds like...

No Dice

2011-11-21T08:00:00.001-08:00

So I got my answer from Daily Science Fiction today on the story they shortlisted. Surprisingly, it was a form letter.

Oh well. Onward and...onward?

Shortlisted; Also, Where I've Been

2011-11-06T00:36:00.000-07:00

To all my eFriends, writing buddies, and folks who just like following my blog for blog-following's sake: I'm sorry I've been away for so long.

I'm especially sorry because I haven't actually been away. I've been right here! I haven't been checking in because I haven't been writing a ton of fiction. Instead, I've been doing a lot of writing for Bleacher Report, a fan-sourced sports journalism site. I've been able to share my thoughts on sports and society for thousands of people while also auditioning for actual paying jobs in the field down the road. No, it isn't the most traditional way to go about it, but there are pundits writing for various major networks, and indeed even appearing on television, after having only their experience at Bleacher Report on their resume, so it isn't so far-fetched to think I might be one of those lucky few.

I have been doing some fiction writing, though, and just this evening I received a bit of thrilling news: I have been shortlisted at a major pro-paying market! (Full disclosure: I am too superstitious to write the name of the market here; when I hear back, one way or the other, I'll tell you who it is. And yes, I am aware of the irony of being a superstitious atheist). I've only ever been shortlisted once before, that time by Flash Fiction Online, but they didn't tell me until after the fact--and it was a rejection--so it didn't have the same oomph that this one does.

Half or less of their shortlisted stories make it into publication, they told me in the brief email, but this is better odds than I started with, and certainly the best news I've heard in a while on the fiction front.

So, that's what's been up and what's going down. I'll try to check in more often.

REMIX!

2011-10-01T13:43:00.000-07:00

When I say "remix," I don't mean it in the Gwen-Stefani-Meets-Eminem, skull-thumping-techno-infused remixes you hear in the club; I mean in the literary sense.

Say what?

I was watching this interview with China Mieville the other night when when mentioned the idea as it related to his own work. He said that he has always been suspicious of Director's Cut versions of films and books (he cited Stephen King as a literary example, and his knack for rereleasing a book 20 years later with 20 thousand additional words), but also that he is intrigued with the idea of rewriting his own work ten, twenty years later, just to see how it comes out. In other words, a literary remix.

I was dumbstruck. Honestly, the idea of rewriting one's own work years later has never even occurred to me as something people might do...which is strange, I suppose, since one of the things writers spend most of their time doing is rewriting and retooling their stories. I guess the reason it's so odd to me is because China wasn't talking about rewriting broken stories; he was talking about rewriting good stories, ones that he'd finished and sold and had published and collected massive royalties on. He's talking about rewriting "Perdido Street Station," for example, as an experiment just to see what would come out.

I find the premise fascinating, to the point where I wish I had stories old enough (and successful enough, for that matter) to remix. What about you? Do you guys ever do this? Have you ever wanted to? Do you have stories old enough or at the very least distant enough from you now that a completely blind rewrite would interest you?

I'm curious how those would come out, even if just as an experiment.

Doesn't It Figure?

2011-09-18T07:56:00.000-07:00

Just received this email from The Absent Willow Review:

To our readers,
It is with a heavy heart that we announce the Absent Willow Review will be closing its doors. Our last issue will be published on October 16, two weeks before our three year anniversary. It has been an amazing run and we are honored to have worked with so many talented authors and artists. To say that this was a hard decision would be an understatement. We would also like to thank you all for your support and encouragement over the last three years. It certainly made a difference and encouraged us to keep our doors open for as long as we did.

With that being said, our last issue on October 16 will include all stories which have been accepted by us for publication. The site will remain open until December 1st.

Keep Writing!
Kind Regards,
Rick & Bob
The Editors

Awesome. The most respected market I've been published in will only feature my story for less than three months before it closes its doors forever.

"The Machine" Is Live!

2011-09-16T10:45:00.000-07:00

Head on over to The Absent Willow Review and read my soft sci-fi jaunt "The Machine."

If you don't want to, I'll understand. I'll give you a purple nurple, but I'll understand.

Moving On

2011-09-11T18:06:00.000-07:00

This probably won't be a popular post.

Today is the ten-year anniversary of arguably the worst day in American history, 9/11/01. In light of this, there have been a hundred tributes, from the President and First Lady walking through the field in Shanksville, Pennsylvania where Flight 93 crashed, to celebrity-laden TV specials, to over-the-top on-field ceremonies at stadiums across the country. And through it all, I can't help but wonder if I'm the only one in the world who is absolutely appalled by it.

Nearly 3,000 human beings lost their lives that day, and before the dust settled, there were pins and patches and logos meant to "commemorate" the terrible event. For a particularly embarrassing and uncomfortable time, the media couldn't quite decide between "9/11" and "9-1-1", the latter having an obvious and cruel double-meaning. It's been an industry virtually since Day One, as outlets have not stopped trying to out-Remember each other, with the aid of increasingly ridiculous graphics and melodramatic vignettes. It's as though these producers sit around in an office all day sifting through pictures of people looking sad and lost in the chaos. And for what?

I understand and appreciate the memorial built on the original site. I think it's a bit vulgar to make a monument of the footprints left by the buildings, but I get it. What I don't get is the need to rub the horrific images in our face all day every day for weeks and months leading up to today, and today most of all. I understand the desire to remember the dead, for it is in the memories of others that we live on, but there is a difference between remembering and constantly being reminded.

My grandfather died when I was a baby. My mother chooses to remember him by sharing stories of him--his life, his loves--with us. It's how she copes and how she honors him. We do not now, nor have we ever, commemorated his death. The day he died was one of the darkest in my mother's life, and she, like any normal person, remembers the man that was her father, not the heart attack that killed him. We don't wear pins over our hearts or shine a spotlight on his seat at the dinner table.

It's all too much. I ran out to the store today to grab a couple of liters of soda for the football games, and I was tempted to wish the clerk a "Happy 9/11", not because I'm some sadistic prick, but because the farce this yearly occasion has become borders on celebration.

I don't think I have any stupid or intellectually dishonest followers, so I will speak plainly of those who would call my complaints crass or without compassion or, god forbid, unpatriotic: Please try to get it through your tiny brain that I was just as devastated as you were on 9/11. I am not some young flag-burner with an instinctual anti-establishment bent. I'm every bit as American as you. It's just that I find these "memorials" to be soulless rating grabs at best, and grotesque tragedy-worship at worst.

9/11 isn't a day to commemorate. It isn't a day to remember, it's a day to forget, to put behind us forever. We should celebrate the efforts of the first responders who selflessly gave their lives, the blessed charities that make lives easier on the families left behind by the victims of the attacks, the average citizens who sacrificed just because it was the right thing to do. That's what we should remember, not the tragedy itself.

I hope someday we get our priorities right.

Quick Book Review: Blood Meridian

2011-09-06T05:20:00.000-07:00

Earlier this year, I read Cormac McCarthy's more recent The Road and was totally blown away by his unique style and gift for impossibly deep insight. He is sparse with commas and altogether forgoes quotation marks in favor of a muscular, challenging prose that forces you to hold on tight lest you lose the thread.

Challenging though The Road was, Blood Meridian makes it seem like a lazy Sunday skim. For one, replace the familiar plainspeak of the vaguely modern people of the former with the frontier tongue of the mid-19th century latter. For many, can't becomes caint, apostrophes become nearly extinct, and the analogies and metaphors often reach plateaus so dizzying you'll have to stop and re-read them once, twice, three times before you can really appreciate their weight.

If you are a writer, this book (and everything McCarthy writes, for that matter) is required reading. He will expand your vocabulary while shrinking your waistline as you sprint endlessly between the book and your thesaurus. Most of all, though, you'll realize that Rules are for Fools, and that Story wins above all. McCarthy doesn't simply disregard these norms and standards, he peels them off like dead skin and slaps you upside yo' head with them.

But be warned, this is not a friendly world. Fans of "realistic" fantasy such as Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire will never look at those books the same way after they see one of Glanton's killers walk out of an adobe holding two infants by their heels and slamming them until their brains spill in the clay. All the more disturbing is how commonplace these events are, and how little regard men can have for their fellows once they've convinced themselves they are dealing with things less-than-human.

There are expriests and judges and professional scalpers, killers and madmen and suspected pedophiles. There are places that seem touched by divination and men who are less than gods but something more than man, all seen through the eyes of a young man known only as the kid. I'll tell you no more for fear of setting you off in the wrong direction, as this novel is a desert that you may easily get lost in. Do yourself a favor and pick this book up.

Unbearable Authors

2011-08-24T17:47:00.000-07:00

I have, over the past handful of years, frequented a few internet forums dedicated to the discussion of writing. For a long time, I was a mainstay at Writer's Beat, and had a great time talking shop with some great people. I especially enjoyed the Prompts & Challenges section, which really helped me get on track as a fledgling writer who didn't really have a method or a voice yet.

My experience at The Hothouse, an invitation-only writing group comprised mostly of Writer's Beat alumni, was short-lived, but invaluable in the sense that it taught me how to critique the work of others as well as my own. But it also showed me that some writers can be absolutely unbearable.

I suppose I should have expected it, since writers are just people, after all, and capable of being just are rude, mean, and snarky as anyone else. But there was something just so bohemian about the community that I never saw it coming.

I soured to the community experience (as I've discussed on this blog, at some length) and decided to strike out on my own again. To my dismay, I discovered that writing isn't the solitary experienced I had imagined it to be. I missed the shop-talk, the sharing of ideas and plot premises, the adulation that comes from your peers when you announce the completion of a story (or the acceptance of one, though at the time I had only one of those experiences). I missed discussions on the philosophy of writing, the way each writer's foibles made them wholly unique among their peers.

So I found Write One Sub One. Not a forum, but a community of like-minded bloggers sharing in the Great Experiment of writing and submitting one story every week (or month) for a year. That's where I met people I consider eFriends, like Milo James Fowler, Deborah Walker, Adam Callaway, and Simon Kewin. So impressed by this cast of characters was I that I joined up at Absolute Write, which is sort of a Writer's Beat on steroids. It was there I met even more great people, such as Nathaniel Katz, Lydia S. Gray, Shelley Ontis, and others.

But just today, I encountered my first truly rude Absolute Write member. The backstory is this: Early this month I began a fantasy story that didn't seem to have any fantasy elements to it. So I went to my forum-going friends and asked "What makes fantasy fantasy?" Having heard their opinions, I thanked them and announced I was comfortable calling my very unfantasy a fantasy story. Somewhere along the way, a member (whom I regrettably only know by handle, which is defcon6000) disagrees with the consensus, and begins a rousing debate. Then today, I find this post by another (nameless) member:

OMG. Just give the freaking story a second moon, a magical sword, a princess with an un-lockable, rusting chastity belt, and a blood drinking unicorn and be done with the genre indecision

Also, either debate GRRM OR finish your book, one or the other. It won't really matter whether it's fantasy or not if all you're concerned about is Stark politics and miniseries.

(It should be noted that during the course of the debate, other sub-conversations had branched off to the topics of the HBO series Game of Thrones, and the book series it is based on)

Setting aside the fact that I had already announced I was more than comfortable calling my story a fantasy, what sort of comment is this? In what way does this help? I understand that some people employ the boot camp method to themselves and maybe even to their writing proteges, but I certainly didn't ask for it.

I'll never understand why some writers are like this. If it's simply a matter of being tired of the discussion (which this person had not participated in at all prior to this post) then just ignore the thread!

I don't know, I guess I'm just not cut from that cloth, but I find that kind of behavior deplorable. This person is obviously under the false impression that I'm still asking for help, which makes their attitude even more appalling.

So, if there's a point to this post today, it's that you should not, under any circumstances, be THAT writer, the one who feels the need to take out their own personal frustrations on their peers. You're better than that.

Quick Book Review: The Last Kingdom

2011-08-15T15:50:00.000-07:00

The Book: The Last Kingdom by Bernard Cornwell

The Skinny: Young English noble captured and raised by invading Danes while they conquer 9th century England down to its very last kingdom: Wessex. Struggles between his English heritage and his (way more awesome) Danish raider/Viking lifestyle.

The Good: Political intrigue on par with anything George RR Martin has ever written, and in much fewer words; Some laugh-out-loud moments; fist-pumping action sequences; excellent prose that thankfully avoids page-long descriptions of food; Conclusion is satisfying while also making it clear this is to be the first in a series;

The Bad: It's historical fiction*

This is the best book I've read in 2011, hands down. I've read McCarthy, Martin, Mieville, Abercrombie, and VanderMeer, and this one tops them all. It has a pace that pushes you continually forward, a prose that is beautiful without being self-indulgent, and has a wit that you just can't find in fantasy--which I like to think of as the nephew of historical fiction.

I list historical fiction as a negative (with an asterisk) only because the genre does come with some limitations. For one, we know, despite young Uhtred's desires to drive a sword through Alfred's belly, that he ultimately never will, because Alfred does not die then, nor ever at the hands of the Uhtred. But it isn't a disappointment, because there's plenty of killing to be done, and there's enough healthy speculation that other notable historical figures kick the bucket in awesome ways.

If you're a fan of fantasy, I think you will like this book, because you'll see the history your favorite fantasy authors draw their ideas from. You might be saddened that there are no dragons flying about, but there's enough mysticism, superstition, and religious fervor going around that you might just forget you're reading an historical. If you're a writer of fantasy, you should absolutely read this book, and farm the hell out of it, because that's what you're supposed to do. But above all you're going to like this book because it's a ripping good read!

Quick Book Review: A Dance With Dragons

2011-08-05T18:32:00.000-07:00

(WARNING: CONTAINS SPOILERS FOR THOSE STILL READING PREVIOUS BOOKS)

If you don't know the story of how A DANCE WITH DRAGONS finally came to be, I won't bore you with the details, because there are plenty of other places to read about it, including from the author himself. Suffice it to say, it was a maddeningly long wait for those who have been here from the start. For me, it was only a couple of years, since I came to the series late. Thankfully, I was only left half-mad by the wait.

As for the book itself, well, how could one not be disappointed? We've been given years to get our hopes up. Unfortunately, the problems are more than just unrealistic fanboy expectations. Most of what made the previous novels great--breakneck pacing, nailbiting tension, cliffhangers at the end of every chapter--are gone. There are a few shocking moments, and some tension to be found, but these moments, overall, are rare. Too rare.

Dany, Tyrion, and Jon Snow are all back in full force, but for 80% of the book, nothing of any particular interest or import happens to them. There are 15 other POV characters crammed in between the star trio's chapters, but those are equally disappointing. Victarion Greyjoy, for example, has a rather stirring arc in the book, but absolutely no resolution is offered, so it feels incomplete (obviously). At one point, a very important man is accused of attempting to poison Dany, an accusation which become central to Barriston Selmy's POV chapters, but despite getting resolution to that arc, we never find out if the man in question was guilty, or even if the food was poisoned at all!

I can only come to the conclusion that the Great Split was unnecessary. Dany, Tyrion, and Jon did not need 500 pages between them to tell this part of their tales. Most of what happened in Meereen was window dressing, and did nothing to serve the story. Had Martin given himself a year to figure out where he was going back in 2004, he probably would have come to the same conclusion. So instead of getting FEAST in 2005, we would have gotten a better, complete A DANCE WITH DRAGONS in, say, 2007? Maybe 2008? No matter, it would have been preferable to this.

If you've read the series, I can't NOT recommend this novel, so obviously go and read it if you can. And I certainly can't dissuade new readers from picking up the early books, because they truly are masterpieces. Just be warned that DANCE is not the novel we had hoped for.

Still Alive

2011-08-05T12:45:00.000-07:00

It's been a while, so I thought I'd drop in and say 'ello to all the bloody wankers who follow me little blog. I'm still here, still alive, still writing.

The past couple of weeks have been kind of hectic. My younger brother came up from Florida to stay with me, and we've decided to extend his stay an extra week, so I've been really busy entertaining (not literally can-canning for him or anything, but, you know) and spending most of my free time writing.

On that front, things are well. I'm over 6,000 words into a fantasy short (which is looking more and more like a fantasy long) and about two hundred words into a quirky little piece of flash I'd like to have finished up in the next couple of days. The flash piece is interesting, mostly because I had kind of unofficially retired from flash. Not because I don't enjoy it, but it just seems like nothing wants to stay under a thousand words anymore. And the things I've written that do manage to limbo beneath that number tend to lack the things that make a story a story, like character development or coherent plot. So, like any good quitter, I quit writing it. Yet just last night, I get struck with this incredible idea and had to start writing.

That's when I found out something odd about myself: It seems I write in proportion to the story. What I mean by that is if I'm writing a 5-thousand word story, I can sit down and write a thousand or two words in one sitting. If the story is flash, I can write a hundred or two. Is that weird?

Anyway, just wanted to make sure this blog didn't die, because I know there's nothing worse than having a dead blog weighing down your blogroll. So, there, that's my public service for the week. Year? Possibly.

Update Shmupdate

2011-07-17T08:50:00.000-07:00

Well, it's been a week since The Absent Willow Review accepted my well-traveled short story "The Machine," and I really haven't come down from the high yet. I've suffered one rejection since (of course) but I've also finished and submitted another story, and we all know that new stories have a cleansing quality about them.

While I have officially backed off of the W1S1 challenge, I'm still using it as something of a yard marker as I go about my writing. And with all of the W1S1-created stories I have out in the slushiverse, I still feel like part of the family. To their immense credit, nobody over at the Absolute Write forums has kicked me out of the W1S1 lounge.

Yet.

Speaking of W1S1, my April story "My Ray Gun and Me" is still out at a certain market that shall remain nameless, and pretty well beyond the expected response time listed on the website. I've queried to see if they can get a move on, but have yet to hear anything back. Hey, I understand being busy, but queries should get priority.

Blink-Ink has yet to get back to me regarding the Blink-Noir issue. The confirmation email I received in May said they would be reading for the issue in June, but we're more than halfway through July with no answer. Have you or anyone you know submitted to this market, and if so, have you heard back?

In an unusual twist, most of the stories I still have out have, at least according to Duotrope Digest, outlasted other submissions that were sent in more recently than mine. I have been told that this is a good thing, that it could mean I've made it to the "Maybe" pile, but I (obviously) don't know how true that is. It's certainly a change of pace from when I first began submitting work a couple of years ago, as those stories tended to come back well under the expected response time. I think I mentioned before, AWR, the market that just accepted "The Machine," once rejected a story of mine in one day. And it wasn't the first one to do that, so I guess this can't be bad, right?

Okay, anyway, I haven't been able to give a positive update since I joined W1S1, so let me get to it.

Written
Thomas Jefferson (3600 words)

Subbed
Thomas Jefferson (Machine of Death Vol 2)

Rejected
Summer of Change (Electric Spec)

Accepted
The Machine (The Absent Willow Review)

One Hand Giveth...

2011-07-12T23:46:00.000-07:00

Well, I spent about a day and a half walking on clouds after the sale of "The Machine" to The Absent Willow Review, but I knew at some point the writing gods would remind me what it's like on terra firma. That brings me to my latest rejection for "Summer of Change," one of my last W1S1 stories.

Last? Let's say latest. But in truth, I don't see W1S1 in my near future. I had planned on giving a few excuses involving my hectic personal life, but I don't need excuses, I need reasons, and the reason I'm taking a break from W1S1 is because I just don't see the same quality in my W1S1 stories that I see in my other writing. I re-read "The Machine last night and found that it's better than anything I've written in months. Not that the idea is necessarily better than, say, "Summer of Change," but it's more polished, has a better narrative flow. There's a voice that I don't have in the other work. It's no coincidence that "The Machine" has been revised (not rewritten; revised, polished) three or four times.

I'm not a quick writer, and I've found that the longer I stay in the challenge, the more difficult it becomes to meet the deadlines. I moved from the monthly to the weekly challenges because I thought it would light a fire under me--which it did--but ultimately the same thing happened, and I spent more time worrying about getting done than getting it done right.

Things could change, of course. They usually do.

Short Story News

2011-07-11T18:16:00.000-07:00

ACCEPTANCE!

After a total of 8 rejections and 396 total days in slush piles across the nation, my short story "The Machine" will appear in the September 16 edition of The Absent Willow Review--a market, by the way, which once rejected a story of mine in one day. Yes, that's right: One day.

I can't even begin to describe how thrilled I am by this. My only other full-length short story to be published suffered no rejections before its acceptance at Midwest Literary Magazine, so this is the first time I've had one of my stories get kicked around until it finally found a home. I've always been proud of the story, and it is immensely gratifying to know it has finally found a home. In a way, I'm sad in a way, because this is the end of the line for a story that I really loved, and often tweaked and tinkered with until I felt it was right. Well, the time for that is done, and it's bittersweet. It's really awesome, of course, but in its own way, it's kinda sad!

But I have to admit, I needed this. I haven't posted here lately because I really haven't been finishing stories. I'm still writing, but the W1S1 challenge really hasn't been my focus. Just feeling generally gloomy lately, I guess. But this is just the tonic I needed!

Now back to work with me!

W1S1 Check-In: Week 25 (Week 4)

2011-06-26T01:45:00.000-07:00

It's 4:30 in the morning on Sunday, which means I have nineteen and a half hours to left before deadline, but the truth is that I just don't have anything near enough to finished to warrant waiting for this update, so here goes. Despite a whole lot of writing, I only have the one, very short, short story to show in terms of completed fiction. I finished that way back on Tuesday or Wednesday, so the last few days have been spent trying to improve the time-travel story I said was finished last week, but turned out to be wrong about. Also, as I mentioned in an earlier post, I began writing a short story with my brother, which has actually become my main focus. EDIT: Wow, I almost broke my rule and started talking about the story. Durp. Anyway, here's the breakdown:

Written

Black Tooth/White Tooth (350 word flash)

Subbed

Black Tooth/White Tooth

The Bright Walk (non-W1S1)

NO! WE DON'T WANT IT!

Black Tooth/White Tooth (Mud Luscious Press Online)

OMG I CAN HAZ STORY?!

Nuttin.

Congrats, Adam Callaway!

2011-06-22T18:14:00.000-07:00

The very first time I saw the term "PRL" was on Adam Callaway's Sensawunda blog. In fact, it was the only author blog I had ever read besides George RR Martin's Not-A-Blog over at Wordpress. The idea that a grinder, an amateur like me would keep a blog was something of a revelation. The thought had never even crossed my mind before, but here I was enthralled by the journey of this one, average (though not in talent) guy.

His blog inspired me to do one of my own. His posting of every rejection he received inspired me to be accountable to myself by being accountable to my (potential, and, at the time, imaginary) followers. So if you like what I do here, you can thank Adam Callaway.

Anyway, I just found out that Adam has made his 2nd pro sale, the first to the award-winning Locus-recommended Beneath Ceaseless Skies, which just so happens to also be his dream market. It could not have happened to a better writer, a harder worker, and though we have not always agreed on things, I could not be happier for someone than I am for Adam right now. So congrats, buddy! You deserve it.

He Ain't Heavy, He's My New Writing Partner

2011-06-21T18:59:00.000-07:00

Well, it's only Tuesday, and this week is shaping up much like last week. I've already written and subbed a little 350-word jaunt, I''m still working on last week's finished/unfinished story, and I've even started a short story to be co-written with my younger brother Ben.

I'm particularly excited about that last bit, because Ben has been the one guy (now that he's nearing his mid-20s, I think it's safe to call him "guy" as opposed to "kid") that I've been able to share my journey with as a peer. Obviously W1S1 is a great community, and the people at Absolute Write are just amazing, but there's a different dynamic in sitting down and rapping with a fellow writer over a cup of coffee. Last night on the phone (Ben now lives in Florida, of course, after I've just said all that) he pitched me an idea he was tossing around for a short story, and I returned his volley with the idea that I think we should finally jump over the freaking broom and write a story together.

I don't know how long the project will take, but I doubt it will come together in just one week, so that won't be my main focus for W1S1. I've technically already gotten the challenge completed for this week, but with all this time left, I'm sure I have another good yarn in me. Back to work!

W1S1 Check-In: Week 24 (Week 3)

2011-06-19T15:56:00.000-07:00

Well, it's the end of my third week in the W1S1 weekly challenge, and this was by far the best one yet. As I explained in an earlier post, my creative juices were a-flowin' from Sunday to Sunday, and for all of that, I have two stories written, and one of them already subbed (to TWO different markets! SIMSUB LIKE A MUTHA!)

Anyhow, the second story should be all tidied up and ready to sometime within the new few days, so I shouldn't get too late of a start on next week's story. Here's the breakdown:

Written

"Mirrors" (short story)
unnamed short story

Subbed

"Mirrors" (x2)
"Summer of Change"

Accepted

Wah wah wahhhhh

Rejectulations

"Summer of Change" (Arcane)

And for once, everything on the list was written during the challenge, so that's nice. I feel like the challenge is finally starting to pay dividends. Not so much in the sales department yet, but in getting more stories down on paper...er, screen. I dunno, we're going to have find a new saying.

100th Post Extravaganza!

2011-06-18T16:51:00.000-07:00

Okay, not really. But for whatever it's worth, the reason it's been so quiet here lately is because I was HOPING that I'd get an acceptance, or some other good news, that I could use as a nice commemoration of this historic post. Unfortunately, all I got was a rejection, and a bunch of crickets. Oh well.

I know the official check-in for W1S1 is tomorrow, but I do want to share that after a pair of so-so weeks, production wise, I've bounced back with a pair of stories this time around. I'm not entirely sure I'll be able to have them both ready to SUB by tomorrow, but both are drafted, and the first of the two (entitled "Mirrors") will definitely meet Mr. Slushy before the deadline.

I don't know what happened this week. The past couple of weeks have been rife with broken stories, bad ideas, or no ideas at all, and all of sudden I have more ideas than I know what to do with. Literally, I've written two stories this week, and if not for the "sub 1" aspect of the challenge, it's entirely possible I'd be well on my way to a third, since I already have it on deck and ready to bat.

Simon Kewin told me that the weekly challenge sometimes felt like being on a treadmill, so I wonder if maybe my muse is finally trained for this kind of work. I guess the best judge of that will be next week, won't it?

W1S1 Check-In: Week 23 (Week 2)

2011-06-12T15:28:00.000-07:00

Blech.

Great start to the week, a not-so-great finish. Started out with a from-scratch rewrite of an old, previously non-w1s1 story entitled "Magic Words" which I wrapped up in a couple of days. By Thursday I had a new story near completion, but for whatever reason I just wasn't feeling it anymore, and now I'm pretty sure it's headed for my "Bits N Pieces" folder.

I did manage to sub two stories this week, however. "The Machine" went out again, which, if you recall, is my most well-traveled story to date. It's been in the slush pile of another magazine for over 70 days, which is 40 days longer than they say to wait for a response. My query has gone unanswered for over a month, and so I've decided that I'm sending it elsewhere, and if this market wants it, well, they better hurry the hell up.

Once again, there are no acceptances or rejections to report, so the wait continues. I have a knack for amassing three and sometimes four rejections in a week, and I have a feeling that another week like that is on the way. Or maybe I'll get four or five acceptances! Fingers crossed.

1000 Nights Check-in

2011-06-06T17:21:00.000-07:00

I originally planned on updating my 1000 Nights personal challenge every day, then realized how much of a pain in the butt it might be, as well as how annoying ti might be to anyone following the blog, so I nixed that idea. Then I thought I should update every week, but even that creates some problems. 1000 nights in 7-day increments? I needed something rounder. So the new plan is to update every 10 days, so there will be a nice, even amount of updates.

Then, in all the excitement of finishing my first w1s1 weekly story yesterday, I forgot to update my reading. And so here we are, with an update for the first 11 days, rather than 10. Oh well.

Anyway, here is my list of poems and stories read (or reread) over the last 11 days:

Fiction:
Different Skies by China Mieville (Looking for Jake)
The Piazza by Herman Melville (The Piazza Tales)
By the Waters of Paradise by F Marion Crawford
The Masque of Red Death by Edgar Allen Poe (First Project Gutenberg Collection of E.A.P)
The Cask of Amontillado by Edgar Allen Poe (First Project Gutenberg Collection of E.A.P)
The Lonely Song of Laren Dorr by George RR Martin (Dreamsongs Vol II)
Ponies by Kij Johnson (Tor.com)
Scales by Alastair Reynolds (Lightspeed)
Dust Bunnies by Jeremy C. Shipp (The Chiaroscuro)
Grandpa's Bluetooth by Milo James Fowler (Liquid Imagination)
Museum Beetles by Simon Kewin (The Journal of Unlikely Entomology)

Poetry (by author)

TS Elliot
Gerontion
Burbank with a Baedeker: Bleistein with a Cigar

Walt Whitman
Scented Herbage of my Breast
Whoever You Are Holding Me Now in Hand
On Journeys Through the States
To The States
To A Certain Cantatrice
Me Imperturbe

Edgar Allen Poe
The Bells
The Raven
Ulalume

Snot too shabby! 11 short stories, 11 poems, 11 days. My favorite poems were easily the Walt Whitman ones, as evidenced by their number, but you can't go wrong with Poe or Elliot. Of the Whitmans, my favorite was Whoever You Are..., because it's a poem that speaks directly to the person reading it. Very nifty idea to go along with beautiful imagery. I'm no poet, and I don't really know "good" poetry, but I know what I like.

As for the stories, I think my favorite was "Dust Bunnies." Deeply moving, slightly disturbing. One of those stories that leaves you with a sensation rather than an opinion. A close second was Simon Kewin's "Museum Beetles," actually. Strong imagery, rich characterization, and plenty of wonderment, including (but not limited to) the ending.

Given the scope of this challenge, most of the stories and poems I read will be available free of charge, or at least in the form of anthologies as opposed to magazines. This is out of necessity, as I am not a rich man, and cannot afford to fatten up on back issues of my favorite magazines. For example, only two of the stories I've listed here require a purchase--those being the stories by George RR Martin and China Mieville--while the rest are available for easy reading online (I've included links for those) or for easy download via Project Gutenberg (do the digging for those yourselves, ya lazy bums!). So now that you have no monetary excuse not to participate...watcha waitin for?

Better Late Than Never, Write??

2011-06-06T00:24:00.000-07:00

It came down to the wire, but my first weekly w1s1 story is done. Finished. Finito. Also, subbed. Honestly, it would have (read: should have) been finished mid-week, but I was under the weather, and nothing stifles my muse like a little sick.

But all is well now (including me), and I have a 4,500-word story, entitled "Summer of Change", sitting on a slush pile somewhere. Nyet too shabby, comrades.

No rejections to report, thankfully. But no acceptances, either. Oh well. Onward and upward to the next storahhh!

May? More Like "Meh"

2011-05-31T19:27:00.000-07:00

The old saying, "April showers bring May flowers" seems to be reversed in may case, at least in terms of my literary output. Well, perhaps "output" is the wrong word; I've put out over 10,000 words of prose in May...the problem is that I haven't been able to put them together.

Two different stories reached word-counts in the thousands, and both ended up in my Sucky Stories bin (as in folder; I never throw anything away). The only story I actually managed to complete this month was a bit of Twitter fiction entitled "Disposition in situ", which I'm surprisingly proud of, despite it's size (boy if I had a quarter for every time I've said that). I'm still not sold that Twitfic is really fiction, even though I won't complain, as it suits me to look the other way, at least for right now, but I think at some point we'll have to reevaluate things. I almost want to say that it should be considered poetry, though I'm sure there are poets who would cuff me for that. Anyway, that's another topic for another day. Today is for my writing and subbing.

Speaking of subbing, that's one thing I did very well this month. Nine (count em': 9) submission have been made since May 1st, which is a new record for me. And what's more, only two of those nine subs was one story being resubmitted, so, if I do the math correctly, that means....carry the six...divide by the circumference...seven! Seven stories made their way out, which is another of my personal bests.

All this excitement, you'd think I'd have gotten a sale somewhere along the way, but sadly, I did not. Oh well, there's always next month!

Oh, and speaking of that, as of next week, as I said in my last post, I will be moving up to the weekly W1S1 challenge.

Here's the breakdown:

Written:

Disposition in situ

Subbed:

Disposition in situ

Back in the Day

(Non W1S1 Subs)

The Bright Walk

The Last Dragon Dancer (x2)

...And Other Significant Junkies

The Liar

Rejected:

Back in the Day (Fiction Collective; anderbo)

The Bright Walk (ChiZine)

The Last Dragon Dancer (Fantasy Magazine)

1000 Nights

2011-05-27T15:53:00.000-07:00

When Ray Bradbury offers advice to aspiring authors, what comes out is less advice and more instruction manual. I'm not surprised that such a prolific author takes such a regimented approach to his craft; rather, I'm surprised by just how simple it is.

Write a story every week, or thereabout.

Quantity over quality? Not quite; Bradbury simply believes that if you write enough, eventually you're going to come up with something worth publishing. "...at the end of the year, you have fifty-two short stories, and I defy you to write fifty-two bad ones." Nor can it be reduced to a matter of monkeys pounding away at typewriters; practice makes perfect, and Bradbury's theory is just a clever spin on the advice all writers worth a salt give: Keep on writin'!

This rather specific method is the basis for the Write1Sub1 challenge I'm currently participating in, and if you follow my blog, you're familiar with it (and there's every chance you're a participant). And it got me to thinking: Is there a yin to his literary yang? Bradbury believes that every good story is a metaphor, thus every good writer is a metaphor machine; and given that he believes good writing is a skill learned and honed rather than god-given (so to speak, said the atheist), it stands to reason that he'd have a method for us newbies to become said machinery, does it not?

As it turns out, it does.

In the video An Evening With Ray Bradbury, the then-80-year-old Bradbury challenges the young writers in attendance to "read one short story, one poem, and one essay" each night before bed, for the next 1000 nights. Why a thousand? I have no idea, but who am I to question the master?

If you have time to watch the video, it's worth the 54-minute investment. If you don't have the time, then I'll shorthand it for you: Writers have to work at their craft, and they have to work hard. There are other ways to go about it, sure, but when a titan of genre fiction lays out his plan, why not give it a try?

(Note: There is much more to the video than Mr. Bradbury telling you how to go about becoming a better writer, but the opening "Writer Hygiene" portion is very cool)

So that's what I'm going to do. I will omit, for a lack of time (and, dare I say, interest), the essays, but I'm actually going to try reading at least one short story and one poem per night. And to make up for skipping the essay part, starting next week, I am going to join the Big Boys & Girls and do the Write1Sub1 challenge properly: One story per week, for 52 weeks.

Each week, along with my W1S1 check-ins, I'll also list the week's reading material, just to stay honest. If you think you have the time and energy (and resources; my reading list by necessity includes quite a bit from the free Project Gutenberg), feel free to join me!

(Not Quite So) PRL: ChiZine

2011-05-23T05:20:00.000-07:00

Dear Joe,
Thank you for thinking of ChiZine.com. We have read your fiction. Though the submission was interesting and well-written, after consideration it has not been chosen for publication. Best of luck placing your story elsewhere. Please think of our 'Zine again when submitting your work.
Sincerely,
The Editors

Yet another rejection for the pile.

Oh well. Time to find another market!

May at the Midway

2011-05-15T16:51:00.000-07:00

Well, we're two weeks into Write 1 Sub 1 for May, and things are already a bit more fruitful than they were two weeks into April. If you recall, I spent most of the month pouring thousands of words into a story that I eventually abandoned last-minute, and wound up writing two shorter pieces in the last week to beat the deadline.

This month I decided to tap the well of previous endeavors by rewriting the pre-W1S1 story, "...And Other Significant Junkies". This was after cleaning up another oldish story, "The Last Dragon Dancer", and sending it out. That, along with other stories I have making the rounds, makes for five subs this month already, which is only one less than I had in all of April, and one of my most productive months ever, at least as far as submissions go. Is it a coincidence?

I don't think so. I'm telling you, having a goal, even if it's something small like one story written and one story subbed per month, is a huge help. It's like an outline for your career, and that kind of accountability is very important for someone like me, who can never seem to stay focused. If you're reading this and you haven't tried this challenge yet, do it.

The one negative is that you'll get your share of rejections. I've had three total for the month, but it's all good. You just give it a hug and send it back on its way.

Ambition vs Ability

2011-05-13T23:13:00.000-07:00

I have a story to write. I have a premise, and a couple of characters, and the vaguest semblance of a plot. I have a climax, and something like an ending. I have a beginning and a middle, too.

What I don't have is the nerve to start.

I'm afraid that I am not up to the task of writing this story. What I have in my head elicits the same emotions and images of beauty and darkness that I've seen in the top magazines and anthologies, but I don't know if I can make it work on the page. I'm afraid to even try. What if I ruin it?

Have you ever felt this way? Have you ever held on to a story for fear that you won't do it right? Actors have stage fright, and "performance anxiety" has become a euphemism for erectile dysfunction, so what's our neat little term? Hackaphobia? Trite Fright?

Literary Shrinkage?

Help me out here. What do you do in those moments of doubt, when you're not sure you're good enough?

Well That Sucks

2011-05-08T23:03:00.000-07:00

So I'm doing my nightly "Duotrope Dive", which is where I go to the listing and website for every market I currently have a story subbed, and click around and read stories and check news updates, etc.. So I get around to Macabre Cadaver, which is where I currently have "The Bright Walk", my vampire story, in the slush pile, and I see CLOSED beside the listing.

Hmm. Odd.

Not TEMP CLOSED, as one of the other markets where I'm currently subbed says, but CLOSED. Just...CLOSED.

Inside the actual listing is the warning "DO NOT SUBMIT HERE."

Hmm. Double odd. So I go to the site and I see

www.macabrecadaver.com

August 2008 -- May 2011

RIP

That's it. No "Sorry to all of our readers," no "We're releasing all of the stories currently in our system," no nothing.

I feel like I should have known something was up, now that I think about it. I visited the site about a week ago to check the status in the online submission manager, and didn't see my story. But I figured, hey, what the frig do I know? and just ignored it. I KNOW I submitted it (there was a whole forgotten password situation, so it was all rather memorable), so I figured maybe this was just part of their process. It hadn't really been long enough to query, so I just decided to wait it out.

And now this.

As I said, I was there no more than a week ago, and I don't recall there being any warning for this. Maybe I missed it? No matter, is it so much to ask that at the very least something be posted on the farewell page beyond "RIP"? If they don't want to tell us why the market is closing, they aren't obligated to, but for all of the writers currently waiting on the fate of the work, wouldn't it have been appropriate to at least apologize for the sudden exit and wish us luck elsewhere?

I don't know, maybe I'm wrong here, but that chafes me raw. I'm very sorry for whatever brought about the end of that market (with one of the coolest titles in the business, by the way), and I don't mean to make this about me...but it's kinda all about me! 40 days I waited for a response, and it's a damn good thing I Duotrope Dive at least a couple nights a week, otherwise I might have waited 40 more.

Anyway, I guess it's time to find a new slushpile for my baby. I wonder--does this count as my "Sub 1" for Write 1 Sub 1? I'll have to check that out.

Dis and Dat

2011-05-04T18:33:00.000-07:00

I received a couple more rejections on my pair of flash stories (will go into more detail at the end of the month), but otherwise things have been pretty quiet on the slush front, which would explain my relative silence. In fact, I don't really have much to say right now, but I didn't want that last post to be the headline any longer.

Well, maybe that's not true; I've been doing a bit of plotting and outlining, actually, for a novel that I hope to begin writing soon. Seeing as how I'm more of a "feel" writer than a nuts-and-bolts guy, I've never really given plotting or outlining a try. This should be an interesting experiment. And so far, so good.

What else? Oh, I finished "DYING OF THE LIGHT", the debut novel by George RR Martin from way back in 1977. Definitely not his best work, but worth a read. The plot wasn't as tight, and the prose not quite as flowery as his later novels (namely the Ice & Fire series) but there were moments that very much hinted at the then-young writer's potential. He has a knack for giving races, places, and people incredibly imaginative names, and there are times in this book where he's just flat-out showing off.

I originally picked up "DYING" after setting down Carmac McCarthy's "BLOOD MERIDIAN", which I only set down because I had just finished his more recent "THE ROAD", and needed a pallet cleanser. Now that I've had it, I am right back where I left off with McCarthy's classic, and I'm sorry I ever stepped away. Not only does he break all the rules and write unlike anyone else (no one uses commas as sparsely as this man), but there's no one better at making you feel every word of the prose. Seriously, if you haven't read this man yet, get to it. You will feel worse about yourself as a writer, but it's the good kind of hurt, trust me.

Got 'Em!

2011-05-02T01:00:00.000-07:00

I don't normally use this blog as a soapbox for my opinions on politics or social issues. I avoid it because it isn't relevant to my writing, but also because a blog is such a narrow frame that I could be easily be defined by my beliefs should I make them public, and I have no interest in that. I'd rather people get to know me by my journey as a writer, because that's all that really matters in this context.

However, I am an American, and the news of Osama bin Laden being killed in a raid in Pakistan affects me deeply. I was 20 years old when we were attacked, and working at UPS in the weeks and months after, in a time when many of us were afraid of further attacks--the anthrax scare was particularly frightening for us in the shipping industry. I, like so many others around the world, have spent the last ten years watching videos of Osama firing assault rifles, hugging his cronies, celebrating the deaths of my countrymen while calling for more attacks. It has felt as though he was behind all of the bad shit that went down over the last ten years, even though I know this isn't true. Whether it is intentional or not, he has become the face of terrorism.

I am against the War on Terror. I know that, much like the War on Drugs, it is a useless fight that can't be won. You can't kill an ideal, and you certainly can't kill an ideal with troops and missiles. I think our government has exploited our grief, anger, and fear stemming from 9/11 to make money for oil companies and weapons manufacturers, and, in turn, the politicians in bed with those interests. But I can't deny that I have hated Osama bin Laden since that day. The images of the burning towers, of people involuntarily jumping to their deaths from eighty stories because they could no longer stand the heat and the smoke, are still fresh. I'll probably never forget them, or ever completely get over them. I still cry when I see the footage of firemen covered in ash and dust, and my blood boils when I see New Yorkers fleeing giant clouds of fallout from the falling towers.

There's a very big part of me that is absolutely stoked that this scumbag is dead. I'm proud that my country never gave up looking, even ten years later. It's a sign of how stupidly stubborn our policies are, but in this case it works. I mean, look at the footage: this is a unifying moment in our country's history. And in an odd bit of irony, it's 66 years to the day that Adolph Hitler's death was announced to the world.

It's unfortunate that bin Laden's death does not mean for the War on Terror, or for the world at large, what Hitler's death meant. I think in the weeks and months to come, that reality will sink in, and it'll suck. I think it has been hard to divorce Osama from the War on Terror, too easy to see him as the catalyst rather than the trigger. We've been told that he's likely not even an active participant in today's Al Qaeda operations, due to his having to avoid phones and internet access, but I don't know that it has ever really dawned on us that his death really doesn't change anything.

But maybe it will. Maybe the same people who have supported this war from the beginning will realize that it does't matter how many of them you kill, how many figureheads you take out, you can't kill the idea, and their appetite for war will sour. Maybe seeing just how usual business is for Al Qaeda following their spiritual leader's death will weaken our resolve, and make us realize that tanks and guns and unmanned drones aren't going to solve the problems in the Middle East.

Here's hoping.

But in the meantime, I'm going to celebrate this one.

W1S1 April Results

2011-04-30T10:03:00.000-07:00

Well, April is at an end (how?!) and I figured I'd join in with the rest of the Write1 Sub1 world by posting my progress for the month, both regarding the contest and my other projects. So here goes:

Stories Written in April: 2

My Ray Gun and Me
Back in the Day

Submissions: 5

My Ray Gun and Me (2x)
Back in the Day (2x)
The Liar

Rejections: 3

The Liar (from March submission, Beneath Ceaseless Skies)
My Ray Gun and Me (Lightspeed Magazine)
Back in the Day (Word Riot)

Acceptances: 0 :(

Still no luck. It has been over a year since Midwest Literary Magazine accepted "Goldie" to be a part of their February issue, and I'm really starting to miss that buzz I got when that email arrived. It wasn't long after that when I found out they had included me in their print anthology, which was arguably even more cool than the online magazine, and not all that long since I placed in Spectra Magazine's microfiction contest, but neither quite felt like that acceptance.

Oh well. One of these days.

Rejected: Lightspeed Magazine (3)

2011-04-28T11:51:00.000-07:00

Lightspeed Magazine almost taunts aspiring writers with its title, which, if you've ever submitted there, you know to be a hilariously grim pun on how quickly they send your story back rejected. They just passed on "My Ray Gun and Me", which was my w1s1 entry for the month. This makes my third No from Mr. Adams.

I'll crack that market one of these days, John Joseph...

In other news, I've actually accomplished my goal of getting in TWO stories for w1s1 before the calender turns. I banged out a neat little 300-word piece of flash today that I hope won't have much trouble finding a home. It almost feels like cheating, writing something that short, but there are plenty of markets specifically for that kind of prose, so I guess there's no reason to feel guilty.

Anywho, back to the grind. Gotta find a new market for "Ray Gun", among other things.

It Never Goes The Way You Plan It

2011-04-26T22:13:00.000-07:00

When we last talked, I mentioned a story that I had been working on, a little ditty that was threatening to become my longest story ever. I brought it up because I was on a roll, and planning to use that story as my very first entry into the Write 1 Sub 1 monthly challenge (check THIS post for an explanation of W1S1).

Well, because Fate is such a fickle mistress, all of the good feelings I had for that story disappeared almost immediately after writing about it on this blog. I used to post much more frequently, and often discussed stories I was writing, or at least mentioned that I was working on one idea or another, and I cut down on the posts precisely because I felt they were sapping me of creative juices. Hey, for all I know, that's a load of BS and the story just died on me, which happens. But I'd rather play it safe from now on and just never...ever...mention stuff I'm currently working on.

So anyway, as the end of April rapidly approaches, I went from thinking I might be able to pump out two stories for this month, to being in very real danger of not even finishing the one that I had so obnoxiously promised to have finished well ahead of time. So I tried...and I tried...

And I tried...

But nothing came.

And then, just this morning, I had an idea. 1800 words later, I have a finished story. And...

SUBBED!

Wow, is that the first ever live-blogging of a short story submission? See, that's why you follow this blog, people. History happens here. :D

Write 1 Sub 1, Month 1 (for me, anyway) completed!

TORture

2011-04-15T22:07:00.000-07:00

(Clever title, eh?)

I just received a nice form letter rejection from Tor.com regarding my "Postcards From Arborville" story. I was expecting it, so it's not as soul-crushing as it might have otherwise been. I originally subbed the story in August, which makes this my longest wait ever. 229 days, to be exact.

As I said, the rejection was your standard form letter, so it told me nothing of value, and there's no point in sharing it here.

Still plugging away. I'll update again when the next story is done.

Change of Pace

2011-04-12T20:04:00.000-07:00


Trying something new this year.

I've been aware of NaNoWriMo since it began a few years back, but since I'm not a novel writer (yet, anyway), it's never really been something I ever gave much thought. There have been other, similar challenges inspired by NaNoWriMo, but the ones I've seen are usually just NaNoWriMo in other fields--WoPoWriMo for poetry, NaPiWriMo for picture books, etc..

Until now, that is.

Ever since I left the Hothouse writing group, I've been staying away from Writer's Beat, which is where most/all of the members of the group spend a lot of time. But lately I've been missing the shop talk; my life is woefully devoid of folks to chat with about the craft.

So I stumble across Absolute Write, which appears to be a bigger version of Writer's Beat. They have a lot of services for new writers, including background checks on markets, which has already twice saved me from submitting my work to scam artists. I haven't joined yet, but I've been browsing (lurking?) the boards a lot lately, and it was during one of these quiet strolls that I found the W1S1 sub-forum. That is, Write 1 Sub 1, a challenge for writers of short fiction or poetry to write and submit one story per week.

(the story you submit in that week does not have to be the same one you wrote that week, for the record)

I am not a prolific writer. I am the opposite of that. And speaking of prolific, why is unprolific not a word? The antonyms for it are words like barren, fruitless, impotent, and unproductive (according to Thesaurus.com, anyway). Fruitful has fruitless and unfruitful, but prolific can't even have one true opposite? Lame. I am neither impotent or barren, since both of those words have colloquial implications that might get in the way of what I'm trying to say. You know what? Screw it. I am an unprolific writers. Neologisms rule.

Anyway, armed with that knowledge, you will better understand why I, at first, shied away from the idea of Write 1 Sub 1. But today--just now, right before I started writing this--I found the badge pictured above. Yes, they make a Write 1 Sub 1 for us sloths, too. One story written, and one story subbed, per month.

And, barring any ridiculousness (another good word I'd throw an 'un' in front of and make a pair), the story I'm working on now will be that story. Still don't have a title for it, but I think I'm somewhere around the halfway point (I may have already passed it). The interesting thing about this tale isn't just that it will be my first W1S1 submission, nor that the words are coming easier for this than they have for any story in close to a year, but because the point I've referred to as "the halfway point" is 6,200 words in. The longest story I've ever written weighed in at 7,500 words, so we might have a new contender for the crown here. I'll let you know.

That's it for me. And hey, if you're one of the four people who follow my blog, or stumbled across it by some happy accident and you're a writer or know someone who is, please spread the word. W1S1 isn't about competing, it's about getting writers to write and sub, something that most non-writers would be shocked to know does not happen enough.

My Achey Breaky Heart

2011-04-09T02:19:00.000-07:00

My second PRL from Beneath Ceaseless Skies came today.

Thanks very much for sending this story to

_Beneath Ceaseless Skies_. 
Unfortunately, it's not quite right for us.

Although I found Samael to be
an engaging character, the conclusion

didn't quite work for me. I didn't
feel I had a new understanding of the

world from the trickster's actions,
which made the details of the 'demons'

feel somewhat disconnected from the
story.
 
We appreciate your interest in our magazine.

Please feel free to submit
other work in the future.
 
Regards,
 
Kate Marshall
Assistant Editor
_Beneath Ceaseless Skies_
http://beneath-ceaseless-skies.com

Kate's great because she lets you know exactly what she didn't like about your story, but she does it in a polite way that doesn't crush your soul. It got me to thinkin': would it be better if PRLs like this were a little more...I don't know...salty?

About a year ago I read Dreamsongs, the George RR Martin career retrospective, and there were these little (or not so little) introductions to each section written by Martin himself. Prior to the section featuring his story "The Meathouse Man", George gives some backstory:

Harlan [Ellison] returned my manuscript on March 30, 1974, with a letter of rejection that began, "Aside from shirking all responsibility to the material that forms the core, it's a nice story." After which he eviscerated me, challeneging me to tear the guts out of the story and rewrite the whole thing from page one. I cursed and fumed and kicked the wall, but I could quarrel with a single thing he said. So I sat down and ripped the guts out of the story and rewrote the whole thing from page one, and this time I opened a vein as well, and let the blood drip down right onto the paper.

Now, this isn't exactly an apples-to apples comparison; George had already been published multiple times, and had met Harlan in person prior to that, and the story in question was actually solicited rather than pulled from the slush pile. Also worth noting is that Harlan Ellison is a rather...salty...person to begin with, so his response probably was a bit harsher than the norm, to say the least. But there's something about getting challenged that really revs my engine. Aren't all the best teachers the ones that refuse to pull punches, the ones that hold a mirror up in front of you before they go about rescuing you from yourself?

I suppose I'm asking for too much. Editors are busy, and there are only so many hours in the day to respond to the hundreds of submissions, most of them probably crap. A personal rejection that challenges you probably requires more time and energy than the polite, straight-forward explanation. Maybe those Ellison-esque rejections are like gift baskets at the Emmy's--you gotta be somebody to get em.

But I still say there could be a little more oomph in these rejections. As much as I appreciate and value rejections like these, sometimes I feel like I could use a good kick in the ass, too.

Anyway, onward and upward. Back to the drawrin' board.

Oh, and since I quoted him, go ahead and buy George RR Martin's Dreamsons at Amazon.com. There are two volumes, and both appear to be in the bargain bin. I picked them up a year ago and still go back to reread the stories from time to time. There's even a Dunk & Egg story in there. The finest collection of short work by one writer I've ever read, actually.

Full Disclosure (Final Part)

2011-03-30T13:14:00.000-07:00

It comes to this.

Fitting that the final story in this series is also the most well-traveled, and oft-rejected story I've ever written. It's a little sci-fi yarn about a scientist who figures out a way to look into the past, and it's called "The Machine".

We are currently at eight (count em: 8) rejections, and waiting to hear back from a ninth market as I write this. The first rejection came a year ago almost to the day, in March of 2010. It was from Flash Fiction Online, and easily my most positive PRL yet:

"Dear Joseph,

Thanks for your patience.

I wish I had better news for you, but I'd like to congratulate you on your story "The Machine" passing the first round of our selection process. That's no small feat. Only 15-20% of all stories make it that far.

Unfortunately, the second round proved too great an obstacle.

As a writer I always appreciate feedback on my stories. That's not true of all writers, so sift through what we give you for anything useful and disregard the rest. Keep in mind, these comments are often raw gut reactions and personal opinions that may seem harsh, but are certainly not intended to be. So, for what it's worth, here's what some of our readers had to say about your story:

Our editors felt the story had some good points, but lacked mainly in a clear and logical plotline and clear character motivation. Some felt a greater exploration of characterization might have helped. As one editor summed it up: The story "needs a tighter plot and characters we care about, with clear motivation for the things they do and say."

We wish you the best of luck finding a home for your story elsewhere and hope you will consider submitting with us again.

Sincerely,

Suzanne Vincent
Associate Editor
Flash Fiction Online"

Did I mention it's also the longest? Yikes. But how cool was that? Flash fiction is 1000 words or less (though they give you 1100, and if they like it, they'll work with you to parse it down to 1000) and it was my first genuine try at it, so that's a pretty great reaction.

Since then, "The Machine" has expanded by about two thousand words or so.

The next stop was Clarkesworld. I will again omit their rejection, because it's literally the same one everyone gets, and if you've submitted there, you've seen it. After that was Lightspeed. Now, here's the thing: this was my first rejection from that market, and when I read it, I hit the ceiling. Have a look:

"Dear Joseph,

Thanks for submitting this story, but I'm going to pass on it. It was nicely written, and I enjoyed reading it, but overall it didn't quite win me over, I'm afraid. Best of luck to you in placing this one elsewhere, and thanks again for sending it my way. I hope you'll try us again with something else."

Awesome, right? But it looks a lot like the one I'd get later (back a few posts) regarding another story. This one is a lot better than that one, but is it really a PRL? Or is it a tiered rejection? Meh, either way, it felt good and still feels good.

Next up is Apex, which is another generic rejection not worth posting. Actually, so was the one from Asimov's, Daily Science Fiction, and Strange Horizons. The only other PRL I got was from On Spec, which went like this:

"Thanks for sending us your story. After a close reading, we have determined it will not be a good fit for On Spec. There are many reasons why a story gets rejected. We look for the most effective combination of plot, characters, emotion, and originality. Many stories have one or two of these, but only a few have all of them. And sometimes the story just doesn't suit our personal editorial style. The initial setup (steampunk or historical) appears to be broken when the characters are actually modern."

Interesting take. I wrote about this particular rejection earlier. Accidental Steampunk, I think I called it. That aside, this is the only story to rake in so many PRLs, and I think that's a good thing. It is currently at another market, so I hope to be hearing back from them soon.

Anyway, that'll do it for today. Hope you enjoyed it.

Full Disclosure (Part Seven)

2011-03-30T12:47:00.000-07:00

"The Catina" is a science-fiction story about intolerance. I love the story, though I admit after reading it again a few times, the prose isn't as smooth as it could be. I'd like to really get back and revisit this one sometime.

This story has been rejected twice. First by Daily Science Fiction back in August of last year:

"Joseph,

Thank you for submitting your story, "The Cantina" to Daily Science Fiction. Unfortunately, we have decided not to publish it. To date, we have reviewed many strong stories we did not take. Either the fit was wrong or we had just taken with a similar theme or several other reasons.

Best success selling this story elsewhere.

Take care,
Jonathan"

When Clarkesworld rejects you, it's easier to push it out of your mind, because they really do only publish twenty-four stories per year, only half of which are unsolicited. But getting rejected by a market that distributes 365 stories per year is a toughie. Not saying DSF is an easy market to crack, but you'd think there would be more room for the aspiring writer. And I'm sure there is, and this story just wasn't up to snuff. But that's the point--you really can't sugar coat getting rejected by a market that has to put out a story once a day.

The second rejection came from Strange Horizons:

"Dear Joseph Romel,

Thank you for submittng "The Cantina" to Strange Horizons, but we've decided not to accept it for publication.

We appreciate your interest in the magazine.

--Lydia Waldman"

I don't know what will become of this little story, but I suppose it's worth finding out.

Full Disclosure (Part Six)

2011-03-30T12:35:00.000-07:00

One of my oldest stories is "The Bright Walk", which is your basic vampire tale, as narrated by the vampire himself. I added a new wrinkle or two to make it my own, and I personally think it's the best story I've written so far...which probably isn't a good thing, but I don't care. It's a damn good story.

It has been rejected five times, including one from just the other day. The first rejection came in October of 2009 from Clarkesworld, which I will not be including since the only difference between that one and any other rejection they've sent me is the name of the story. The next rejection was from Shock Totem, later in the month. This one is as form letter as it gets. They don't mention my name, nor the title of the story. Literally, a form rejection.

"Thank you for your submission to Shock Totem.

Sadly, we regret to inform you that we are declining acceptance at this time. Good luck in placing this submission elsewhere.

Sincerely,
The Shock Totem Team
www.shocktotem.com"

The next rejection came from the fine folks as Dark Discoveries in February of last year. Sadly, I don't seem to have that rejection in my inbox, so I guess you'll just have to take my word for it. I definitely kept the next rejection, which came in August of 2010 from Weird Tales, probably the most famous of all fantasy fiction mags around, given the heavyweights it has published, most notably HP Lovecraft. This was also the longest it has taken any market to respond to my submissions--a whopping 174 days. And this on the heels of a 114-day wait from Dark Discoveries to reject the very same story!

"I am so sorry I held onto this so long, especially since I'm going to have to pass on it. Not quite what I'm looking for. You are welcome to try me again with something else, but note: closed to all submissions until the first of the year (January 2011).

Thanks for your patience,

Ann VanderMeer
Editor-In Chief
Weird Tales"

I don't know if that rejection was as personal as it appears, considering I have seen something very similar to it--especially that first line--posted by another blogger recently, but it made me feel very good at the time, like I had a real shot at making it. Rejection can do that for you, believe it or not; they can make you feel like a great writer even though they're saying they don't like this particular story.

Because that's all a rejection is: it isn't a condemnation of you as a writer or your talent, but of that story. That's it. Nothing more than that. Good writers write shit sometimes. It happens.

The last rejection (so far) for my baby was at the hands of fledgling market Arcane. The editor there is Nathan Schulmate, the same fella who served as editor of the creepily cool Arkham Tales magazine, which is now on indefinite hiatus (which means dead).

This one hurt, because this story should be right up their alley. I was really hoping to break in here, but I guess I'll have to wait a little bit longer. Anywhere, here's the letter.

"Dear Joseph,

Thanks for submitting your story "The Bright Walk" to Arcane. I'm sorry, but it's not quite what we're looking for. I'd love to give a detailed critique, but I'm the one-man band on the editorial side of Arcane, so I just don't have the time for long replies to submissions.

Feel free to submit more work to us in the future.

Thanks,
Nathan Shumate
ARCANE: Penny Dreadfuls for the 21st Century"

Don't worry, though. "The Bright Walk" is already sitting in the slushpile of another magazine, looking to finally find its way into your home. And I really believe it will get there.

Full Disclosure (Part Five)

2011-03-30T12:09:00.000-07:00

I wrote "Glory in the Wasteland" because I wanted to write something post-apocalyptic. I have since read Cormack McCarthy's "The Road" and will never attempt to write anything like it again, for his work puts mine to shame. (I'm only half-joking, honestly)

Rejected twice, the story is currently trunked. I may revisit that later, but probably not. The first rejection came in October from Lightspeed Magazine, John Joseph Adams' new rag. He was the editor (or assistant editor? I dunno) at Asimov's for a long time before branching out and doing his own thing. I believe he also helps edit Fantasy Magazine, a market I have yet to submit to.

"Thanks for submitting this story, but I'm going to pass on it. It didn't quite work for me, I'm afraid. Best of luck to you placing this one elsewhere, and thanks for sending it my way.

Sincerely,

John Joseph Adams
Editor
Lightspeed Magazine
www.lightspeedmagazine.com"

The next one hurt, I'll admit. I liked this story, I liked what it did and I liked how I handled the action sequence at the end, but when I send a story to a market like Asimovs, I don't expect it to get accepted. I just don't. But they held onto my story this time for 29 days. That happens to be their average response time, but considering that they had never taken more than a week to get to me before, I allowed myself to dream a little.

In the end, I got the same old rejection letter they send. Pleasant as it was, it totally crushed me. That might be why the story is in my trunk. Maybe I'll have a peek later on...

Full Disclosure (Part Four)

2011-03-30T11:58:00.000-07:00

"Broadcasting Live From Bensk" is my first attempt at political Sci-Fi, even if it only classifies as "soft," both in terms of Sci-Fi and politics. But I really like the story, so I'm wondering why it's still sitting on my HD and not out on a slush pile somewhere.

It has been rejected three times. First by Clarkesworld Magazine, which gives the same exact form rejection every time, so if you really want to know what it looks like, check a couple posts down. That was from September 27, 2010. On October 5th, Asimov's also declined:

"Dear Joseph,

Thank you very much for letting us see "Broadcasting Live From Bensk." We appreciate you taking the time to send it in for our consideration. Although it does not suit the needs of the magazine at this time, we wish you luck with placing it elsewhere.

Please excuse this form letter. The volume of work has unfortunately made it impossible for us to respond to each submission individually, much as we'd like to.

Sincerely,

Sheila Williams, Editor
Asimov's Science Fiction
www.asimovs.com"

The third and (so far) final magazine to pass on the story was Pedestal Magazine, another one of the markets I really, really want to crack. On November 17, the letter came:

"Dear Joseph,

Thank you for submitting your fiction to The Pedestal Magazine. We enjoyed reading it but after careful consideration have decided we cannot use it at this time.

We wish you the best of luck in placing your work elsewhere and sincerely hope that you will submit other writing to us in the future.

Best,

The Editors"

The story has not been out since. I may have to remedy that.

Full Disclosure (Part Three)

2011-03-30T11:43:00.000-07:00

I have two stories that have so far only received one rejection a piece, so instead of giving them each their own post, I thought I'd condense them into one. The first, "All Debts Public And Private" is the most autobiographical story I've written. I had a very unique relationship with a girl for several years in my early and mid 20s. I was in love with her, and she was gay and in love with another woman. Though, come to think of it, that's like opposite of Will & Grace, so maybe it's not so unique after all.

Anyway, the story is the fictional account of our reunion, should it ever happen. The names and events have been changed to protect the innocent, of course, and it's something of a stylized version of us, but the emotion is real. Can't fake that.

It was rejected on November 20th, 2010 by Plougshares, one of them there fancy literary magazines. I haven't sent it out again since, but that's something I'm going to take a look at as soon as I'm done with my current project. Or something like that...

"Dear Joseph Romel,

We regret that your manuscript does not fit our current editorial needs, but we appreciate the opportunity to consider your work. Thanks very much for submitting.

The Editors of Ploughshares"

The other one-shot-kill story is "Magic Words", a story about a girl dealing with abuse. I've read this one several times since the rejection, and it never feels right. Too clunky, every sentence like a piece of tough meat. It's not that the subject matter is too difficult, it's that the writing isn't up to the task. I fear this one will be retired to the trunk.

Keep in mind that while I say this, I received a very positive, honest-to-goodness Personal Rejection Letter. Here goes:

"Mr. Romel,

Thanks for sending us "Magic Words." Unfortunately, we're not going to publish it, but I think it has some potential, which is why I've hung onto it as long as I have. I found your main character to be well-written and sympathetic, but felt that the story fell apart in the climax - perhaps because I didn't buy that she'd leave her little sister, perhaps because the "magic words" part of it felt kind of sudden. Thanks for thinking of Basement Stories, and I hope you'll send us more work in the future.

Best Regards,

Carol Kirkman"

See what I mean? That's a great rejection! Goes to show that what the writer sees isn't necessarily what the reader sees. In that sense, it's a little scary because it throws into question how much I am able to accurately judge my own work. I honestly feel this is one of my weaker stories, writing-wise, and yet here's the editor of a respected magazine saying otherwise.

Oh well. Onward and upward. Or, well, in my case, just onward.

Full Disclosure (Part Two)

2011-03-30T11:14:00.000-07:00

The next story on the docket (we're going alphabetically) is "...And Other Significant Junkies", a story that came to me while listening to Nirvana. The first place I sent it was Glimmer Train, and the Rejection Express made a whistle stop at my inbox on November 27th, 2010:

"Dear Joseph,
Thank you for submitting "...and Other Significant Junkies". While we won't be publishing this piece, we appreciated the opportunity to read your work! Because we read so many stories, it is not possible for us to give specific feedback, but, if you're a relative beginner, you may find something of interest here: Editors' Input"

The next stop (I'm done with the train stuff, promise!) was Clarkesworld Magazine. This one came back just the other day--March 24th, to be exact. "Junkies" has been consoled and comforted and sent back out again since, so don't fret. Here's basically the same rejection everyone gets from Clarkesworld:

"Dear Joseph,

"Thank you for the opportunity to read "...And Other Significant Junkies." Unfortunately, your story isn't quite what we're looking for right now. Each month, we receive hundreds of submissions and while I may like many of them, I can only publish twelve of them per year.

In the past, we've provided detailed feedback on our rejections, but I'm afraid that due to time constraints, we're no longer able to offer that service. I appreciate your interest in Clarkesworld Magazine and hope you'll keep us in mind in the future.

Take care,

Neil Clarke
Publisher/Editor
Clarkesworld Magazine
www.clarkesworldmagazine.com"

On to the next story!

Full Disclosure (Part One)

2011-03-30T10:50:00.000-07:00

The stories keep pumping out, and the rejections keep flooding in.

Fourteen stories in all have hit slush piles across the country (there may have been one or two in Canada, as well), since I completed my first short story in February of 2009. Doesn't seem like all that long ago, really. I even remember writing a journal entry about it. From the wee hours of February 23, 2009:

I was at my brother Chris’s apartment, and I somehow managed to change the “Go Home” icon--it takes you automatically from your location to your home--from my home to Chris’s apartment…so I ended up driving around the block and landing right back in front of Chris’s apartment. I was struck by how I didn’t even realize what had happened until I pulled up in front of Chris’s place, and that’s when the story had taken form: We rely on these technologies at a great cost. Cellphones made it so we don’t know anyone’s phone number, and if we lose our phones, we’re effectively cut off from our friends, and sometimes our families. GPS’s will obviously make us never pay attention to where we’re going, so ultimately we won’t know how to get anywhere. That alone is scary enough!

Forgive the spotty grammar, I had been awake for something like 20 hours when I wrote that. Anyway, fourteen stories doesn't really seem like a lot given that I've been writing for two years now, but considering how slowly I tend to write, and how often I've taken lengthy hiatuses to nurse my fragile ego after tough rejections, a story every two months ain't so bad.

GPS was also the first rejection I ever received, doled out by Emanuel Page over at Macabre Cadaver magazine. As I've detailed in previous posts, I was not prepared for rejection. I don't know that you really ever can prepare yourself for someone saying your hard work isn't good enough (not that a rejection necessarily means that...but a FORM rejection kinda does, in my humble opinion), but I definitely wasn't. I'd like to share that rejection with you now:

Hello Joseph,
 
We have read your story, "GPS,"

and we have decided to pass on this one.
 
Thank you for your submission

to and support of Macabre Cadaver.
 
Regards,
 
Emmanuel Paige
Publisher, Editor, Macabre Cadaver Magazine
publisher@macabrecadaver.com
www.macabrecadaver.com

I took it pretty bad. So bad, in fact, that I didn't submit another story to a market until that October--six months later. But that six months must have done my ego some good, because the next story I wrote, "The Bright Walk" went to Clarkesworld, probably the top semi-pro magazine around today. According to Duotrope, I received a rejection letter from them on October 2nd, 2009--one day after I originally sent them the story. Talk about a kick in the pants.

I don't see the rejection in my email inbox (I've saved all of my rejections...or at least I thought I had) so I'm guessing I was so aghast at the swiftness of the turnaround I deleted it immediately, but I can guess that it looked exactly like every other rejection I've gotten from them, since Mr. Clarke only hands out 1 or 2 personal notes a month, by his own admission.

GPS underwent a rewrite and later became "Postcards From Arborville", which was rejected by The Absent Willow Review:

Dear Joseph,
 
Thank you for submitting your work

for our review. Unfortunately, it does
not meet our needs at this time.

We receive many submissions on a daily

basis and are only able to select a

small percentage of those for

publication.
 
Please continue to write and we’d

really like to hear from you

about any future success.
 
Kindest Regards,
 
The Editors
The Absent Willow Review
http://absentwillowreview.com
Absent Willow Publishing,LLC

Now, this rejection was a particular punch in the throat, not because it was a form rejection (even the ones others claim to be PRLs are really just specialized form letters in many cases), but because of how quickly it came. This was officially 1 day, but I swear it was no more than five or six hours. Maybe I'm remembering it wrong, but I remember being shocked at just how fast it came back. Undaunted, I quickly sent "Postcards" back out on her way to another prestigious market, from which I hope to hear soon.

I'm going to split this up into several parts, one post for each story I've gotten a response back on. I'll include the rejection letter if I have it, so check back!

Momentum

2011-03-19T01:23:00.000-07:00

I've written more words over the past month than I did in the four prior, so it's mostly sunny over here at Camp Joe. Did a little digging around the ol' story trunk and found a couple of goodies that could use some polish, and that's where most of my efforts are currently. That, and a complete rewrite of a story that is currently out for submission at a big market...

Yes, I know, stupid. But I think the story could be so much better than it is if I had approached it from a different angle. I don't even know if anything will come of it, frankly; I'm kind of in a funk, and can't quite find the voice, so it might end up being one more useless exercise.

Did re-read "The Bright Walk," the story I have out currently at The New Yorker, and man if that isn't the best damn story I've written so far. It's got heart, character, voice, pitch-perfect narrative (if I do say so muhself). It's at a level I've always thought I was capable of, but haven't reached in a long time. Reading it again was a nice reminder that I'm not as terrible as I sometimes think.

I'm up to five stories out for consideration as of today, which is a very good feeling. Three of them have been out a while, but two left the coop only a day or so ago. Very exciting stuff. Found a very cool new market on Duotrope Digest, decided to sub there. Semi-pro rates and everything! I'll let you know more about them if they're smart enough to accept my story!

Til next time...

Finito

2011-03-04T19:49:00.000-08:00

I've finally completed the first draft of my first post-hiatus story. It's called "Sonny" and it's about a day in the life of a boy dealing with abuse at school and at home. It wasn't particularly difficult to write, but it came it fits and starts over the course of a couple of weeks.

A big part of that, I think, is my dedication to reading. There's no coincidence that the writers we all read are constant readers. Sure, full-time authors have more time to dedicate to it than we do as aspiring writers, but that's no excuse.

It's a mainstream story, and all (or at least a good portion) of those markets are slow as hell, so once I give it a good once-over and send it out, it will probably be a while before I hear back. In the meantime, I have a few unfinished nuggets in the ol' trunk I'd like to have a whack at, and a new idea or two knocking around upstairs that probably should get a look-see. But first, I need to finish off BLOOD MERIDIAN.

Oh, and in other news, the official release date of A DANCE WITH DRAGONS has been announced, for all my fellow fantasy buffs. Mr. Martin confirmed the announcement on his Not-A-Blog. He isn't finished quite yet, but he's apparently close enough for his publishers to make the announcement, which means the end is very near.

Submission Updates

2011-02-20T06:28:00.000-08:00

I mentioned "The Machine" getting a very friendly and helpful PRL from On Spec in my last post, but I just realized I didn't tell you guys about the rest of the stories I have out.

"Glory in the Wasteland" was rejected by Asimov's Science Fiction on November 17...the same day "Broadcasting Live From Bensk" was rejected by Pedestal Magazine. Yes, that's right: A double-whammy, two rejections in one day.

"All Debts Public and Private" was sent back by Ploughshares on November 20th.

"...And Other Significant Junkies" rejected on November 27th. Four rejections in ten days.That one, believe it or not, is not a record: From September 27th to October 5th, I received 5 rejections, a record which came very close to toppling in November, but did not.

Only "The Machine" has been sent submitted elsewhere; the stories listed above are all on hiatus. I don't know why I didn't send them out. I guess I was feeling down about my writing and thought it was pointless. But part of it is also that I just don't know how good these stories actually are. When I went back and reread "The Machine," I knew I had a good story. Even with the apparently-confusing introduction, the story itself is strong, and I still enjoy reading it. I need to sit down and read these stories again to know if any of them are ready.

And not just if they're good, but if they're in my voice. If they read like I wrote them. I have always been told that there are no rules, but I guess I never really understood what that meant until I read McCarthy. That book ("The Road', and subsequently, "Blood Meridian") showed me that there are no rules. Here's a man who writes a story and doesn't give a fuck if there aren't enough commas for your liking, doesn't care that there isn't one quotation mark to be found. Fuck your rules, this is my voice, is what he says with his writing.

Well, now I know, finally, that I can take the mask off. I always tried to dress my writing up so it looked like it fit, like it belonged, but to hell with all that. I'm not doing that anymore. The quirks that made my writing unique and appealing to my teachers when I was growing up, that stayed with me into my 20s, and were pounded out of me by every bit of writing advice I've received (save one, of course: "there are no rules"), are all back. I'm back. I'm not going to force my writing into a niche anymore just because that's the "right" way and my way is the "wrong" way.

To quote Romany Malco's character in "The 40 Year Old Virgin" (no, seriously!) "What's felt right to you don't work; it's time to try some wrong, dog."

I, Writer

2011-02-17T01:02:00.000-08:00

Howdy, stranger.

It's been too long.

The last time I was here, I said I'd take a week or two to rest. A week or two become three and a half months. No doubt time I will look back upon as an old man and wish I could have back, swear now I know how to use it. Don't they say youth is wasted on the young? Enough of it has been wasted on me, I think.

Maybe I shouldn't be so tough on myself. I didn't stop writing because I was afraid of the rejections or failure. I stopped because I was tired. All summer and into the fall, I tried to cram in all the experience I didn't get in my teens and 20s before my 30th birthday. Like a midlife crisis, but instead of sports cars and girlfriends ten years my junior, I overcompensated by sitting in front of my laptop so long that I got a monitor burn. Yeah, I had "OpenOffice" seared in my forehead backwards for a week.

I even had trouble reading. I'm usually able to sit down for hours with a good book, but it was getting to the point where I wasn't reading much of anything, and even after I took a break I was having a hard time reading without getting distracted.

Wasn't all bad, though. I received a lovely new Nook on Christmas, and that has completely cured me of my reading trouble. I've already torn through three books this year (China Mieville's Iron Council and Looking For Jake, and Cormack McCarthy's The Road) and I'm deep into another McCarthy tale, Blood Meridian, as well as Mieville's latest, Kraken. (I know, kind of McCarthy-Mieville heavy. Don't worry, I've also got Jeff VanderMeer's Shriek: An Afterword) on deck, and even a non-fiction by Physicist Brian Greene entitled The Hidden Reality, which is about quantum physics and parallel universes. So I'm really back into the swing of it, as far as my reading goes.

The reason I titled this entry "I, Writer" is because once I started reading again, it wasn't long before I started feeling that old pull again. Every time I'd turn it on I'd get drunk on words and story and have to shut it off and write. Got about four thousand words into a short before I ran out of steam. Hey, it happens.

Then I got a personal rejection for "The Machine" from the friendly folks at On Spec magazine. They said the plot was broken because the initial setup was steampunk, yet the characters were modern. I was blown away by this response, because I definitely did not intend the story to appear at all steampunk.

How do you like that? Accidental Steampunk! I just started a new genre.

Anyway, I went back and revised it, and that really got my blood pumping. Not just the revision itself, but that I really, really loved it. I think I did a great job! I really do. I only wish I had gotten it this polished before I sent it out the first time. I'm starting to run out of pro genre mags, as this is easily my most well-traveled piece. But it's off at another market, and we'll see what happens.

As for me, I've already begun working on another piece. Literary, not genre. Nice change of pace, I think. It's about a boy who gets bullied at school. I can already see the Cormack McCarthy influence in it (No quotation marks, very few commas), and I'm really enjoying myself. I'm telling the story out-of-order, as well. Don't know why. It just feels right. That's the thing: I'm feeling so artistic lately, like I've got all this creativity inside begging to be let out.

I'm excited to feel this way, but it's tempered with regret for what had to happen to get here. I also have to confront what happened at the writing group, as unpleasant as that will be. I know my reasons for leaving were sound, but I have to ask myself if I was really just in a bad situation, or if I might have brought the troubles on myself. There were some good people there. Mike was much too distant for my taste, and I wasn't comfortable with a fellow relatively-unaccomplished writer being "in charge", but I don't know that I handled it correctly.

I was put off by how she spoke to me, but could I have handled it better? I feel I may have started counting enemies before anything happened. Maybe that combative mindset hurt me.

I don't know how well it would have worked out in the long run regardless, but I can't deny that I learned something from it, even if those lessons weren't the ones intended.

Anyway, I'm just glad to be writing again. This time around I know what my priorities are, and in what order they belong. I write because it's fun, not because I feel like I have to get my career going. I'm not going to be a famous author by 30 (since I already am 30) so I can stop panicking. No more pressure. No more deadlines.

Burnt Out

2010-10-25T21:57:00.000-07:00

Earlier this year, rejection after rejection poked through my thin skin and made me want to quit writing. I thought I wasn't good enough, and I walked away. From March until July, I really didn't write much of anything. Real life sucked at the time, though that's no excuse; some of the greatest writers have written their best work while their lives crumbled around them.

In July, though, I decided I wasn't going to let rejections beat me, and I started writing again. This time, I was more focused, and a few stories into my return, I was writing better, and more prolific than any other time in my life. A handful of stories, a ton of submissions, and a bunch of rejections later, and here I am.

But "here" isn't a good place. It's a tired place with no good ideas and no real distinct voice. See? How shitty was that imagery?

The point I'm trying to make is that I'm tired, and I'm burnt out. I'm not bothered by the rejections as much anymore, but I literally haven't stopped writing since that night in July when I made the decision to refocus my life. Maybe I need a week or two off? I could catch up on my reading, let my muse nap a little bit.

I don't know if it's the right answer, but I'm out of answers now. I'm not a prolific writer by any means, but in the last two months I haven't even come close to my modest daily best of three or four thousand words. That's too long to be a slump. I think if I let my brain reset a little, it can only help.

In the meantime, I've still got eight stories on the market, and all but one or two of them are good for another dozen submissions before I trunk them, so no matter how long this hiatus lasts, you'll be getting regular updates from Yours Truly, so there's no reason to not check in on me from time to time.

Until next time.

Hothouse of Horrors

2010-10-21T19:25:00.000-07:00

Well, I've left the writing group I joined about a month and a half ago, putting an end to one of the most dysfunctional experiences of my life. What I thought was going to be a professional group of writers interested in the common good turned out to be anything but that.

Hint: when the person running the group is more interested in you flying to England to have sex with them than giving helpful critique of your stories, it's time to leave.

Anyway, back on my own again. And in a way, it feels good. I'll miss the advice of the more helpful members of the group, but it just wasn't worth it to stay.

The Waiting Game

2010-10-18T11:55:00.001-07:00

Submitting your work for consideration takes a kind of courage some writers don't possess. I was one of those writers for the better part of my 20s. Now, just a few months from my 30th birthday, my urgency to get published wins over fear of rejection. But some things don't change, no matter how many times you take that leap and submit your work.

Waiting is the worst. Well, okay, it's the second-worst. I currently have seven stories making the rounds right now. Thanks to places like Duotrope Digest, writers now have some idea of how long they can expect to wait for a response, which is both a blessing and a curse. When a story nears the estimated response date, I can't help but get nervous. A decision, most likely, is imminent. It's like waiting for the guillotine to drop.

A perfect example is my story "Glory in the Wasteland", which is currently on submission at Lightspeed. One of the quickest turnaround times in all of genre fiction, Lightspeed's average response time is something like two days--a day and a half for rejections, five and change for rejections, and I think it's somewhere like three days for rewrite requests--so you know from the moment you submit that you're going to hear back quickly.

Being the pessimist that I am, my first fear is "I hope I don't hear back today," because it will invariably be a rejection, and who wants to set a person record for quickest rejection? But I've been "Under Consideration" for two days now, which, if you listen to Neil Clarke of Clarkesworld magazine, could mean good things. ...or it could mean that the editor took the weekend off, and hasn't gotten around to sending my rejection letter yet.

I have been driving myself crazy with this submission, but this seems to happen every time an estimated response date nears; I will find myself checking my hotmail account every five minutes, checking submissions systems every ten minutes (if applicable), opening and closing and reopening tabs just in case it isn't refreshing properly, etc..

Does anyone else go through this? I suppose it would be easier if I had kids to worry about, or some other real life issue to take up my time, but unfortunately (or fortunately) I have most of my time to dedicate to writing. And yet when these dates roll around, the one thing I can't do is concentrate enough to write!

Anyway, here's a list of my open submissions and where they currently are:

The Bright Walk / The New Yorker / 83 days waiting / 134 day mean average RT / 90 day EstRT

Postcard From Arborville / Tor.com / 50 days waiting / 190 day mean average RT / no EstRT (this could be out a year)

The Machine / On Spec / 17 days waiting / 134 mean average / 180 EstRT

All Debts Public and Private / Ploughshares / 14 days waiting / 76 mean average / 150 EstRT

Broadcasting Live From Bensk / Pedestal Magazine / 13 days waiting / 39 mean average / 60 EstRT

...And Other Significant Junkies / Glimmer Train / 6 days waiting / 66 mean average / 90 EstRT

Glory in the Wasteland / Lightspeed Magazine / 4 days waiting / 2 mean average / 14 EstRT

Time is on Your Side

2010-10-12T09:34:00.000-07:00

About a month ago, I finished the first draft of a short story called "Glory in the Wasteland." After the first draft was done, I moved on to other things, leaving it unedited.

Yesterday, I returned to the story, and gave it a good read-through. The story, overall, was great, but I cringed at a few touches I had thought at the time to be "cool" and "Tarantino-like." I mercilessly murdered those ugly passages, and now the story is ready for a spit-shining (or total destruction) at the hands of my Hothouse writing group.

The only how-to-write-fiction book I've ever read was "On Writing" by Stephen King (I'm sure many of you have read it, as well), and one of Stephen's many rules is that you should walk away from your story for at least a couple of weeks before editing it. Reason being, he says, only time can create enough distance between you and your story that you can read it objectively. Or, reasonably objectively.

In the few times my impatient butt has been able to wait long enough to adhere to this, the results have been startling. "Magic Words," after a few months, proved to be a flat-out badly-written story, "Dragon Dancer" turned out to be worth keeping, and "Glory in the Wasteland" might just be a winner. No matter what the case, the weeks between readings really does give you a better perspective. You're not longer in love with phrases or styles you used, so if you fall in love with them again...it's a good sign. And if you don't, then you know what to cut.

Give it a try, sometime. Writing is the profession of patience, so it's not like you're in any hurry.

The City & The City

2010-10-08T07:44:00.001-07:00

Well, I finally finished China Mieville's "The City & The City" last night. I tore through the last hundred pages in just over a day, as I usually do. Now, I'll preface this by saying I'm a lousy reviewer, so what follows will be very brief, probably clumsy and un-reviewy (the first mark of a bad reviewer is made up words!)

Okay, where do I start with this? The spoiler everyone interested in Mieville or this particular book has already heard is that the two cities in which this story occur--Beszel and Ul Qoma--are located in the same geographic location, so I'm not really giving anything away there. Mieville himself has said so in interviews, albeit somewhat begrudgingly, and lamented spending five chapters building to it when basically every reviewer on the planet give it away in the first line.

So, yeah, two cities in the same place. Of course, your house is in one or the other, and there are various places throughout that are totally in one or the other, but most of the topography is "crosshatched," or shared by both. A building may have a floor in Beszel, and another in Ul Qoma. In some instances, two rooms on the same floor may be separated by three feet, and an entire country.

These are unique and unusual borders, and arguably arbitrary, but they are some of the most fiercely guarded in the world, thanks to the shadowy overlord-ish group known as Breach, who seem to appear out of nowhere when a citizen--or a tourist--crosses that invisible line (which, honest to god, can be as simple as standing still; some crosshatched areas are fine to walk through, but standing still puts you in Breach).

This book is a murder mystery at heart, a detective novel in the vein of Chandler. A young American student living in Ul Qoma winds up dead by a skate park in Beszel, and Inspector Borlu is on the case.

Anyone used to reading the baroque, lavish style of Mieville's Bas-Lag novels (like me) will most likely need a minute to get used to his voice in this book. I won't say it's stripped down, because that would imply that the prose is somehow worse, or lesser than in the other books, but that isn't the case at all. The prose is extremely effective, and China still sends me running for my dictionary every now and again, but the writing here is more straightforward, more focused, than in his other books.

Borlu, for 99.999% of the book, is supposed to be speaking either Illitan or Besz, which are both (imaginary) European languages, and the prose reads almost as if it is was meant to be translated from them to English, and along with it comes all of the bumps and clumsy phrases that don't quite sound right in English as they do when spoken in the original tongue.

Anyway (great segue!), this book is great. It's a great detective novel written by the best fantasy writer alive today, and that makes for a really cool read. For me, part of the appeal of The Dark Tower series was that it was a fantasy written by a horror writer, and as such, it read that way: King's skill for keeping you off-balance and creeped out lent itself brilliantly to a story about a gunslinging hero fighting his way to the apex of existence; "The City & The City" is the same way, with Mieville's fantasy sensibilities (ancient, mysterious artifacts with "strange physics, and a third, hidden city existing between the other two) making a crime novel something more.

In a way, it's like if you could take your favorite sports star and bring him into another sport, and he was actually just as great at that one as he was the first one. Imagine if Michael Jordan hit .300 for the White Sox, instead of flunking out of their farm team? That's sort of what's happened here.

Updates

2010-10-06T16:53:00.000-07:00

Seems like I've fallen a bit behind on submission updates, and the like, so here's a snapshot of where I am today.

Since the last time I gave an update, Asimov's has rejected "The Machine," while Daily Science Fiction has rejected "Live From Bensk." Both are back out on the market and under consideration. "All Debts Public And Private" is under consideration, as well.

"The Bright Walk" is still in the slush at that particular (unnamed) magazine, and has been for 71 days, which is very close to Duotrope's 90 day estimated response time...but barely halfway to their "average" response time of 140 days. So I'll either be hearing from them this month, or more than two months from now.

"Postcards From Arborville" is 38 days out, but there's every chance I don't hear back for 8 or 9 months, maybe more. This market gets a ridiculous amount of submissions, and as such has notoriously slow response times.

"The Cantina" was rejected by Strange Horizons on September 29, and after rereading it, I really don't think this one is ready. So, as of that rejection, I have "trunked" the story. I might give it a rewrite in the future, or pick its bones for material, but as it is now, it's not going back out. Hey, it happens to the best of us.

"Magic Words," as I think I've mentioned, has been at Basement Stories since August 11, and despite the the site's claim that everyone who submits will hear back by September 15, I have yet to receive a response. About a week ago, I sent a query, but have yet to hear anything. My guess is that it maybe got lost along the way, but I did go back and check my outbox just to be sure, and everything is in order. So either they deleted it, it went to their spam box, or it got lost in the shuffle. Whatever the case, I'm left hanging, and it's very discouraging. I understand long response times, but not hearing anything back almost a month after the date promised is tough. If I don't hear something back within the next week, my next communication to them will be to withdraw it.

What else? Well, my time at the Hothouse has been extremely educational and productive. I'm a better writer already, and I haven't been there more than a month, I don't think. It has been tremendous. Other than that, I'm still writing, still submitting.

Based On A True Story

2010-10-02T23:29:00.000-07:00

I recently finished the second draft of my latest short entitled "All Debts Public and Private." For the sake of brevity, let's just say the story is about two people reuniting after years apart following a rough breakup. It is more or less inspired by real events in my life; in fact, the desire to write the story came to me when I heard a song that reminded me of her.

It's one of the most personal stories I've ever written, and the writing of it was fueled by emotion rather than inspiration. Now that the rewrites are largely finished, I've been thinking about the experience, and I'm still not sure what to make of it. I'm tremendously proud of the writing, and I think it's probably the best I've ever done. The framework of the story is largely true, as I've said, but the climax of the story is all fiction, and something I'm also very satisfied with. But the whole endeavor has me a little bit worried.

William Faulkner, at the Nobel banquet in 1950, while lamenting how the world had become blinded to the spiritual by a fear of physical death, said, "Because of this, the young man or woman writing today has forgotten the problems of the human heart in conflict with itself which alone can make good writing because only that is worth writing about, worth the agony and the sweat."

After writing "Debts," I think I see what he means. I still love science fiction and fantasy, and I still want to write it, but I'll never write anything of substance until I put my heart into it. Even if the day comes when I can spin perfect sentences without need for a writing group to help me, what good are those sentences without feeling? I look back on my work, limited though the bibliography is, and I don't see one story that has my heart in it. Sometimes I give lip service to it, but after writing "Debts," none of feels real.

I should stop before I sound too self-aggrandizing here, but I'm trying to say that I didn't have any trouble writing this story. It isn't the greatest thing ever, but for now it's the best I'm capable of, and I don't think it's a coincidence.

George R R Martin also quoted Faulkner in his retrospective anthology "Dreamsongs," and what made George such a successful writer then (and now) is that he wrote from the heart. I've read stories of his that involved necrophilia, lonely space stations, brain-eating alien jello, and all of it has the heart that all of my stories lack.

All but one, that is.

I wish I knew how to put that same heart into my other writing. I guess that's part of the growing process, huh? Figuring stuff like this out?

I Can Haz Tag?

2010-09-30T03:20:00.000-07:00

I've been tagged by the Red Wench! (that's RedLorry, for those who don't know)

For the uninitiated, I have to answer some questions about me, so ya'll can get to know me butter. Better. Whatever.

1. Four Things I Always Have With Me

iPod Touch
Wallet
Cellphone
Keychain (I have the greatest keychain ever, and it's like my security blanket)

2. Four Things on my Desk

Cup of Diet Pepsi
Empty can of Diet Pepsi
Empty can of Diet Pepsi
Duct Tape...don't ask...

3. Four Things in my Bedroom

"The City & The City" by China Mieville
XBox 360 (ladies?)
Piggy PJs (...ladies?)
No girls (coincidence?)

4. Four Things I've Always Wanted to Do But Haven't

Write a Novel
Backpack Across Europe
Wake up at three in the afternoon and not feel like a scumbag
Host Saturday Night Live

5. Four Things I Enjoy Very Much at the Moment

China Mieville's "The City & The City"
"inFamous" for the PS3
Talking baseball with my 73 year old mother
Being so handsome

6. Four Songs I Can't Get Out of my Head

Thnks Fr Th Mmrs -- Fall Out Boy
More Than a Feeling -- Boston
Dig -- Incubus
Coin Operated Boy -- The Dresden Dolls

7. Four Things You Don't Know About Me

I sing in the car...every time.
I'm more girly than the girls I date
I am a Mixed Martial Arts fanatic
I cry during TV show finales. Doesn't matter what it is. Even if it's a show I've only seen the finale of.

8. Four Blogs I'm tagging

Er, I'm pretty sure everybody I know has already been tagged, so I'm just gonna be "it" for a while, I guess! Muahaha! The power!

RIP Greg Giraldo

2010-09-29T19:32:00.000-07:00

I know this is a writing blog, and I don't talk about everyday stuff too much, but I felt like this needed to be said. Comedian Greg Giraldo passed away today at the age of 44 after an accidental overdose this past weekend. If I have a love that rivals my writing, it's watching stand up comedy. Ever since I was a little kid watching Rodney Dangerfield and Sam Kinison, I have believed it to be an art and a noble profession. I've also known that comedians, even more so than writers, are often depressed people battling personal demons.Greg was no different.

He was the funniest roaster around, and I thought of him as this generation's Don Rickles. But he was more than that, and had one hell of a routine outside of the roasts. And those roasts just aren't going to be the same without him. He was the headliner, hands down, and now he's gone, and that sucks.

If there is any good that can come of this, let it be that we are all more aware of our friends and family who are battling addiction. I have a brother who has been struggling with it for years, and it's extremely difficult, but I try to make sure I'm always there when he needs me. I hope you all do the same.

RIP Greg.

What, No Celebration?

2010-09-29T17:55:00.000-07:00

I just realized that my last post was number 50, and I didn't acknowledge it in any way. Not that there's much one can do....but still.

I guess the party will have to wait until the 100th post. (someone remind me when I'm getting close?)

Anyway, I do have some good news to pass along tonight: My flash fiction entry to Spectra Magazine's flash fiction contest has been included in their latest issue. I didn't win the contest, unfortunately, but I did make the "Best of the Rest" portion, and hey, a credit is a credit. I don't know if the stories were placed in order or not...but I'll pretend they were, because my story is the fourth one, so I'm just gonna go ahead and assume I came in forth. :D

In other news, I think I set a personal record for shortest draft time today. I started my latest short in the wee hours of this morning (like four or five) and finished it about a half an hour ago. That's, what, fifteen or sixteen hours from start to finish? Of course, I still have to edit and maybe do some rewrites, but for a first draft, that's pretty special. For me, anyway.

I think it's because the story was so near and dear to me, and the emotions--if not the details--are semi-autobiographical. Interestingly, it is totally devoid of pulp, and the first wholly mainstream story I've written in a long time. No rayguns, no nonvirii, no spaceships or time travel. Nada. I guess that means all the markets I'm used to submitting to are out. Anyway, more updates on that as they come (including the story's title, which does not yet exist)

Anybody Got a Light?

2010-09-28T01:56:00.000-07:00

I'm to the point now in my life as an ex-smoker that the usual tasks I used to be unable to accomplish without a cigarette in hand--or at least the promise of one as reward for completion--no longer remind me that I am, in fact, an ex-smoker. I'm less than a year and a half removed from my last cigarette, but it took all of a year to get over that.

One of those tasks is writing. And not just writing, but writing madly; you know, those really good sessions where you're hitting all the right notes, so confident that you start improvising like Satchmo. Finally, these sessions don't make me crave the cancer stick.

Though writing about it, of course, now does.

Anyway, the last two nights have been very productive, and I finished off the first draft of my wasteland story, tentatively titled "Chasing the Sunset," though if you followed my old Livejournal blog, you know I change title like I change underwear. (that's daily, in case you were wondering)

I think it's a good story. I hope it has style and substance. I'm still trying to learn how to write distinctive first-person stories, and I don't know that I'm there yet. Reading a lot of China Mieville lately has me doing that; he's the most literary writer of pulp I've ever read, and it has me blushing with jealousy every time I pick up The City & The City. I don't know if this story has the voice I want it to have, but I think it's as close as I've come so far.

Anyway, I'll see if I can polish it up in the next day or two so my fellow Hothousers can tear it apart and make it better. In the meantime, I'm waiting rather impatiently for Spectra Magazine to announce the winner (and runners up) of their September Flash Fiction contest. The editors were somewhat vague about when we'd find out, saying only that we'd hear about the grand prize winner "before October," and to "check issue two for the runners up." Issue two SHOULD come out on Oct 1, given that Issue one came out on Sept 1...but this is a genre fiction magazine, and anything is possible.

If the editors are reading this, I in no way am attempting to influence your decision, but...PICK ME. Daddy needs him some Kindle.

The Chase

2010-09-25T19:51:00.000-07:00

So I was just doing a little Duotrope-Diving, and realized that my story "Magic Words" has been out longer than the average response time and estimated response time the site offers. I went to the site to double-check, and not only does the site say that all submissions for Issue Two would be responded to by September 15, but they've gone ahead and opened up reading for Issue Three!

Something is amiss...

So for the first time in my life, I have to query (or "chase") my story. I went ahead and double-checked my original email, and the attachment is safely attached, the story itself meets all the standard guidelines, and everything seems to be in order. I wonder what happened.

We'll see. They say "feel free to query" but they don't provide you with any sort of query-specific (or even preferred email address, since there are a few on the site) so I just sent it to their slush pile. We'll see, I guess.

New Design

2010-09-25T19:16:00.000-07:00

Well? Whaddaya think?

I like it. Feels a little more earthy, a little more natural. I liked the whole whole Space/Mountains/Rainy Window vista I had going, but this works better, I think. Can't guarantee this is how it'll stay, but we're going with this for now.

Maybe this little exercise in Blog Shui will help my mojo in the writing world.

On that front, I have a new story going that I'm pretty excited about. I'm a bit torn by it, though, because I really don't know where it's going. I feel like I want this to be my first legitimate crack at a novel, but that in itself creates a couple of problems.

The first problem is psychological. When I was in my early-mid 20s, I was relatively unaware of the short story. I was an avid reader, but I read novels, not magazines or anthologies, and I had no idea that there were sites dedicated to short stories online. As such, it never occurred to me that there was another way into the business besides writing a novel. That is to say, I didn't know that doing what I do now--write and attempt to sell short stories as an attempt to build a resume--was an option. So I plodded through beginning after beginning, Chapter One after Chapter one, having no clue as to what I was doing.

For some writers, writing novels is easy. Brandon Sanderson honed his skill by writing four or five novels that he never intended to publish. Eighty, ninety, one hundred thousand words comes easy for some, I guess. For me, not so much. I was aimless, and though even I could tell that my prose was promising, I had no sense of how to string a story together over the long haul.

Today, I'm the author of a dozen or so short stories over the last year and a half. I know my sense of story is better, but there's still that fear nipping at my butt. Do I have the stamina? Can I really do this? Is this story really worth it? If not, will I know that it's the story that's lacking and not me?

The second problem is that I have very recently become a member of a writing group that deals exclusively with short fiction. There is a very lenient one story per month minimum, but that could very well rise at any time, and I have a legitimate concern that I won't be able to meet the bar while working on this manuscript.

But hey, maybe this is all premature. I'm barely through a chapter on this story, so let's see where it goes before I make any decisions.

Asimov's Science Fiction

2010-09-22T22:56:00.000-07:00

...just rejected me.

But it's cool, it's my first one from them, and I'm happy to be a casualty of such a famous magazine.

The story was "The Machine," which is really starting to pile up the pink slips, let me tell you. But that's part of it, isn't it? Oh well. I gave it a hug and sent it right back out.

Not much else going on. Have an idea for a story that might just be a novel, but we'll see. More as it happens...

Long Time, No See!

2010-09-21T11:47:00.000-07:00

Hey internet peoples! How ya been? You're looking good! Did you lose weight?

I know, I know: I'm slacking on this blog. And I apologize. It's just that I've been really busy with the Hothouse writing group, critiquing and making sure I have a suitable story up there to be critiqued. And I've been trying to read a lot more, as well, since you have to be an avid reader to be an effective writer. Excuses, I know, but those two things alone chew up enough time and energy to make a simple blog post seem like a daunting task.

On the writing front, I've just finished a new story entitled "Broadcasting Live from Bensk" about a news anchor for a government-run news agency in a small (fictional) European country who sits down to interview the country's leader. The interview, of course, is totally scripted, but our intrepid newsman decides to change the script, and, in the process, changes the world.

On the reading front, I'm finally dedicating time to China Mieville's "The City & The City" and it has been worth every moment. What a great read. A detective novel set in the strangest city you could ever imagine (also in a small, fictional corner of Europe. Coincidence?) I've got a few short story reads under my belt, as well, and I'll probably go ahead and review a couple of them for you guys today, when I get a few minutes.

Anyway, I promise I'll update more often, as I know you're getting bored and lonely without me.

Rejected: The Machine

2010-09-15T12:45:00.001-07:00

So, I just heard back from Apex magazine, and they sent what I think is a very brief form letter saying they're not going to take my story, The Machine. This is just a day or so after getting a rejection on "The Last Dragon Dancer," so I'm pretty bummed out.

If I can take anything away from this, it's that this is just part of the game. Everybody gets rejected. Everybody. But it still hurts, man. Wow.

Onward and upward, as they say.

PRL: Beneath Ceaseless Skies

2010-09-13T18:25:00.000-07:00

Well, the story I sent out most recently, "The Last Dragon Dancer" was the first of my babies to return...and that's not a good thing.

Here's the rejection from Assistant Editor Karen Marshall:

Thanks very much for sending this story to _Beneath Ceaseless Skies_. 
Unfortunately, it's not quite right for us. Fenin didn't feel as vivid to
me as I'd like; I wished I got a stronger sense in the opening of his
personal investment in his task--what drove him, what he feared, and what
conflicts lay ahead for him.

We appreciate your interest in our magazine. Please feel free to submit
again.


Regards,

Kate Marshall

Assistant Editor

_Beneath Ceaseless Skies_
http://beneath-ceaseless-skies.com

So that sucks. But on the bright side, this is the most in-depth rejection I've ever received; they tell me what they didn't like about, and what they wish they saw. That's pretty awesome. But this creates a new problem: Do I edit, or do I just ship off elsewhere?

I think this is a job for my new writing group. I'm going to post it over there and see if I can get some input.

Stuff & Such (and stuff)

2010-09-13T12:41:00.000-07:00

Wow, I am really falling behind here. But that's a good thing! It means I'm reading more, writing more, and critiquing more.

What's that? Critiquing, you say? Yes, I do say. I have been accepted by the prestigious HotHouse writing group, from the brilliant mind of Mike Coombs (of GUD and The Oddville Press fame) and I've started critiquing pieces posted by my fellow writers. It's a scary prospect, critiquing. I'm always concerned I'll be wrong, somehow...

I've finished a story tentatively titled "The Ultimatum," and am writing another story after having an epiphany on the bus ride home from Queens last night. This other story is titled (tentatively) "Glory in the Wasteland" and I'm very, very excited about it. It feels different enough to be special.

I'm starting to really plow through China Mieville's Hugo-tying novel "The City & The City" and it really is fantastic. It's every bit like the crime dramas I used to read in my youth, but the element of two cities existing in exactly the same geographical location is so fantastic that it gives the story a weirdness you just don't find in this genre.

OK, well, I have a couple of stories to read and crit, a short story of my own to work on, and a handsome face to show the world. Have a wonderful rest of the day!

Slacking...

2010-09-09T10:58:00.000-07:00

Sorry I've been falling a little behind on Ye Olde Blogg here, but it's been a fairly eventful week. First, I was invited to apply to a rather prestigious writing group, which, of course, blew my mind. I spent two days punching myself in the forehead, but no ideas came. Then, in the wee hours of that second day, it hit me, and I spent all of two hours pounding out the 500-word (875-word, in reality) application story. I'll post an update when I hear back from them on their decision.

On other fronts, I was sitting my living room yesterday when I noticed two suspicious folks wandering around my car. I ran outside to meet them, and it turns out they work for the complex I live in. I had somehow missed that my registration had expired, and according to their policy, unregistered vehicles cannot be parked on their grounds. So I had to get that taken care of today (only $50, but still, that's $50 I needed for other things). The inspection also just ran out (I'm a dumbass, I know) so I still have that to get taken care of, but that isn't quite as pressing as my registration, which is now kosher, and my car won't be towed.

My 60-word short story is still up at the Spectra Magazine forums. It is tied for the most comments, and has a slight lead in views over the competition, but it was posted, what, a week ago? It's heading towards the bottom of the page, so if you are reading this and you haven't stopped by and signed up to post a comment, please, for all that is holy and good and kind, click on the link I have just provided, and say something about my story. It's 73 words total (13 for the line we all have to use, which doesn't count toward the total) so it won't take up more than 30 seconds of your time, if that. And signing up is a breeze. Remember, if I win, I get a new Amazon Kindle. If I finish in the top ten, I get published in their magazine, and a cut of the royalties.

What else? Oh, I'm working on another awesome story right now, but I'd rather not jinx it by giving too much detail. I'll post most when it's finished.

Stats and Milestones

2010-09-05T18:21:00.000-07:00

I was just having my daily poke around Duotrope, when I decided to take a look at my submission history. Not just what I'm waiting to hear back on, but everything I've submitted. And I found some interesting stuff.

My first submission ever was the original "GPS," and I sent it to Macabre Cadaver on March 9th, 2009. I received a form rejection letter a little less than two months later, on April 20th.

I obviously wasn't ready for the rejection, because I didn't submit another story until October 1st of that year. The story was the first incarnation of "The Bright Walk", and it was rejected by Clarkesworld Magazine the very next day. Talk about a kick in the pants.

Shock Totem rejected it next, and I sent it off to Dark Discoveries around Halloween, and wouldn't hear back for months.

Proving how much of a delicate flower I am, I went through another period of not writing, which saw me not submitting another story until January 4th of 2010. That story, however, was "Goldie," which was accepted on February 19th and appeared in that month's edition of Midwest Literary Magazine. This spring, the story was anthologized in "Hanging By Threads."

Two days after acceptance, I received my first personalized rejection letter (PRL). It was from Dark Discoveries, for "The Bright Walk." My next rejection was personal, as well, from Flash Fiction Online for the short story version of "The Machine."

Fast Forward to August of 2010. There were eight submissions in the month, a new record for me. I received four responses: three form letters from Daily Science Fiction, Clarkesworld, and The Absent Willow Review; And I received one PRL from John Joseph Adams at Lightspeed Magazine.

August was huge for me. Still looking for that first pro sale, but it looks like I'm getting there. I wonder what September will bring...

Done!

2010-09-05T09:45:00.000-07:00

The first draft of "The Last Dragon Dancer" has been finished! Woo!

I have to admit, I'm a little burnt out after writing that ending, so I might hold off on revisions for a day or so. More updates as they come.

Edit: Oh, for those who care, the word count on the first draft is an impressive 6044. I'm sure that will come down some in revision, though.

Friendly Competition

2010-09-04T14:50:00.000-07:00

I took a break from finishing my story today and decided to have a look around Duotrope's Deadline Calendar, which lets writers know when magazines, anthologies, and contests will be closing their respective reading periods. It's very handy; it even tells you what, if any, theme the market is using.

So I did a little snooping, and I found a couple of very interesting contests/themed reading periods upcoming, so I thought I'd share them with you.

The first is from Writer's Digest. They do one of these every month, so there's not particularly any hurry here, but whatever. There is a prompt that you must follow, and the max word count is a hard 750. The prompt is as follows:

Prompt: During your weekly housecleaning you find an unfamiliar cell phone in the cushions of your couch--but can't recall having any recent visitors. It rings.

Based on previous contest entries, you'll be up against anywhere from 500-1000 others, so remember to bring your "A" game to this puppy. The winner will have their story published in a future edition of the digest, and receive $100 in books from the company. That's a pretty sweet deal. Contest closes in on September 10, (or 10 September for you Euros out there) SO HURRY UP. Here's the link to the contest.

The second entry comes from the cleverly titled "Poe Little Thing" magazine. Rather than a contest, per se, it's an open reading period for their themed quarterly issue. Here's what they say about that theme:

The theme for the autumn 2010 issue will be:

IN SPACE NO ONE CAN HEAR YOU SCREAM

The word count is a "soft" 1000 (meaning, if you absolutely must go over by a few words, they'll work with you). If you are selected, you will receive a professional rate of .05 cents per word (fifty bucks for a thousand-word story), which means it would be a professional sale! Yay! Deadline is September 20th, or until the issue is filled. Here's the link to the submissions page.

There you have it. I figure given the short length and quick deadlines of these two items, it might give my fellow writers an opportunity to flex their literary muscle, and maybe earn a little something in the process. Enjoy!

When All Else Fails...

2010-09-04T07:51:00.000-07:00

The Blargs (or writer's block, to the lame and unimaginative) have locked me in their boring, taupe cells plenty of times, and like any good convict, I have learned a few methods of escape. One of the more effective method is to abandon whatever story I'm stuck on, and pick up another, preferably unfinished (or only finished in rough draft), and get to writing/revising. This doesn't always work, and there is a risk of totally abandoning the original story you were stuck on, but I find that more often than not, I will get the juices going sufficiently that an idea will hit me that breaks through the stalemate.

That's pretty much what happened a couple of nights ago.

I was stuck, as I mentioned, deep in the Blargs. So I dug through my folder of unfinished or unedited manuscripts, where I found "The Last Dragon Dancer," a story about a man who can communicate with dragons.

I had originally planned to submit this to John Joseph Adams' "Way of the Wizard" anthology open call, but I wasn't happy with how un-wizard-y the story felt, so I left it alone and tried my hand at something else...nothing else worked out, and the deadline for the anthology reading period came and went, and "The Last Dragon Dancer" went into the trunk.

After re-reading it, I don't know why. Most of the story is very well written, and only loses steam at the end, where looks like I was trying to rush it. If a story can stand up to a reread months later, I take that as a good sign that it has potential. To contrast, my "Magic Words" story did not stand up to a reread, and even a good hard editing didn't really leave me all that confident in it, so it's safe to say that the months-removed reread is the ultimate test. Someday, if I am ever lucky enough to do this for a living, I will never submit a short story anywhere that hasn't aged on the shelf for at least six months.

Anyway, the last four subchapters to the story read like a detailed summary rather than a story, so I was struck with the idea of fleshing them out without having to necessarily reinvent the wheel; I merely expanded upon the ideas already there. I'm nearly finished (only a few hundred words to go, I think) and then it's submission time.

Luckily, with the changing of the calendar to September, many markets that close their doors for summer sabbaticals reopen around this time, so I have many more options today than I did a week ago.

I'll let you know how it goes.

Le Blargs

2010-09-02T08:15:00.000-07:00

I have my comfy chair, my Diet Pepsi icy and ready to guzzle, my word processor open and gobbling up my laptop's memory, my want and desire to finish what I think might be an excellent short story...so what's missing?

Ah, right. The words.

For whatever reason, this is one of those days where I literally have nothing. All of my sentences sound like they've been ripped from an instruction manual; totally devoid of style, mass. There's no emotion in any of it, and so far nary a word has survived my itchy Backspace finger.

This is what I like to call, The Blargs. We've discussed this before.

You may call it Writer's Block, or something else, but this is what I call it. What do we do to get over it? Do we read? Do we just carry on, pounding away without quarter until every uninspired syllable has been exercised? Do we go for a walk, or a run? Take a hot shower?

The trick of this question is that any of these things may work on any given day, and, in turn, not work on the next. As such, you can't consult colleagues and friends in hope of a miracle tonic; all you can do is ask them for a Quick Pick lottery ticket and hope that the numbers pulled do the trick.

Back to the drawing board.

Flash Contest!

2010-09-01T05:19:00.000-07:00

No, this isn't an invite for the ladies to show me their boobies...or is it? OK, no, it really isn't. This is actually regarding a flash fiction contest over at one of the more exciting new markets, Spectra Magazine. The contest is being held in the forum section, and the winner will receive a new 3rd-generation Amazon Kindle! And the best of those who don't win will be published in the next issue of Spectra Magazine!

So if you're following this, head on over and post a comment about my story! It is entitled "My Pretty Babies," you can't miss it!

Another Tuesday Update

2010-08-31T07:45:00.000-07:00

This is starting to become something of a ritual, these Tuesday updates.

As of right now, I have five stories making the rounds: The Bright Walk, Magic Words, The Cantina, The Machine, and most recently, Postcards From Arborville.

Of those stories, The Bright Walk has been out the longest, at 35 days. The "estimated" response time from Duotrope is 90 days, with the average being more like 140, so I probably won't be hearing back on that one for a few months yet.

Magic Words has been out for 20 days, but the estimated and average response times for its market are around 30 days, so I might be hearing back within the next week or so.

The Cantina has only been out ten days. The estimated response time here is 70 days, with a 45 day average, but this market temporarily closed in order to catch up on the slush pile just a day or two after I submitted my piece, so the response might take a little longer than usual.

The Machine, which currently owns my personal rejection record (three), has been out less than a week, but the response time from this market is generally about a month, so it wouldn't surprise me if this is one of the first two I hear back on.

Lastly, Postcards has only been out for a couple of days, and I don't plan on hearing back on this one for a long time. Response times from this particular market are so slow that Duotrope won't dare an estimate, and the average is nearly 180 days. From visiting the magazine's site, I can tell you that they're still working on slush from 2009, so I honestly wouldn't be surprised if I don't hear back until sometime in the summer of 2011.

I've mentioned before that my two dream markets, Lightspeed Magazine and Clarkesworld, have mandatory seven-day period following a rejection in which they ask you not to submit to their magazine. It helps the slush piles, to be sure (though I wonder how many writers actually follow that guideline), and I'm more than happy to wait. Well, the waiting periods are over as of Thursday (though I can submit to Clarkesworld as of today, if I chose to), which is very nice news. Unfortunately, I don't have any finished stories to send them, so I guess that's how I'll be spending my week.

Which brings me to my current project, the yet-to-be-titled story about a hitman in sorta-near-future Paris at a time when robot emancipation is only just beginning to be discussed seriously. I'm only about 2,300 words in, but I don't really see this one climbing to the 7,500 word range (gosh, does that make Postcards a novelette?).

I've had fun with this one so far. It takes place in Paris, so I incorporate quite a bit of French into the text, at least when referring to titles and places. I guess I'm a stickler; I'd rather not Americanize France's Assemblée Nationale into the National Assembly. There's also been a lot of Google Earth's Street View to get the lay of the land. I swear, you don't even have to have been to these places anymore. If your purpose is to have a nice exotic setting for your story, you just need the interwebs.

OK, I guess that's all for today. As always, I am on call 24/7 in case of a finished draft or a response from a magazine, but failing that, I will check back in a day or so.

Higher and Higher...

2010-08-29T05:40:00.000-07:00

...grows the pile of rejection slips. A mere 24 hours after sending "Postcards" to The Absent Willow Review, it has been returned with a form rejection letter.

Form rejections never feel good. They just don't. That letter in your inbox is the same one they send to the hack who can't string a cogent sentence together...and yes, there is always the temptation to draw conclusions based on that sad fact.

It's a very strange trip, this writing stuff. The range of emotions really is incredible. Form rejections are about as cold as it gets, and they leave you feeling bad about your story, and probably yourself, while personal rejections can run the gamut of disappointing to uplifting. And acceptance is, well...

I don't want anyone to feel sorry for me. Though I appreciate the well-wishes from the few friends of mine who frequent this blog, this is as much a journal of my experiences in the world of fiction as anything else, so the mere act of writing my thoughts down is enough to make me feel better, even if just a little.

Anyway, time to find a new market for "Postcards."

An Act of Submission

2010-08-28T05:58:00.000-07:00

"GPS" was one of the first stories I ever finished. But today, it looks nothing like it did back when I first wrote it. It weighs in at about 7,400 words now, as opposed to the sub-5,000 litheness of its youth. Hell, it doesn't even have the same title anymore: This very morning I have retitled the story "Postcards From Arborville", which I think suits it much better.

So I packed it up and sent it out on its way to a non-paying but high-exposure market that I've always wanted to crack but haven't had the stones to try. This brings the total of stories out on the market to five, matching my all-time high.

As always (er, usually?), I do not divulge the name of the market until I have received an acceptance or a rejection. Nobody's ever told me I can't, but I've always felt weird about it, so I don't do it.

Juggling Act

2010-08-28T03:47:00.000-07:00

Since I finished my first short story in February of 2009, I have written more or less three days a week, with a pair of major interruptions (weeks) when I had become frustrated and disheartened with the process. Two months ago, I came out of the second of those setbacks, but this time I focused my efforts, and decided that it was time to get serious and write everyday.

I have, by and large, lived up to that standard since. I may have missed a Sunday or two, but I've never gone a day without at least doing cursory revisions on one of my handful of unfinished stories, and on the greater majority of days, I'm either writing original prose or editing a completed draft--sometimes both.

But I have neglected something in this process: Reading.

I read every day, mind you, just like I write every day, but I used to be able to lie down with a great book in prime time and not look up from it until the sun starts peeping in through the windows. I haven't sat down and had one of those Big Gulp sessions in a long time now.

Balancing your writing with other aspects--work, social--of your life is a common dilemma, but has anyone else had a problem balancing writing and reading, or is it just me?

Play It Again, Sam

2010-08-25T05:39:00.000-07:00

I seem to recall writing a rather lengthy post in my last update, a good deal of which being dedicated to my thoughts on rejections, and how to take them. It's funny, you see, because just a few hours later, here I am, writing another one.

This one won't be as lengthy, however. I promise.

In the wee hours of the morning, I watched my submission to Lightspeed Magazine climb the reading queue (they have one of those fancy submission tracking systems) until it reached the Number One spot. About a half an hour later, I received an email from Mr. John Joseph Adams.

It was a rejection.

But, I must say, it was the best one I've ever received. Here it is:

Dear Joseph,

Thanks for submitting this story, but I'm going to pass on it. It's nicely written and I enjoyed reading it, but overall it didn't quite win me over, I'm afraid. Best of luck to you placing this one elsewhere, and thanks again for sending it my way. I hope you'll try us again with something else.

Not too shabby, eh?

I have to admit, I was all smiles after this one. Given the nature of the blog post I had written mere hours before, how could I be anything else? After all, rejection is a necessary evil in this subjective industry, so the worst thing you can do is let these things get to you. As I've said before, I've let rejections get to me, and it cost me weeks (sometimes months) of my life where I felt too defeated to write anything. Those are weeks and months I can never get back, time that I could have spent honing my craft, submitting stories, fielding rejections.

When you think about it, it's a pretty sweet business, isn't it? Most of the people running short story markets are writers themselves, and they understand what it means to suffer rejection. A select few of them are too busy to personally respond, and so was born the dreaded From Rejection Letter. But there are two sides to every coin, and because the form rejection is so dreaded and so common, the Personal Rejection Letter has become more than the sum of its parts; now it's something of an uplifting event, if viewed through the right prism.

The beauty of it is that the people running these markets know that the personal rejection isn't so much a polite courtesy, but an uplifting event for a writer who hasn't sold yet (or hasn't sold much) and so they take time out of their busy days to send these letters--these brief, two- or three-sentence apologies--and give us the next-best thing to a sale.

Thanks, Mr. Adams. Your letter made my day.

As for the story...well, this is the third rejection for "The Machine," which makes me sad, because I think it's a great story that's well written and a lot of fun to read. Oh well. As always, the story barely had time to take its coat off before I handed it directions to its next market. Should hear back in a few weeks on that one.

That's all for today (hopefully).

Tuesday's Updates

2010-08-24T17:12:00.000-07:00

I got my book today!!!

Yeah, I'm really excited. I was a little concerned that maybe it wouldn't look very professional, considering that MLM is such a small press, but boy was I wrong. I have a copy of China Mieville's "The City & The City" here, and it is identical in quality to my book. Very, very attractive nice softcover book.

Speaking of writing (clever segue, huh?) I had arguably one of the best writing experiences of my life last night. An idea came to me for a story about a hitman making a hit on a political figure, but I sat on it for a couple of days because of rewrites on "GPS." Late last night, though, I got an image of the lonely hitman pining for his lost love, whose name I already knew was Alice. From there, I started toying with the idea of telling the hitman narrative, and the narrative of his love affair with Alice, but in different directions; that is, I would tell the hit story straight, chronologically, but the love story would be told backwards. When the story is finished, then drafted and polished, what I hope for is that the opening of the story (which is really the closing of the Alice story) is dramatic and intriguing, that the end is both poignant and shocking, and that the dramatic arcs sort of meet in the middle. I'm very hopeful it will work out, because this is the first time I've ever really played with structure.

On a less exciting front, the rejections have really piled up around here. I don't have any new ones to announce yet (thankfully) but there are a couple of stories I should be hearing back on pretty quickly, so we'll see. But, to be honest, it's not all that disheartening. Sure, getting a form rejection on "The Machine" was tough, especially since I really love that story, but I know better than to assume that it's an indictment of my ability as a writer.

A few years ago, I struggled with not knowing when to pursue a story and when to walk away from it. I couldn't tell the difference between an idea and a story, and it drove me crazy. In a way, it was a lot like being in my early teens again, where I pined for my freedom from parental supervision, but knew it was years away from happening. Sometimes that feeling was like standing in quicksand, and that's pretty much how I felt in my mid-20s as a writer.

But now I'm there! I'm not the best writer I can be yet, but I have a little bit of experience under my belt, a respectable lifetime word count, a growing catalog of stories that I have authored, and even one that has been seen in print. Today, I can tell the difference between a neat idea with no plot, and a story worth telling.

So I guess what I'm getting at is that these rejections, they're just part of the process. Like literary acne.

Eventually, those rejections will turn into acceptances. That's how I have to look at it, not because I'm some starry-eyed optimist, but because history tells me that the struggles lead to improvements, and the failures lead to successes.

Rejected!

2010-08-23T15:23:00.000-07:00

I'm starting to get used to this.

I received another rejection today, this time from the fine folks at Clarkesworld magazine. It was a form rejection, so I don't even that to be happy about.

Oh well. It has already been submitted elsewhere.

Rejectamundo

2010-08-20T21:06:00.000-07:00

Well, just got the dreaded Form Rejection Letter for "The Cantina".

Sadness.

Seriously, two rejections in one week is a kick in the butt.

I think it was Lorry from Writer's Beat who said that when she got a rejection, she "gave it a hug and sent it out again". That sounds like a good idea.

Off you go, little guy.

7,005

2010-08-20T00:14:00.000-07:00

That is the word count for the first draft of "GPS", which I have now, at 3:06 in the morning, Eastern Daylight Savings Time, finished.

Wow. What a ride.

Today started with my realizing I hadn't written much in the last couple of days--maybe a hundred words or so yesterday, maybe fifty today--and it ends with, what, three thousand? Talk about getting your second wind. That's about three thousand in four hours, too.

As for the story...

I love it. I really, truly love it. It's not perfect, obviously, and the second half of it needs to be revised (since I wrote it from scratch after revising the first half) but that can be my project for tomorrow. Right now, I feel like the story is really strong, and is going to work. The strange thing is that it didn't necessarily go in the direction I thought it would. I originally planned on one of those sudden twist endings that totally screws the protagonist, but later decided that something horrible, but with a dash of hope was in order. Well, neither turned out to be the case, and the story has something like a happy ending.

Rest assured, some pretty horrible, terrible stuff goes on in the middle. Maybe that's why I wanted to end it on a good note? I dunno. I'm tired. I'll save the psychology for another time. Anyway, that's that. It's on to revisions next, and then...who knows?

VORTEX, GPS, & More

2010-08-18T17:47:00.000-07:00

The novel above is the finest science fiction novel I have ever read. For those who don't know, Robert Charles Wilson is a Canadian writer of Sci-Fi, who hasn't really gotten as famous as his recurring role as Hugo and Nebula finalist should have earned him. And, for my money, he's the best science fiction writer writing today. Axis, the sequel to Spin, was hauntingly good, and after waiting about three years now, RCW has announced on his website that Vortex, the trilogy's finale, is finished sitting on the editor's desk at Tor.

It has been a long wait...and will probably a bit longer of a wait yet...but that wait is almost over. I am totally psyched. Wilson is a master of writing deeply personal, affecting stories about real people with real problems, and setting those stories against these unimaginably fantastic Sci-Fi backgrounds. For example, Spin is the story of three childhood friends who deal with growing up and growing older, all while the planet has been cut off from the rest of the universe. The Chronoliths tells of a divorced couple who must try to deal with their wayward daughter while a warlord from the future sends massive monuments to the past, commemorating his military victories.

Do you see the pattern here? Familiar people with familiar problems who have to deal with extraordinary problems.

OK, moving on to subjects more personal to me...

I have had my eureka moment with the story I mentioned before, "GPS". When I first dug it out of the trunk, "GPS" was a 7,500-word boondoggle, charming but flawed, aimless. It represented my writing almost two years ago, when I wasn't quite sure what I thought scary was. What's interesting is how, in the original version, I cling to typical horror tropes in such unimaginative ways despite the rather original premise that I'm working with.

The story has been given a significant makeover. But it wasn't your typical hack-n-slash job; it began innocently enough as a quick revision so I could send it back out for consideration. I had an idea of how to change a phrase towards the middle of the story, and then another, and that became an entirely new direction for the story. That new direction rendered the entire conclusion of the story useless, so I deleted it. And now the story weighs in at a much more respectable 4,500 words, with maybe a thousand or so to go. Needless to say, I'm very excited. The plan is to finish it tonight, but you know what they say about the best-laid plans...

Something a little less heartening is the progress on the untitled "Underground" story I was so excited about a week ago. Did I say progress? Well, let me take that back, because there isn't any. I haven't touched it in days. I'm sure I'll get back to it at some point, but every time I start it up again, I get pulled away by something else. It's the story that won't end.

That's it for today, I guess. I'll post an update, as I always do, when the next story is finished.

Good News & More

2010-08-16T19:02:00.000-07:00

After three weeks of waiting, and sending harassing emails, I finally got a response from Anthony Shields, editor of Midwest Literary Magazine, regarding the print publication that will feature my story "Goldie". I'm pretty sure I've already talked about this, but if not, here's the gist of it: MLM accepted my story for their ezine back in February, and apparently they liked it enough that they put it in their print anthology "Hanging By Threads". Well, there was no contract, no payment, no big deal, but as a result, I was never told that they had decided to put me in the anthology. Why is that a problem? Because they're a very small press and they sold out of the books before I ever knew I was in it.

Well, thankfully, Mr. Shields was kind enough to offer me the copy from his own bookshelf. So that will be shipping shortly, and for the first time in my life, I will have a copy of a print anthology featuring....me. Yeah, it's pretty cool.

OK, on other fronts, I did more digging in my hard drive the other night, and found "GPS", a story about--you guessed it--an evil GPS unit. Now, this really, really stunned me. Back in March of 2009, I submitted it to the then-fledgling Macabre Cadaver magazine, and received a form-letter rejection a little more than a month later. Looking at it now, I see that it wasn't even in Standard Manuscript Format, it was in the wrong font, it was in 10-point type...it was just a mess, all-around. Now, I'm not saying that's why the story was rejected, but I am saying that there's no way it helped.

So I'm currently going through and revising, because I remember how I originally liked the story. It's classic "took a wrong turn, now I'm in hell" horror, and it weighs in at a whopping 7,500 words. I had forgotten that. So I guess that's how I'll spend the last hours of this fine evening, and probably the wee hours of the morning. I'd like to be able to say I have five stories on the market, after all.

Rejection: Take It Personally

2010-08-14T16:40:00.000-07:00

OK, as a disclaimer, you shouldn't take rejection personally.

But I got a personal rejection letter from one Mrs. Ann VanderMeer of Weird Tales. It reads as follows:

I am so sorry that I held onto this story for so long, especially since I'm going to have to pass on it. Not quite what I'm looking for. You are welcome to try me again with something else

At this point in my career, to get a personal rejection from someone the likes of Mrs. VanderMeer is as good as gold.

Update

2010-08-14T11:58:00.000-07:00

Remember my post a few days back about how I submitted the wrong draft of "The Machine" to a major professional market? Well, it got down to crunch time yesterday, to the point where the online submission tracker the magazine uses (which is a godsend, by the way) showed my story in the 24th position in the queue.

So I logged onto the magazine's forum and made a public plea, hoping that maybe the editor would see and save the day. It's a desperate move, I know, but I was, in fact, desperate. Finally got a response today that the editor found my email in his spam folder (??) but would gladly go ahead and delete the bad story immediately, clearing room for me to submit the correct version whenever I like.

Ready for this? Here it goes: SIGH.

There, all better. OK, so now "The Machine" in all of it's proper, correct, final-draft version glory is sitting in the queue in position 131. And now it's just a matter of waiting.

I can't tell you how relieved I am. If it's going to be rejected, let it be rejected at its best. Then I can have no complaints or regrets.

EDIT: I just checked my submission tracker on Duotrope (sign up and use it; it doesn't just help you, it helps others who want to know statistics for a market) and I realized that I suddenly have four stories out on the market. The Bright Walk, The Machine, Magic Words, and The Catina are all at different markets. It seems like just the other day I was complaining that I only had one out there...now there are four, and I have another one nearing the end of the first draft, and some really killer ideas marinating in my mindgrapes...hmm. Maybe I'll turn out to be a prolific writer after all!

Busy Bees

2010-08-13T20:18:00.000-07:00

Wow. Where do I begin?

So, Magic Words went under the knife a couple of nights ago, and I have to admit, I'm not thrilled with the way it came out. I just couldn't get a feel for it, and I really don't think it was written as well as it could be. But I got the best I could out of it, and sent it off to a smaller market in hopes that someone will love it more than I did. I know the "rule" is that you shouldn't send out stories you aren't 100% in love with, but the fact is that I'm almost 30 and I'm not waiting around anymore. Everything I finish is going out. Period.

I was in the middle of mid-draft revisions on my latest short when an idea seized me. This doesn't happen a lot, so I decided to minimize that window, open up a new document, and get to work. And "The Cantina" was finished about three hours later. Fifteen hundred words, and a whole lot of love. I posted it on WB that night and got some EXCELLENT feedback from Lorry (her blog is on my blogroll as Red lorry's Journey) and a talented fella named Andy. Both were excellent critiques that I feel totally made the story work. I was so in love with the finished product that it's already in the slushpile at a paying market. Yeah, that's right, I wrote and submitted a short story in 12 hours. New record, ya'll!

Anyway, it's late, and I don't know what, if anything, will be written tonight.

Magic Words

2010-08-11T17:56:00.000-07:00

Ah, revisions.

I'm about 80% finished with my latest short (still no title, though) but I decided tonight to pick up an old story and see if I could fix it up. It's called Magic Words, and has already notched a rejection from Shock Totem in its brief life. Reading over it again, I can see why. I think I've learned a lot in the last few months since really putting my nose to the grindstone, and I can see the difference between my stories lately, and this story, which was written back in February.

I know, I know, it's just six months, but I really do think I'm finding my voice now, and those stories from 2009 and early 2010 weren't my best work. A great example of the difference between me now and me then: I finished Magic Words on 2/3/2010. I sent the story out for submission on...? You guessed it: 2/3/2010.

Probably no revisions. Even in my late 20s, I'm still like a horny teenager in a lot of ways. I was so eager to get in her panties that I skipped all the foreplay. And as a result, she rejected me and found someone else. (Extended metaphors for the win!)

Anyway, I think tonight will be spent digging the great story out of this mess.

D'oh

2010-08-11T17:49:00.000-07:00

OK, I hate talking publicly about making stupid mistakes, because it's basically like tripping over your own feet when nobody saw, but then posting a video of it on Youtube. I could totally get away with this dumb mistake without telling you guys...but where's the fun in that?

So, I submitted a story to a pro market the other day, and then came to the nightmarish realization that I had sent them the wrong draft. It's a long, stupid story as to how this happened, but the gist of it is that the story, in its first draft, had one ending...and the second draft had an entirely different one. The problem is that the draft I sent them is sort of a transitional piece, with the new ending not making sense in context. This problem is obviously corrected in the REAL final draft...but that's not the one they have.

An email has been dispatched to the magazine, so fingers crossed that they get to it before they get to my flubbed manuscript. But hey, no matter what, at least now I have a story to tell in interviews when I'm a rich and famous author!

Finished!

2010-08-09T20:24:00.000-07:00

Well, I didn't meet the Sunday night deadline for finishing "The Machine".

Where do I begin? Well, I re-read the story about four times on Saturday, and it felt fine, but I was concerned with the ending, which felt kind of flat. But I didn't revise anything, or write a single word of prose the whole day. Sunday comes, and I'm still not in the mood. And believe it or not, this is strange for me.

Sunday night, I get the radical idea to change the tense of my story. It was written in first-person past....but in the original writing, I unconsciously slipped into first-person present, and I really liked it, but the forty-five hundred words before it were all first-person past, so instead of changing the whole thing, I just changed the ending.

But on Sunday I say "Why not?" and go back and change the entire story's tense.

I think it reads better this way, actually, but I still need an ending. I sat in front of my laptop all day today (quite literally) and got nothing done. I even had my brother come over (he's a writer, too) and we brainstorm, but come up empty.

Out of the blue, it hits me. I have my ending. I have my ending, and I have my story.

And now that story in the slush pile at a certain magazine. I will not break my personal code (the one I broke last time) and say where. But don't worry: this market is among the fastest in the land, and if I'm rejected, I'll hear back in a day or two, so you'll all know before the end of the week, most likely, what the outcome is. Of course, if they want to publish it...it could take a little longer.

ANYWAY. I'm just very relieved to be done. I have literally looked at this story every day for the last two weeks, and I'm about as sick of it as a person can be. It got to the point tonight where I couldn't look at it and be happy about it, and I think that's when I've held a story too long. I would have just started making changes for change's sake (God I hope I didn't do that last night...). Is the story perfect? No, but I think it's good, and I think it can stand with any other story in any professional market.

Let's just hope our friends at the magazine agree.

Cleaning out the Trunk, and Other Musings

2010-08-06T15:29:00.000-07:00

"Trunk" is probably the wrong word here, because the stories I uncovered today aren't really trunk stories--they're just unfinished stories that were left unfinished (and subsequently forgotten) when I let the rejections get to me earlier this year.

Looking at them now, I see a ton of what I call Bits 'n' Pieces, or a bunch of individual documents that include plot summaries, scene snippets, or entire chapters of various different projects I was working on at the time. This folder reminds me of Prypiat twenty years after Chernobyl. Some things are abandoned mid-sentence, as if my email box chimed as I was writing, and I paused to open what would be the rejection that finally sent me over the edge.

Man, what was I thinking? How did I let a few stupid rejections stop me from writing this stuff? The wonderful fantasy story that had me so excited last year is here, ripe, waiting to be plucked; the wizarding school story I wrote (not like Harry Potter, don't worry) is sitting here, almost finished, and quite slickly-written. I even stumbled across the first draft of a dragon story that's actually complete, just awaiting revisions. Oh, and there's a story called "Magic Words" that is complete, ready, done. It's even been rejected once.

What the hell happened to me? I was churning out stories and ideas like a madman. Why the hell did I stop?

This is good. This is good stuff. I'm going to start tearing into these stories, see what's worth keeping, and get the ball rolling. I was worried that I only had one (soon to be two) stories on the market--this should take care of that in rather short order.

Oh, and I finished the second draft of "The Machine" today. I'm eager to start a third draft, but it's after 5pm on a Friday, so I have all weekend to get it polished up proper before anybody would ever see it anyway, so I might as well take my time with it. But the goal DEFINITELY is to have it ready for submission come Sunday night. That's a promise I'm making to me right now.

Or not. We'll see. haha.

A Second Revision Runs Through It (It's Puntastic!)

2010-08-06T08:19:00.000-07:00

Have I mentioned how puns are the guerrilla warfare of comedy? If you've got nothing else going, just hide a few in a sentence or two, and BAM! your unsuspecting victim never knew what hit 'em.

Anyway, we're not here to talk about my comedy chops. We're here to talk about the revisions on my story "The Machine", which have gone fairly well so far, if a bit slow. I started the process with a word count of just under 5,000 words at the start of the day yesterday, and after the addition of a major passage that I believe needed to be added, the count actually climbed to 5,200.

But, I got my head on straight after that, killing awkward phrases and clunky sentences like a viking gone a-raiding, and brought the count down to about 4,900. This revision, however, isn't finished, so one of my goals today is to at least finish the second draft.

I should note that I'm excited about this story. As I tighten up the prose, my voice is strong and clear, and I think kind of poetic in places. I'm sure this story, when it's ready to go, will suffer rejections just like any other, but this is another one that, at least for now, feels like it's good enough to find a home in a professional market. I don't say that about everything I write, but I mean it about this one.

A Rivision Runs Through It...

2010-08-04T15:17:00.000-07:00

I told someone the other day that I loved revising as much as I loved writing. Man, how full of crap was I?

I'm working on the first revision of "The Machine" today, and it's a slow process that leaves cuts and bruises on both sanity and soul. I enjoy fixing clunky passages and sentences, or trimming fat, but doing so shines a light on how un-tight my writing is to begin with. The whole time I'm writing the story, I feel like I'm the next Heinlein. But the whole time I'm editing, I feel like I'm Crappy McWordsuck, the Guy Who Couldn't Write to Save His Life.

At the end of it, though, I usually come out feeling extremely proud of myself, and have the utmost faith the story will find a home somewhere, sometime. It's the stuff that comes between the writing and the sending, though, that really tests me as a writer.

The Blargs

2010-08-03T13:22:00.000-07:00

Ever have a day when you just can't seem to get out of your own way? I tried to write a little bit this morning, but that wasn't working, so I tried to do a little revising of "The Machine". I figured I'd waited long enough, right? Well, that wasn't working, either.

So I figure, hey, I'll go to Barnes and Noble and get myself that China Mieville book I've been wanting to read. What can go wrong there?

I go to leave, but I can't find my keys. I find those ten minutes later, but then I realize I don't know where my wallet is. I spend an hour...AN HOUR...looking for this wallet, tearing my entire apartment to shreds. I found it under a laundry basket on a chair in my room (don't ask). So then I get in the car and go...but there's road work, so a five-minute ride to my favorite bookstore turns into a forty-five minute ride to my favorite bookstore. Is anybody keeping track, because I've counted two hours and fifty five minutes since I decided to leave the house, to actually arriving at Barnes and Noble.

So I pick up The City and The City, and also the 2008 Year's Best Science Fiction, edited by Gardner Dozios, and the story ended fairly well. But I've still got the headache I woke up with today, and I still can't write a damn word of prose.

Hence, BLARG.

Good Reading

2010-08-03T03:52:00.000-07:00

I actually bought this book months ago, but I just saw that it won the prestigious Locus Award for Best Collection, and I thought I'd give it a shout here on the ol' blog.

This book doesn't necessarily define the titular sub-genre, but it definitely does an admirable job in trying (even though Gardner and Jonathan are adamant that they weren't trying to). Stories like "Shell Games" by Neal Asher, "The Lost Princess Man" by John Barnes, and "Inevitable" by Sean Williams are beautiful, well-crafted tales that will make you wish you were half as clever as they are.

But, for money, the big winner of this collection is the one that's batting leadoff: "Utriusque Cosmi" by Robert Charles Wilson. RCW is the Kobe Bryant of Science Fiction, displaying both uncanny technical skill and unmatched creativity in every story. He can take huge, universe-spanning Hard Sci-Fi ideas and manage to make them relevant in very human ways to his characters, and this story is maybe the best example of it.

If you don't have this collection yet, and you're a fan of Big Huge Science Fiction, aka Space Opera, then you're crazy. Go get it, and thank me later.

Smooth Sailing

2010-08-02T06:20:00.000-07:00

I've been a productive little Joey this morning! After totally screwing up my sleep schedule lately, I thought I had it all turned around as of yesterday, but there I was, awake at three in the morning again. So instead of pouting, I turned on the laptop and got crackin'. }

Well, OK, "crackin'" isn't the right word. I didn't really get started on my writing until five or so (maybe sooner...it's hard to say. But that's a good thing!), but it's almost 9:20 now, and I've got nearly 1800 more words in my story! Yay!

And, surprisingly, I don't think I'm done for the day. Usually when I approach the vicinity of 2000 words in one sitting, that's about it, and all else produced from that point is likely to end up deleted the next day. But I feel good. Maybe I'll take some of that good energy and put it into the first revisions of the last story I finished, "The Machine". We'll see.

Fear of Rejection

2010-08-02T03:30:00.000-07:00

I stumbled across some blogs belonging to fellow aspiring/fledgling writers today, and immediately noticed a theme...

Almost all of them had been published. But almost none of them had been published in a paying market.

I wondered to myself, did this writer submit their work to a paying market first? Did they suffer rejections from Clarkesworld, The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, Asimov's? Chiaroscuro? Lightspeed? We are, thankfully, not as short as we once were on paying short fiction markets, and yet the thought crept into my mind that these people hadn't even bothered.

Granted, I don't actually know if they have or haven't, but I get a sneaking suspicion the latter is true. And I know exactly what they're going through.

When I first started writing seriously, the major hurdle I had to clear was my fear of rejection. Yeah, I mean, at first it's not even real to you, the idea that someone would reject your work. I tried to tell myself that I'd probably get 50 rejections before I got one acceptance, and that it wouldn't be the end of world when it happened. But did I really believe that someone would read my story and pass? After all, I'd wrote it, and I'd read it, and I loved it...why wouldn't they? So no, despite all the times I tried to convince myself that I would suffer rejection, I never honestly thought it would happen.

And when it came, it was crushing. It was in a form letter email from Macabre Cadaver magazine. It was so short, so matter-of-fact, that it almost seemed insulting. Of course it wasn't really, but if you've had rejections, you know what I'm talking about.

So for a long time, any time I finished a story, I did a ton of research into various small presses and magazines, trying to find places that I thought would like my work. That is a nice way of saying, I was looking for magazines with low standards.

And my first acceptance came from a place called Midwest Literary Magazine. A very, very small press that didn't even have a cover for their monthly e-zine. They accepted "Goldie" in mid-February...for their February edition. Now, please, don't misunderstand; I am not knocking MLM. They're a nice little small press who isn't looking to knock anyone's doors down (They call themselves "The Quiet Press" for a reason), but I also know that they just aren't going to get the same quality of submissions as a paying market. And if they aren't receiving submissions from the likes of Kij Johnson and Tobias S. Bucknell, then they're a hell of a lot more likely to say yes to me.

I look back on those times with more than a hint of shame.. Was it that I really considered myself second-rate, or was it merely that I could not get over my fear of rejection? And are many of the authors who share their journeys here on Blogspot just as frozen by their fear as I am? Is that why they submit to places that don't pay and don't have any significant readership?

I came to the conclusion not all that long ago that I would stop living in fear. I have plans to make a living at this, after all, and hiding from the Big Boys isn't going to make that happen any sooner. I decided to submit to paying markets first (when available) and upon rejection, move down the list. If I'm going to be accepted to a non-paying market again, it's only going to be after all the paying markets said no. And why not? Why should I settle, when I'm about to turn 30 and still haven't had a professional sale?

The answer is, I don't have to. Every story I believe can move people will go to the biggest markets so as many people can see them as possible. I know it's probably taboo to say where you submit your work, but do you know where my latest story is? It's in the slush pile at the New Yorker.

Yeah, that's right. The New Yorker. I saw an interview there today in which Stephen King talked about them passing on one of his stories last year. Granted, it was because of length, but it doesn't change the fact that they rejected the most famous living American author just last year. And you know what? If they reject it, it will suck, but I'll just turn around and send it somewhere else. Someone, somewhere, is bound to publish it. And if that ends up being "VAMPIREZ ANTHOLOGY VOL III: BLUD IN THE NITE", so be it.

At least I tried.

My Fiction

2010-08-01T15:27:00.000-07:00

I promised that I would tell you why I write, and this is me making good on that promise.

When I was a kid, my mother was a librarian's assistant at the Schenectady County Public Library, which was the main branch in the county. A huge, sprawling place, bigger than any Barnes and Noble store that I know of. Or, that's how I remember it, anyway--I haven't been there in years, not since my mom retired, and even before then, I had graduated to buying books, and you were more likely to find me at a Barnes and Noble.

Whether it really was or not, I remember it to be a majestic place, with too many books to count, too many aisles to walk, shelves that seemed to touch the roof (and a roof that seemed to touch the sky). When I first took an interest in reading, it was from picking up one of the half-dozen books my mother was reading at any given time. When she noticed this, she promised to bring home books specifically for me. And she did: murder mysteries, courtroom melodramas, political thrillers, and more. Before long, she was taking me in on her days off just so I could pick out books myself.

That's where the love affair with reading began. And from it grew the desire to write my own books, tell my own stories. When my father brought home our first PC, he loaded up Wordperfect 5.1, and I swear to you it was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen. Never before had empty space meant so much to me. I used it to write stories--mainly forms of fan fiction, based on my favorite television shows or movies, books or games--and though I've moved to a newer word processor, I'm still filling those blank spaces.

So, I guess the point of the story is that I write because I love it. It's all I've ever wanted to do with my life, and the point of this blog is to document my trip from unknown aspiring writer to...well, I guess we'll see, won't we?