Holy Crap! Its Friday.

I can't believe how fast this first week of February has gone by. Only three more of these weeks to go and we are in March. I have to get crackin' if I am going to get anything done this month. I still have a slew of stories to edit. I have books to finish. I have an outline I need to make before that idea slips out of my head. I think I more than made up for my one a month story last month so I am not too worried about the short. So where has the time gone?

Enough of the blogging, I have to get some work done around here. Everyone have a great weekend. May nothing but acceptances fill your inbox. I'm outta here for now.

So Long Gone

How long is too long to wait for a response from an editor. That is the question posed by K.C. today. With a book I can see waiting up to a year for a response. I mean, it is a book. Lots of pages and yours isn't the only one out there so literally thousands of pages get sent in every day to some of these publishers.

I am sure some of the literary markets have the same problems. I can't imagine the slush that Crazyhorse (I know they get over 1000 stories a month) and Fantasy and Science Fiction (at least they are quick about weeding out what they don't want) get every day. It can't be healthy. I don't know what a smaller market would get, although we could ask Aaron about Sand and their slush pile. I guess the question remains, how long is too long to wait. I can understand a five month wait. Not a problem, I can handle that. Eight months? Okay, we are pushing it. Ten months? A year?

Aaron brought up an interesting point. K.C.'s book has been out 431 days. I have a short out 392-ish days. Aaron says he has one that is right up there (I wonder if it is to the same market). Since I subbed out to that market my writing has evolved. A lot. Once it comes back, if it is a rejection and at this point I am counting on it, it is going into my dead story file. It was a bad story. The line was sloppy, the characters unbelievable, the dialog craptacular. The description was pretty good but that does not a good story make. There was no plot to go off of. It was just a rambling description. Not unlike this post.

Wwhat do we expect out of our editors and does it have anything to do with what the story could pay if it is accepted? It does with me. I waited eight months with Crazyhorse because they are a prestigous market and I know they get a lot of submissions from the best in the country. I wasn't going to piss that chance down my leg by bothering the editor. Now if a non-paying or token market is going to try the same thing I am going to inquire. There is no reason for it. (For all I know the response got lost in cyberspace somewhere, as what happened with a tale I sent to Black Ink Horror.)

Sorry to ramble on. Happy Thursday!

Lost arts

How many of us have been asked if you have written a novel and seem to disappoint the askee when you tell them you write short stories or flash fiction. "Oh sure," you tell them, sometimes to appease their prying stares, "I am working on a novel." you watch as their eyes light up. It is then you realize that they have no clue what an art form the short story actually is.

You think about it a minute as they ask the inevitable question, "What is your book about?" They don't bother to ask about the shorts. They don't care about the flashes of brilliance that they could actually read because they have been picked up, and paid for, by some editor. They want to know about the novel. The work that will be a labor of love because, chances are, no publisher will ever touch it because it was written by a short story writer.

Do these people understand the depths that go into writing a piece shorter than 10,000 words or even 50,000 words. The novel writers do. I have heard many a novelist who marveled at the expediency of the short story, they themselves unable to lay down a tale in under 85,000 words.

I just wonder when the rest of the world will catch on.

It happened again!

So, I submitted a story (one of my older ones that has gone through about 50 re-writes as is. What can I say, I like the story.) The editor, bless their soul, asked me for a re-write in one of the oddest letters I have ever received from an editor. (Mind you this is a new one, different from the post earlier this week) It read:

Dear Jamie—

You absolute !ӣ$!

I was totally charmed and loving it and then you botched the ending.

Would you care to revise? The opening 2½ pages are wonderful.

Kind regards

I won't say who the editor or the magazine are but I was a little flabbergasted. The entire story is only 4 pages in length and now I am torn. Do I rework a piece that looks nothing like my original story and pull it even further down a different road and risk it getting published, or do I sub it off to someone else and risk further rejection (or possible publication somewhere down the road)?

I just thought this was kinda funny

My Uncle is good for sending me stuff and this was one he sent yesterday. Just to remind you that global warming effects all of us.

The caption it had was "Thousands protest global warming"

I didn't have too much else to say.

does everyone have this problem?

I seem to get more re-write requests than the average writer. I don't know why, but they all say the same thing. "We are willing to look at it again but you need to expand on -" one idea or another in the story. I know a lot of people overwrite their stories and I seem to underwrite them. I don't know if it is the flash fiction writer in me or the lazy writer in me. Editor's are asking questions of my characters that I thought were pretty obvious or I didn't think I needed to waste valuable words on.

That being said, I do think that most of my stories come out for the better once they are re-written, it usually only takes a line or two to clear things up but I was just wondering, is this a problem I am alone on or does this happen to everyone on occasion? I know that Stephen King said in his book "On Writing" (wonderful book, if you haven't read it I recommend it.) To cut out at least 10% after you are done, just to make it less convoluted. I seem to have the opposite problem. I need to add another 10%. My problem is I don't know what 10% to add.

Have a great rest of the day. At least it isn't snowing here!

Month 2, Day 1, Jamie 0

February is upon us and the warm air that my place was blessed with yesterday is gone. It did not get warm enough to melt all of the snow despite getting close to 60 degrees (I still have 30 inch piles of, now dirty, white stuff all over the yard). It is supposed to warm a little later on this week. Just as long as we don't get any more snow I will be happy. My snowthrower has operated more than it should have this year.

Now it is is time for *January in Review*-

January was actually a pretty good month, by my estimation. I wrote 2 flash pieces and two short stories. One of the flash pieces was accepted by Flashes in the Dark and will be on the website the 25th of this month. I had eight stories rejected and I have 17 stories out in sub land (the longest being to Another Sky Horror Antho at 388 days, the shortest being to Necrotic Tissue from last week) I have two stories, should they get rejected, will be retired. I managed to write a couple of thousand words in my book, Invasion.

I also managed to read or finish or start: Deep and Dark and Dangerous (YA book but a very good ghost story), The Poisoned Apple (Hello Cate!), and I am half-way through Just After Sunset by Mr. King. I have also been reading through Shroud #4 (Much different than I though it would be but I am enjoying it immensely).

I don't know what my plans for this month are yet, other than editing the hell out of my short stories and possibly finishing draft #1 of Invasion. I have a slew of books to start on if I want to (Money Shot, Return to Luna, Zombie Haiku-and that is just to start) and I will be turning another year older this month, to be celebrated by opening up a well chilled can or bottle of beer (hell, you could tap a Keg. I won't argue, just be sure to invite me over) and drinking with a medium rare steak and fried potato and onions.

Hope the weekend is going well and I look forward to seeing the progress we all make in the next month.