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Okay, I know that today is not the last day of the month, but I am not writing tomorrow. I just can't believe it got here so quickly. With so much left to do this year and the calendar not caring at all what I have to do and how much time it takes to do it, it gets to be frustrating. I can see why time travel stories are so popular.

I was just wondering, thinking about what is the line between 'horror' and 'dark fantasy.' Is there a line or is it just something we come up with to differentiate us between other writers? I find some stuff I write to be dark but not necessarily terrifying. I find other stuff I write to be fantastic but not that dark. I find some stuff I write to be more true to life but dark and it is considered literary and not genre at all.

I am so confused.

Have a happy Friday and a great weekend.

What I was going to write about today was taken, so...

I was going to write about the Pulitzer prize picker who said that American literature is basically trite compared to European literature but I believe that Stuart Neville said it quite elegantly http://conduitnovel.blogspot.com/2008/10/on-snobbery.html so I will leave that post to him. He actually was talking about the differences in genres but I think that the argument stands.

So, since Neville stole my thunder on that topic, I am going to talk about something I am curious about. I never simultaneously submit to a magazine if it is specifically in their guidelines and if they say it is okay I don't really have a problem with it. My bookkeeping methods are pretty good. I know exactly where all of my stories are and I have no problem telling another publisher that a story has been accepted by someone else.

I just wonder if that is fair to the other publisher. I don't know if they have taken the time to read the story and if they have I really feel sorry for them, it is a waste of time. It can be a big waste of time if enough people withdraw their stories after they have been read but before a decision has been made.

Does anyone else out their sim sub if the magazines say it is okay? I try not to do it very often but many of the literary magazines that I submit to, I mean really, the chances of one of my stories being picked up by several of them is minuscule at best and some of them have six month or better response times. I am pretty patient but give me a break. Do I really need to wait six months (9 months for one of my stories) just to have them give me a form letter saying they don't want it, good luck somewhere else, or is it best to lay your precious eggs in many different baskets?

I must admit

Okay, I know a few of you might think that I am a horror writer. It is true, I do like horror. I read every 'scary' book I could get my hands on as a child (this worried my mother, and I don't know what my father thought of it). King, Clegg, Koonzt (the early stuff), Bloch, the list could go on. But I have to admit it, there can be no more denying it.

I am not a horror writer. I don't really call myself a speculative fiction writer although I was ecstatic to come in as an honorable mention in the Return to Luna Anthology (I am sure they butchered my name when they read the honorable mentions but that is okay.) I am a writer, pure and simple. I have had pieces published that I called westerns but got put into literary journals (The Life, Cerulean Rain issue 1), and experimental pieces that could have taken place on any street you've been down (Life in Vignettes, Literary Chaos print issue #1).

I've written two books. One an adult thriller that will probably never see the light of day unless I rewrite it from a different point of view. I am working on a children's novel that I am re-writing from a different characters perspective (that's a load of fun, let me tell you).

I guess I don't want to be pigeonholed. I like to write whatever my mind comes up with and I want to be able to run with it. Heck I even have a children's picture book out for consideration with Tricycle press.

Does this make me a bad writer? Good grief I hope not. I hope that it makes me a better writer.