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)?

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!

It is official

I am the world's worst at grammar and spelling. This should come as no surprise to anyone who has ever seen any of my work in any form before an editor gets hold of it. It is something that should have been a New Year's resolution but, since I don't believe in them, I will start now. I have two old Grammar books I am pulling out and am going to read and even do the exercises. (I keep misspelling grammar as grammer. You can see my dilemma.) My goal is to be better. I know that most editors do not want to put in as much work as my writing takes to get it up to speed. I will be spending the next couple of weeks, when I am not working on a novel, editing the hell out of everything that has not been accepted and I deem still worthy of anyone reading.

It is going to be a daunting task and not easy I will admit but I hope to make it out of my own slush a better writer.

God help me.

the sky has dandruff

we got our first snow on Saturday. The first snow that I had to get a shovel for anyway. It pretty much all melted away by Sunday afternoon but we still have a couple of odd patches floating around on the north side of the house and garage.

I can tell I am getting old. My fingers are worn to the nerves from handling shingles in freezing temperatures. Tiny bits of fiberglass are embedded throughout my soft writer's hands. They aren't used to doing much manual labor anymore. (I used to live for shingling houses. I loved to do it and I was good at it. Now not so much.) Thank god I have a roofing nailer yet. I really would have been hurting if I had to swing a hammer all day.

Of coarse I didn't get anything done with NaNo this weekend, but I have managed to get a couple thousand words written this morning already and plan on doing the same this afternoon. I still plan on being done by Wednesday.

On a happy note. A story of mine, Coffin Nails, that I started sending out to markets last November (and has undergone several re-writes in the process) has been picked up by Night to Dawn for publication in their Fall 2009 issue. Not a huge market but I think that the readers will enjoy it.

I hear my boy rattling around in his bed and I think I can get another hundred or so words in before he thinks he wants out. Later.

Halfway there

Okay, so the month is over halfway done and I have only heard back from two editors this month, three if you count the update from Kate Sanger at From the Asylum. This weekend I heard from Susurrus that they didn't want my short, The Glass Jar. Not a big deal. I half expected it (I figured I had a 50/50 chance there). I rewrote it and sent it off to Clockwork Phoenix. We will see what Mr. Allen wants to do with it.

did manage to push the 10,000 word limit on my book re-write. That was exciting to me. Although it will be better when I get to the done part of the rewrite. That will be more exciting. It is looking like I will not be finished with it before NaNo but I am okay with that. I know it will get finished and, while I am going to work diligently on it, I am not going to rush it either. I don't feel like making extra work out of it if I don't have to. I know there are several more re-writes but I don't want them to be as extensive as this one.

Hope everyone had a good weekend and congrats to Cate and Aaron for their acceptances at Postscripts and Kalidotrope respectively. They are both wonderful publications and may they both go on to win major awards for their efforts. (really, I am rooting for you!)

Off to plug away on a book.

weekend update

I always loved the old weekend updates from SNL. It was that and then bed half the time because the rest of the show was all downhill from there.

I don't know where that came from.

My weekend and the week that was, let me see, what the heck went on in the world that is Jamie Eyberg. Uhm, yeah.

Okay, I've got it, not a whole lot. got a couple of thousand words written in my YA rewrite. Wrote a flash piece that I sent off to the new Dogs: the wet and dry anthology called The Proposal, it was fun and I hope to hear back from them soon although it wouldn't bother me a whole lot if I didn't. Heard back from Night Train magazine with a clever little rejection and other than that nothing. not a darn thing went on in my writing life. I was so much more productive last year.

This week I need to work on my outline for NaNo and keep plugging away on my rewrite. hopefully I hear back from some markets, hopefully with good news.

somethings going on

got an email from Macabre Cadaver that my flash piece, Lullaby, made it into issue three. Pretty stoked to see who else is in it. If I got three more acceptances this week I would feel like Felicity or Aaron.

Just kidding. Still I feel pretty good to get two good things and no bad things in the old e-mail this week, even though the week isn't over.

The re-writing god was on my side yesterday. I think I will call that god Mark. Mark is a good name for a re-write god. Managed to get quite a bit of Chapter 3 re-written in my YA book. I know it will need another 5 or 6 (7, 8, 9) re-writes after this but so far it is going well. I told my wife that at the rate this is going my original 90 page manuscript is going to turn into 400 pages. Thankfully I have a laser printer (to those of you still using inkjet printers I am truly sorry).

Well hopefully Mark will stick around today and we can get more done.

Working on re-writes today, reading blogs and being a bum in general. All this while waiting for my wife to get home from work. Not that we can do anything because she is on call this weekend. Oh, well.

I re-wrote my short story Lullaby (572 words) the re-write is 860 words and I don't know if I like it any better. I started it over from scratch using a little bit of conversation from the original and the idea but I don't know if I like it as well . It seems to be missing something that the first one had. I don't know if it was the spontaneity or the meter and rhythm to it but it seems off. Might have to set it in a file and look at it in a couple of days.

Best of luck to everyone this weekend.

What a day!

It has been a crazy day in the old mailbox. Over the last twenty-four hours I have heard back from 5 publishers. Four were rejections, three form, one personal and a quasi-invitational rewrite request. I believe I will take the editor up on his offer to re-read if I choose to re-write it. It sounds like a fair trade.

This just leaves eight or so more markets to hear from at this point. I figure I should hear back from them any time now. Most have been out for awhile although some seem to have sporadic response times.

Better get to re-reading my story so I can figure out where I can make it stronger.