Throwaway Post

Nothing much to blog about, but tired of seeing the green of the Irish anthology clashing with the soft blue of my color scheme, so the purpose of this post is to be long enough to push that down such that I don't have to see it anymore.

Had "Wood Work" rejected from the Parsec End of the Rainbow anthology. As previously tweeted, I find it amusing when an anthology gives itself a cryptic title and asks "You tell US what it means!" and then rejects your story because it doesn't relate to the theme.

They also said something about there was a whole lotta rigmarole to go through without much payoff in the end. Maybe so.

But I kinda thought that a guy finding fucking EDEN just a few hundred feet deep in the woods of his backyard was kinda cool, though perhaps that didn't come through. Also thought that might be the kinda thing someone might wanna find or expect to find at the end of the rainbow.

Alas . . .

Hell, who knows. Maybe the story doesn't work. Sent it off to "A Fly in Amber" anyway and remain committed to someday getting something into Parsec.

Still got two other stories out there, "urder" sent off to Blood Bound Books D.O.A. anthology and "The Intersection" at their brethren publication Night Terrors. D.O.A. hasn't had too many submissions yet, and they've stretched the deadline to May 31. Night Terrors has had close to forty subs, with only one acceptance thus far and nineteen rejections. So who knows.

They've also listed some new anthologies they are currently accepting submissions to, which raises my eyebrows a little. They've got three open right now, and for a new imprint, it seems that might be biting off a little more than they should chew. Time will tell.

Is this enough? Have I typed enough to move the book cover down some?

J.A. Konrath has a cool post today centering on just "Getting your name out there!" to stimulate the sales of e-books. Click the link on the left ("A Newbie's Guide to Publishing") to check it out.

Quick Update

Not much to report. Had my story The Intersection rejected from Necrotic Tissue and, in retrospect, after receiving my first issue, it wasn't right for them. Both the length and the deliberate pace I'm sure went against it.

I was surprised at the matter-of-factness of the rejection, though. Well-known for their personalized rejections, this one had a real perfunctory, dare-I-say, form rejection feel to it.

And not that I'm anything special, but I have been published in their lone anthology and have a story in their current issue, so (silly me) I suppose I expected more.

The story and its rejection brings to mind something else I've been thinking about lately, and that is when you're not very well known, I suppose it's easy for an editor to reject a fair-to-middling story (though I think this story is good) for whatever reason.

But the dream is that one day, editors will be knocking on YOUR door to contribute a story, just so your name will be on the magazine or the anthology or whatever, to help sell a few copies. And I suspect in most instances, once you've got the name, that most readers will like and enjoy your story whatever the quality, if only because YOU wrote it.

I'm thinking of that Stephen King story where the writer was staying in a hotel and, shall we say, pleasured himself each evening, leaving his essence on the sheets. Now, the maid at that hotel knew all about the famous writer and his nighttime habits, and she decided that she wanted her child to have the genes to one day be a famous writer too.

Now, I won't give it away, but the story itself (though it stuck with me) is fairly pedestrian. I suspect King slapped it together and threw it on the bottom of his pile, and then, one day, someone said "Please, Mr. King! We need a story, ANY story!" and King said, sure, yeah, okay. And this was the story he gave them.

Well, I think, as time goes on, you wind up with more than a few stories like that in the bottom drawer, and someday, somebody may just want them.

Anyway, sent The Intersection off to that Blood Bound Books Night Terrors anthology. The pay is shit, but for the three best stories they pay more. And if the contract is too restrictive, I'll simply withdraw it (on the off-chance it gets selected, that is. Don't wanna count my chickens.)

Got some excellent feedback from beta readers on Wood Work and have modified it with their thoughts in mind. Between you and me, the more I read this story, the more I like it. Thinking of sending it off to Parsec's upcoming End of the Rainbow anthology. It has a sort of quest element to it, so it might be a fit. Hell, I'll even throw in a rainbow if I think it'll make a difference. Hope to get that out today or tomorrow.

Gonna finish urder next. For some reason, I've been trying to keep that to 500 words, when most flash limits are 1000 words. Need to flesh out the creature as well. Can't leave it ALL up to the reader's imagination now, can we.

Also working on a crime flash piece that I think has a nifty twist I may send off to Big Pulp or one of those crime sites just for the hell of it. After that, I reopen my pirate novel.

Happy writing!

Return to Sender

Went out to get the mail a few minutes ago and found one of my
self-addressed stamped envelopes waiting for me. Having not queried anything by mail for some time, I had no idea who it might be from.

Turns out it was a rejection from Dorchester Publishing for one of my unpublished novels. Way back when, they responded to an e-query that they wished to see more. I sent them the first three chapters and a synopsis on October 3, 2006, almost three years ago.

Wish they had just let it slide.

Random Thoughts on Rejection

As previously noted, I like spending time reading other writers blogs, I like reading about their successes and what anthologies they've submitted to. I've found there's actually a cool and supportive community of writers out there, spending time on each others blogs, offering congratulations upon success and sympathy upon failure or near miss. Many write bluntly about rejection as well, but for whatever reason, when I started this thing I didn't want or expect to.

But rejection is such a part of the game, it's hard not to write about. There's just no getting around it. After years of querying agents and publishers (and this recent foray into short fiction) I figure I'm sitting on close to two-hundred rejections. And I suppose if you're gonna have a blog, and wanna keep folks even mildly interested, you've got to write about something.

That being said, I received a few rejections over the weekend, all of them deserved. The first was from an upcoming anthology of humorous horror, the editor noting that my submission was not horror and not funny. Ouch!

Setting aside that humor is subjective (I think there were a few chuckles in there) I absolutely understand why they didn't select the story. It was basically a few anecdotes cobbled together from a long ago attempt to write a humorous serial killer novel. No surprise the editor saw it as just that. Part of me knows this and is embarrassed to have even wasted their time.

The second rejection came as no surprise. It was a story culled from a few chapters of a completed novel now gathering dust. The magazine editor is no fan of vampires.

The third rejection came with brief but enlightening comments. The story did not pull her in, and read more like the beginning of a novel than a short story. I always appreciate feedback as to why a particular story was not selected or found wanting. She has a definite point.

I also think I'm submitting too much, and writing stories geared to specific markets. I think I'm gonna scale back a while and work on things I want to write or am inspired to write, as opposed to writing to fit a particular anthology. Focus on quality as opposed to quantity. Perhaps once I've got a few good ones (this time) finished, the market for them will take care of itself.

I've still got a couple of submissions lingering out there, one or two I think still may have a chance. I'll keep ya posted!

Interesting Rejection

I received a rejection this morning for a story I wrote for a themed anthology. The guidelines were clear: No "coarse" language.

In the course of writing this story, the following line slipped from my character's mouth:

"You . . . bastard," he said, smiling again. "You sick . . . brilliant bastard."

I confess I wondered about the line. But it fit. There was a moment of extreme tension just before he said it. The words were the characters way of letting out the tension. And it's not as if he dropped an F-bomb.

Before sending in the story, I confess I also did some research into the editor of the anthology. He is a professed devout Christian who is no doubt sincere in his beliefs. But that didn't stop him from opening one of his own recent stories with a girl chained by the neck about to be sexually assaulted.

So I took a chance.

And received the following e-mail from the editor this morning:

Dear Brendan,

I was happily enjoying your story until I came across something on page 9.

As per the guidelines:

"No coarse language."

and

"Please follow these guidelines to the letter. Submissions that don't
will be automatically rejected."

I wish you the best in placing your story elsewhere.

Thank you for your understanding.

So of course, I'm left to wonder. Did he stop reading right there? Were his sensibilities so offended by the use of a word that appears three times in the Bible that it was enough to make him put the story down?

For my own sanity's sake, I'm gonna assume the story just wasn't good enough and this was his polite way of telling me. It would have been easy enough to simply remove the words if they were so offensive but the story was otherwise worthy. I refuse to believe he reads stories just looking for "gotcha" moments.

Because to my mind, a helpless girl chained by her neck in imminent danger of sexual assault . . . never mind.

Probably just sour grapes on my part. The guidelines were clear.

But we do live in a strange world, my friends, populated by all sorts of interesting people.