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My writing blog |
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I don't have a muse, and never have. I'm afraid that if I did have one, she would be a small Chinese woman standing in the doorway, looking significantly at her watch every minute or so while I dug around in the sofa searching for enough loose change to pay for the chicken-fried rice. On the whole, I think I do better without her. |
| Accepted January 8, 2010 Magazine: MicroHorror  The mission of MicroHorror.com is to be the Web’s premier free repository for horror microfiction. We went live on May 7, 2006. Come and enjoy the stories, and if you’re a writer, we invite you to contribute. The Hanging - Fiction, Horror, 222 wordsHumility reminder: This was the first place I submitted The Hanging, so no humility required. Current status: 55 items in 71 submissions. Three new markets attempted, Rattle, Untied Shoelaces of the Mind and Strange Horizons |
| Accepted January 4, 2010 Magazine: Every Day Poets Every Day Poets is looking for short poems. There’s no such thing as too short. All genres are acceptable, and poems that don’t fit neatly into any genre are welcome too. Our readership is adult, so poems intended for children are unlikely to be accepted unless they are relevant to adults as well. On the other hand, we are not impressed by gratuitous sex and violence, or pointlessly foul language; edgy content should be necessary to the purpose of the poem and appropriate to this venue. God's Work - Poetry, Inspirational, Villanelle To be scheduled later (probably on a Sunday). Incidentally, unlike other venues where you submit multiple poems, this one does not tell you about all your acceptances/rejections at once, so I actually have two more poems in the process that were submitted the same day. I'll cross my fingers on those. Humility reminder: This was the first place I submitted God's Work, so no humility required  .Current status: 50 items in 66 submissions. Two new markets attempted, Tattoo Highway (contest section) and Storyscape |
| I am never sure whether it is a bad sign that I write in so many different genres. Science fiction, horror, children's, humor, western, they all seem interesting. I also write poetry and short stories equally. Is that lack of focus a bad thing? I can't tell. Anybody have an opinion? Current status: 51 items in 67 submissions. Two new markets attempted, City Works Press Parenting Anthology and The Humanist |
| I've been reading Stephen King's On Writing, and have just gotten to the part where he talks about his early issues with Carrie. One of the issues was that he didn't much like Carrie White. This strikes a chord with me, as I am writing a story now where I really don't like the main character. I think he might be a good character, but I sure wouldn't want to meet him. I have written about psycho characters and loser characters before, but never about a flat out sleazeball who is the hero of the story. I'm not guessing this will be my Carrie (which apparently pretty much made Stephen King's career), but I am interested in the process. My wife thinks it sounds crazy to create a character you don't like, but sometimes you just start writing and have to read the page yourself to find out who you created. Current status: 54 items in 69 submissions. One new market attempted, Raphael's Village New feature of the blog: At the beginning of each month, I will list my rejection, acceptance and submission stats for the past month. Should give some sense of whether I am diving off a cliff or climbing a golden ladder. Last month's stats: 20 rejections, 0 acceptances, 67 submissions. Queue the cliff diving music. |
| The truth is (as I state above), I have no muse, but it is hard not to think I am being visited by somebody else's micro-muse. I want to be working on a couple of exciting sci-fi stories, 2000 to 5000 words long probably, and instead I am writing short poems, short fiction, micro fiction. I feel a bit like the guy in The World According to Garp. Don't be surprised if you see a post soon which is only 55 characters long. Then 25. Then The good news is that I got four more rejections. The bad news is that I submitted thirteen more items (well, sort of, since four of them were summarily rejected, and two were then resubmitted elsewhere -- or something like that). For those math geeks among you, this means that my acceptance rate has dropped to 27%, so with 68 submissions at 27%, I would get 18 to 19 acceptances, or with a more realistic 5% acceptance rate, I would still get three acceptances. Of course, it isn't really a numbers game, but when you love math, everything is a numbers game. Current status: 53 items in 68 submissions. Four new markets attempted, Short, Fast, and Deadly, Silenced Press, Revival and Shepherd’s Check |
| I feel I am setting myself up for rejection in January. It appears that most of the e-zines and other magazines actually take time off, so the rejections/acceptances have dwindled to... well, nothing. I have 59 submissions out there, 11 at a month or longer already, and 17 beyond the "average response time" according to Duotrope. I am picturing this slew of rejection emails all on the 4th and 5th of January. Of course, there may be the occasional acceptance in there as well, which would be nice, but the odds do seem in favor of rejections. I have had 12 acceptances this year and 28 rejections. I will jump for joy if I keep up a 30% acceptance rate (which would mean 17 or 18 acceptances for the stuff I have out), but I realistically expect something closer to 5% (which would be about 3 acceptances), because I have submitted to a lot of very tough markets (e.g., Poetry Magazine, Glimmer Train). Can you tell I am just twiddling my thumbs here? I think I'll go submit some more before the end of year deadlines. Current status: 43 items in 59 submissions. No new markets attempted. |
| The wonderful thing about having a booky family is the inevitable store of wonderful books after Christmas and my birthday. Stephen King's On Writing, Neal Stephenson's Anathem, Dan Chaon's Await Your Reply, Salvatore Scibona's The End, Andrew Sullivan's The View from Your Window (from my daughter to provide inspiration for writing), Hilary Mantel's Wolf Hall and more. Yummy! Current status: 43 items in 59 submissions. One new market attempted, The Rondeau Roundup |
| More rejections, more submissions, more short shorts. I am looking forward to getting my sci-fi story done so I can run it by people in my writing group, "Let's Publish!" I also have a couple more poems I am working with to group with Memento Mori as sci-fi poetry. Once we get past Christmas, I should have time for something more than the short stuff, but it is entertaining for now. Current status: 41 items in 57 submissions. Four new markets attempted, Raving Dove, 50 to 1, Fifty-Two Stitches and Six Sentences |
| No, I don't mean that sort of short shorts (although Heidi Montag does look good in them, doesn't she?) but rather very short writing, even shorter than what is normally known as "flash fiction". Hiw short? There are venues that have 100 word stories, such as The Drabbler , venues that have some specific speciality such as Six Sentences (I bet you can guess their rules), and a few venues that focus on the Twitter and SMS markets with 140 character limits, such as Nanoism or Tweet the Meat . Not exactly the way to get famous, but good for a coffee break while you let your novel percolate in the back of your brain. I tried the 100 word variety, but they say the average response is 111 days, so don't expect to hear anything back too soon. Current status: 35 items in 50 submissions. One new market attempted, The Drabbler. |
| I thought I'd include a few links to published stories by friends I have here on WDC. Since everybody has their own right to privacy, I won't associate usernames with real names, but these three stories are well worth reading: Remember The Happy Frog Hexe Current status: 34 items in 49 submissions. No new markets/submissions. |
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