Today I had one of those hours...
Like you get in one of those days...
In one of those weeks...
In one of those months...
It better not be one of those years.
I got a nice rejection on "Tertio" this weekend, which basically suggested that if I rewrote it to have more story they'd reconsider it. Of course, if I wrote it to have more story, it'd be something completely different. And it also wouldn't be a flash piece (hence my ranting about flash the other day). It would, in fact, be a completely different story--one that I'd enjoy writing, but one that I don't have the heart for right now. And, frankly, it would be a rewrite job of such immense proportions that I'd reshop the whole thing under a different name to all the better paying markets first.
And that is the reality of that.
So, since I didn't rewrite it, I sent it off to another market. Someone out there might still want it as it is. You never know until you try.
Seven more rejections until #100.
Just in case anyone thought it was easier to write a 500 word story than a 5,000 word story, STOP THINKING THAT.
I've read a lot of flash that just doesn't work, but more importantly, I've tried to sell a lot of flash that just doesn't work.
I may call a personal moratorium on writing and selling flash.
And I'm not just saying that because I just got a rejection on a flash piece. Well, actually, technically, that is why I'm saying it--it occurred to me, yaknow?
Yeah, so. Anyway, fewer words equals less space to correct any mistakes you make.
That is all.
Am reading On Writing.
Am smelling my teatree oil pore mask.
Am pondering the state of my story.
I have a big thoughtful entry brewing on the last one of these. Perhaps for when it's less Friday around here (yes, after three weeks of being brilliant at the new job, I fscked everything up today that I could without being an intentional doofus).
Yes. Friday is the new Monday.
Hey, it has actually come to that point in my career where I have submitted a story to Playboy! Not because I've written a particularly sexy story... this is more an issue of realizing it's a good-paying, professional market that I have previously overlooked.
Of course, my trek to find the right address was as close to epic as an address-trek can get. At one point when I checked the address on the Playboy website (at home), everyone (in the ads) was fully clothed--and the next time (at work) there were NIPPLES EVERYWHERE and I was scrambling to shut the browser because, well, work. Sometimes you just can't look up addresses at work. This is one of those times.
Anyway, interestingly, the website offers a submissions address in Chicago... and The Rumor Mill and Ralan say that the submissions address is in New York. I gambled on the experts this time. I will not often operate contrary to posted guidelines, but when The Rumor Mill and Ralan agree, it's time to consider it.
10 more rejections 'til I reach 100.
Time to start planning my 100 rejections party. I've decided it will by BYOR (bring your own rejections) and we shall burn any that need burning. For me, that means I'll be burning my form rejections. Hm... I'm going to aim for early November. This is good. There aren't enough parties between Halloween and Thanksgiving. Or something like that...
Ok. I'm a no-bloggin' losah. Still getting a handle on the job, yaknow? I mean... it's not like the job has taken over my life (not exactly), but between resolutions earlier this year not to internet when I should be writing, combined with the new job's necessary no-internet-while-working interdiction, and the total impossibility of internet while showering (don't even suggest wireless, waterproof phones or similar--I'm not in the mood) and the even greater impossibility of internet while sleeping, that means... almost no internet.
I can't say the impact has been negative on my psychological health. I do feel a bit out of the loop, but I also feel... much more positive. Hm. Perhaps one can know too much about the lives of those around you--locally or professionally. Or, perhaps one can be too invested in learning about the lives? Something like that.
Onward.
St. Raven by Jo Beverley (43) [romance]
Quite good. A couple of momentary quibbles (I didn't think sidesaddles were common in Georgian England, but were a later Victorian addition, but I could be so very wrong), but I gave them up in order to enjoy the story. The few things Jo Beverly does less well are completely eclipsed by that which she does extraordinarily well. All writers should be so lucky. The female lead had enough chutzpah to keep me interested and enough propriety to be realistic. A delicate balance!
Spent the morning submitting stories. Felt accomplished.
Spent the evening (well, an extra half hour) at work, doing something that hadn't been done in a week or more due to massive miscommunication. Felt stupid.
So, we're back at square one.
At least tonight I have a Cooling Gel Mask for the soothing of my skin and tinying of my pores. That makes everything better.
Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen (42) (n + 2 reread)
Once I've reread a book four times or more, I start picking out small things to watch for throughout the text--this character, or that bit of craft. On this read-through of P&P I was intrigued by the point of view and voice, which are masterfully handled, and I think in a way unique to Jane Austen. I also watched for the characterization of minor characters. I paid a lot more attention to period details as well... in short, I'm beginning to think that reading classic literature is an education every time you pick up a volume. Or maybe that's just Jane Austen...
Where does the time go?
Two rejections this weekend. I've barely been finding the time to blog, so I'm not quite sure where I'm going to find the time to pick markets and do submissions--but it will happen. Even if today is one of those days that I can't quite remember why I do this, it will happen.
And I have a power cord.
Well, all right then.
The end is in sight for two stories right now; I had a breakthrough on "Breakfast at Antigone's" and I think I can muddle my way through "Wedding Dress Tea Parties of 2443." Then... well, that's the question--what then? I've made myself a promise that I will let things rest before submitting them to editors anymore; but I'm not sure about the period of time it should rest before heading out to, say, the Online Writing Workshop. I have learned that my work tends to need rest, any way you look at it, whether it's enforced rest from it languishing in slush piles so that I get to rethinking it after five rejections, or voluntary rest in that I shelve it for a period of time. --Well, I think I just answered my own question in writing it--rest comes while on the Workshop simply because it takes a while to get five critiques.
Oh, what a ridiculous thing to twitter on about.
Anyway. I got words this morning, and right now, I intend to have more.
Dear little Serenity, the laptop of my life, will not talk to her power adapter. I've got an email in with Dell support--and it's definitely the power cord, not the laptop, so that's something, since I can take a charge from Dann's cord when I need to. In the meantime, I exchange endless messages in half-jibberish with customer support on the other side of the world:
"Please revert with the result of the above mentioned steps, so that I could
proceed further accordingly. I will surely replace the faulty part."
It's not like I don't get what's being said, but the more I deal with this sort of thing, the less happy I am with the farming out of customer support.
With my remaining 12% of battery power, I got the three most important things I've been working on off the laptop (it's been a week since I did backups, which is a normal amount for me, but still enough to make me twitch) onto my USB key, which I realize I can't plug into my desktop without doing an under-desk safari, through boxes of old letters and who knows what all. At this point, I think I'm going to go to work, plug the key in there, upload the stuff to my university space and download it here tonight.
Oh, the things I will do to avoid crawling under this desk. I'm not crazy, I don't think--I would surely bang my head.
Ok. Here's the sitch:
I'm writing a space opera/fantasy of manners. (Space opera of manners?) It was meant to be a short story, but now it looks like it's going to top out around fifteen thousand words. That means it's a novella and there's not a lot in the way of markets for it, so I'm at this point considering it a gift for myself, as I'm having a ball writing it.
And yet, I'm taking it deadly seriously. A chance to hone my craft. (Plus, I am going to *try* to sell it. It's just... you know, there's x number of short story markets, and it's like x divided by... what, ten? More? for novella markets.) I want it to be good enough that I look at it in a few years and go, "Yes, yes, you had something." It's a goal.
Thusly, I've been sweating plot, character and structure a lot. And last week, I sort of miswrote myself into a sex scene. I thought it was a good idea at the time, thought it would be this subversive thing considering the rest of the story, and yet I think it's true to the world I've built. But it's been bothering me, and on the car ride to the lake today, I realized that it's not true to the characters. Later, in the lake itself (76 degrees in the water, 75 degrees in the air, and in moving from one to the other, it was hard to determine which was warmer) I realized that I didn't have to obliterate all my work--keeping it as a fantasy would suffice.
And that's what I did today...
I realize the entries that I post which say things like "0 rejections, 0 acceptances" and "I resolve to finish a story this weekend" are probably dull, but they do keep me honest, and they provide a good record. Plus, they're something to say when I have nothing to say.
This week: 0 rejections, 0 acceptances. Also, I resolve to finish a story this weekend.
Jane Austen by Carol Shields (41) [biography]
This is a relatively and appropriately light overview of Jane Austen's life and works. As biographies go, I do like the ones that dig and dig and dig some more, but I also like the ones that give the picture of the forest for the trees. Generally, if I find someone interesting enough to read a biography of them, I will read two or four or six; as such, my biography pool is small, and consists (I now realize) largely of female Victorian writers and English royalty.
Ok, done digressing.
Anyway, this book did very well with contextualizing the writing of Austen's books in her life without getting bogged in the details. I enjoyed it very much. I have a few points I want to argue with, of course, most especially the emphasis on how much writers need to know other writers in order to improve their work, to learn "how it's done," and the implication that Austen's work somehow lacked because of this lack of writerly communication. I want to argue that *bunches*, in fact, because I think, yes, there are many, many wonderful things to be found from belonging to the greater community of writers--but never once has someone explained something to me about writing and have I then "gotten" it. Everything I've ever "gotten" about writing has been learned from reading examples of what I needed to get. Before I started joining in the Grand Writing Conversation, I got these things less consciously than I do now--and perhaps I did not know to go seek these things--but I still got them.
You *can* advance your craft without talking about it with other craftswomen. I'm quite, quite sure of it, and Jane Austen is my proof, so I'm not sure whyfor the lamentations. Isolation from fellow writers, in fact, is probably beneficial to some personalities and at certain points in anyone's career.
I don't know; it's something to chew on and argue with in my head for a few weeks.