3...2...1... Not It!

And a rejection. "Ultra-Fast Delivery" didn't tickle the editors of Eldritch Chrome in the proper way. It's my first rejection in some time (close to a year?), certainly the first since I got out of school. Still, the line-up for the book looks pretty darn awesome:

Playgrounds of Angolaland - David Conyers
The Blowfly Manifesto - Tim Curran
SymbiOS - William Meikle
Obsolete, Absolute – Robert M. Price
Open Minded Jeffrey Thomas
The Battle of Arkham - Peter Rawlik
The Wurms In the Grid - Nickolas Cook
Of Fractals, Fantomes, Frederic and Filrodj - John Shirley
The Gauntlet - Glynn Barrass and Brian M. Sammons
Indifference - CJ Henderson
Dreams of Death - Lois Gresh
Inlibration - Michael Tice
Immune - Terrie Leigh Relf
Hope Abandoned - Tom Lynch
Sonar City - Sam Stone
The Place that Cannot Be - D.L. Snell
Flesh & Scales - Ran Cartwright
Real Gone – David Dunwoody
CL3ANS3 – Carrie Cuinn

It would have been nice company, but I'll just have to start flogging the story elsewhere. Come to think of it, there's a couple of other stories that need selling, so it's time to get back on the horse.

I Like Your Market and Would Sumbit To It Again

Dark Recesses Press sends out really good rejection letters. I'm going to try extra hard for that market next time I've got something to send out.

And they've given permission for me to repost the letter, so here it is:

Good evening John,

Thank you for submitting your story, "Death on the American Family Farm" to us at DRP. We enjoyed reading it and even pushed it for further consideration; however we have decided to pass on it. Ultimately the ending was its downfall. Most of the readers felt it was rushed and a little flat.

That aside, the opening characterizations are magnificent and a lot of fun to read. You did a great job of filling the story in with small details that others may not have included. Instead of feeling wordy, it felt colored in.

I don't need to wish you luck in the future placing this story, I'm sure you will.

Keep writing,

Shanna Wynne

Dark Recesses Press
http://www.darkrecesses.com

The dark recesses of your mind are our playground... and we don't play fair.

This is a great rejection letter. Someone took some time to compose it, which means they really do care about me submitting at a later date. They liked the story enough to give it a second read (which I'm starting to think of as a 'bridesmaid' rejection). They told me what they think is a flaw, and again, I agree with them. Wish I could find these problems by myself, but I'm learning.

I'm very encouraged. Thanks Dark Recesses Press!

Stings a Bit...

Mood: Needy


This is my rejection letter for "Tatterdemalion," from, Vince Liaguno at Dark Scribe Press for their gay horror themed anthology Unspeakable Horror: From the Shadows of the Closet. I had sent in my story "Sire," and to my surprise I received a request to revise the story and resubmit. The good people at Dark Scribe sent me two pages of revision suggestions; what they liked, what they thought was weak.


So I spent a lot of January hammering away at the story, revising the weak spots, and changing the ending.


And on February 26^th, I received this rejection letter:

Dear Mr. Goodrich:

Thank you for submitting your short story for our consideration in the Unspeakable Horror: From the Shadows of the Closet anthology. We gave the revised version of "Tatterdemalion" a thorough read.

Although you successfully incorporated much of our feedback, the ending just doesn't work for us. You quite successfully craft an excellent psychological portrait of a closeted man at war (literally) with himself, but the supernatural ending seems tacked on and doesn't seem to connect with the story that preceded it.

Regrettably, we're going to release "Tatterdemalion" back to you from our consideration at this time with our best wishes that your story finds a suitable home.

Sincerely:

Vince A. Liaguno, Editor-in-Chief
Dark Scribe Magazine
www.DarkScribeMagazine.com
www.DarkScribePress.com

Well that stings a bit. It's a great letter, and many thanks to Vince for going the extra mile and being personal. There are a couple of submissions where I've essentially had to imply that I've been rejected, because nobody has bothered to get back to me.

I need to look at this and realize that I got a call-back where most people simply got a rejection. I was good enough to get a request to revise, but not quite good enough to get into the anthology. And I was not the subject of the "Tips of the month" that listed the common problems with submissions. No psycho trannies or man-hating lesbians in my story, and no one's unmentionables were mutilated.

But let's do this Heinlein's way, by the numbers:

For November:
* Total # of queries = 19
* Total # of greenlighted queries = 19
* Total # of actual new submissions = 18
* Total # of re-submissions from previous month(s) = 1

Disposition of submissions:

* Accepted = 3 (2 new/1 re-submission)
* Rejected = 10
* Held for second reading = 4
* Revisions requested from authors = 2

And in February:

* Accepted = 3
* Rejected = 15
* Held for second reading = 1
* Revisions requested from authors = 1

This was the first pro-pay (5 cents a word) anthology I've ever submitted to. Although it's cold comfort, I came close, and I have to remember that I didn't consider "Sire" to be a particularly good shot in the first place. I really got my hopes up when I was asked to revise, and although I made the piece stronger, it wasn't quite enough. While I'm not in the anthology, I do now have a story that is substantially better than it was in December. And even if it didn't make it into Unspeakable Horror, I think I've got a shot at placing it somewhere else.

Time to stop feeling sorry for myself and take a look at the markets again.

A Week of Ups and Downs

I want to start off with "It’s been a busy week" again, but I’ve said or thought it so many times that it’s become redundant. I doubt that I’m really going to have an easy week at any point in the next decade. I used to think that it would be cool if I had more projects demanding my attention than time. And what do you know, I’ve got it.

And I don’t think it’s a case of “be careful what you wish for”: It’s much better to have too much to do than too little. I can always (if I get my priorities straight) drop a project. And at the moment, the ideas for projects are coming faster than I can polish them into stories. I’ve got the outlines of five short stories in various stages between “completely in my head” and “halfway written”. And I’m revising my novel so I can show it to people when I go to World Fantasy Con. I’ve been planning a couple of novels in a couple of franchises that I’d like to take a crack at, in addition to mapping out my second solo effort.

But while I’m not going to fall back on the old standard and say that this week has been busy, I must admit it has been a full of emotional peaks and dips. I finished a very difficult essay and sent it off to the editor, who liked it (yay!). When I proposed the topic for my next essay, I found that it was already taken (boo!). My novel has been read by a professional that I like very much, and she likes my work (HUGE YAY!). I did not get into the Nyarlathotep anthology edited by Peter Worthy (booo!), but I did get into the Cross-Genre Cthulhu anthology (Yay!).

The positives of this week far outweigh the negatives. For example, on Wednesday, I gave blood and walked two miles home. However, I didn’t have to walk the additional mile and a half to pick up the car. And yet, I found myself feeling kind of down and listless as I came home from work today and sitting down to face work on the blogs. And it’s not just because I’m a pint low. I know myself enough to understand that no rejection is ever not going to affect me. It hurts that Peter didn’t think that my story was strong enough to be in the Nyarlathotep anthology. I’m sure that it will be an excellent anthology, and I’m definitely going to buy it when it comes out, but my initial reaction is rather different.

But I’m not going to rant and rave about it. While I’m not going to deny my hurt, neither am I going to wallow in it. I made a lot of progress toward my personal goals this week, and the rejection is just a temporary setback. If the story is as good as I think it is, it’s going to sell somewhere. It’s just a matter of finding the right fit at the right price. I’m aiming for better-paying markets than I was a year ago, so I’m going to have to accept that I’m going to get rejected more often. I just have to accept that there’s an appropriate mourning period when I get over myself, which will likely involve writing all my pain into a blog entry. And tomorrow, I’ll pick myself up and see what other venues are looking for my sort of story.

At the same time, I can’t rush it. I have missed what would have been a good opportunity because I was in too much of a rush to get a story published. I wanted to get it out there and read by someone–anyone–and I let it go to the first person that said yes. And that cost me the opportunity to sell it to a much more interesting venue that doesn’t take reprints.

Call it a learning experience.

My Own Honest-to-God Nick Mamatas Personal Rejection Letter!

Hey, my very first personal rejection letter, this one from Nick Mamatas at Clarkesworld Magazine. He rejected “God of Chickens” a story I wrote specifically to submit to Clarkesworld, and specifically to follow his guidelines. With his permission, I am reproducing his rejection letter here:

John,

Thanks for the story, but it's not for me. I enjoyed the ending and some of the more visceral imagery, but the "kids/teens finding something horrific" aspect drags the piece down. We get a lot of stories that hang on such a structure, and generally the problem is that whatever they find is so much more interesting than the process of finding it, and given more importance in the narrative than character development, that it ends up feeling like most of the story is there just to get us to the monster. As monsters go, the God of Chickens has a lot of potential, but this story would be much more interesting if it began a little bit before where it currently ends. We've all read the one about the little bastards who get their comeuppance before too; the bloody rampage of a God of Chickens and the way he might change the world is fresher and more exciting.


Hm. I find this encouraging (after several days of not finding it so). He does express interest in the story, although he did reject it. It’s funny, though, I nearly changed the ending because the submission guidelines say that “stories where the climax is dependent on the spilling of intestines” are a hard sell.

Hmmm. The guidelines also state that “stories about young kids playing in some field and discovering ANYTHING. (a body, an alien craft, Excalibur, ANYTHING)” is a hard sell, and this is where he categorizes “God of Chickens.” Hm. I have come to be aware that I like stories, horror or not, in which I can connect emotionally with the protagonist. I think Elizabeth Massie’s “Fence Line” was one of the best stories in Lords of the Razor because she treats the character so intimately. Drawn in by the character, I relate to the story much more intensely. However, “Fence Line” is a much longer short story than “God of Chickens”, and just can't afford to spend as much time on developing character—at 4,000 words, I have to get right into the story.

That said, looking at the story, Nick is right–the story is a one-idea story (ie an episode of Seinfeld, rather than The Simpsons), and the first third of the story is getting to the idea. The God of Chickens is interesting, (thank you Nick), but I need to do something further with it. A thousand words of lead-in and character development could be done in fewer words. I tend to lead in with a lot of character development, and I think it would be better if I focused more on establishing the characters in broad strokes early on, and then develop them as the action happens.

The little bastards getting their comeuppance–there’s a complex little question. I don’t see it as getting a comeuppance–there are two characters in the story, and I wanted to have one of them witness what was happening. I prefer that to the narrator telling the reader what’s going on–it allows me to put emotion into the description without feeling like I’m telling the reader how to feel. And I’d rather work through the more sympathetic character, and of course I want to bastard to get it. And again Nick is right–I have to ignore that urge–the morality tale has been done to death since Aesop, and if the audience knows who’s going to get it, there’s no sense of anticipation (unless you really set it up that the audience is just drooling in anticipation of the bastard getting it, something I’m doing with another piece). Since there are only two characters in the story, this leaves me with a conundrum, and my conclusion, once again, that the problem is more with the structure of the story than who actually gets it in the end. Because even if I flip a coin as to who gets glorked and it comes up ‘the bad boy’, it still feels like a comeuppance. If that’s not the end of the story, however, then it won’t have that morality-tale feel to it.

In a few sentences, Nick has provided me with enough though-provoking material that I’ve come up with a rewrite that does begin about where the current story ends and goes on from there. I won’t be able to send it back to him, unfortunately. Clarkesworld doesn’t take re-submissions.

So, a week after the fact, thank you very much for the for the personal rejection, Nick.

Error #1: There is No Ladder

I used to perceive a ‘ladder’ to publication. First I would beg people to take my work, and they would print it for free. After some time doing that, I would have accumulated a series of non-paying anthologies, and from there I would move up a rung to onto the ‘token’ payment anthologies that pay between $5 and $10 per story. After I placed many stories in ‘token’ anthologies, I would tentatively step onto the next rung, semi-professional payment that pays between one and three pennies per word. Only then, when I had paid my dues and have the weight of several dozen stories pushing me on would I even dare to query a pro-pay magazine like Weird Tales or The Book of Dark Wisdom.

Not only is this not true, it’s self-defeating. I started on the lowest possible pay scale, and since my work got accepted there, I never even looked for anything better for that story. What, did I think I would take it to a higher-paying venue later? How stupid is that? An actually intelligent person who has thought about this starts with the highest-paying venue that would possibly take his work and then proceed down the pay scale. Because I’m going to stop with that sale, aren’t I? And the editors don’t really care who I am until I’m a name. Until then, they’re much more interested in my story than my other publications. A hundred stories in a hundred anthologies the editor has never read or heard of do me absolutely no good if my story is no good. And they’re not going to care if this is the first story I have ever written if it’s brilliant.

Let me show you where this thinking lead me. I recently received a copy of an anthology I placed my work in for free: Atlantean Pub’s The King in Yellow anthology.

First of all, Atlantean Pub has a free website. That’s OK, because not every publisher has to have a good website. However, EVERY publisher has pictures of their books, even if they have a really cheap website. Now, I’m, not getting down on Atlantean Pub. They never mislead me, I mislead myself. I never saw any pictures of their product, so when I assumed that they were going to be small but printing actual books, an assumption on my part that had no basis. I never saw a cover to a single one of their books, and I filled in the blanks with rosy dreams.

A few weeks ago, I received my copy of Atlantean Press’s King in Yellow, which no one has ever heard of, and no one is going to read because it has no ISBN. Thus, it cannot be sold to a bookstore, or even on Amazon. And in fact, it’s not even a book, it is in fact photocopies held together with a binder clip. I could have written the best King in Yellow story God has ever seen. No one is going to know because this isn’t actual publication.

The solution? As you see on the score sheet to your right: I’m, now shopping “Sire” as a reprint, and I make less money the next time I sell it. Meanwhile, I’ve missed other opportunities to get it into paying venues.

Publication is worth what I get paid for it. When I put something in an anthology that didn’t pay, I was competing with people who think their work can only be given away. I’m better than that, and my work is better than that.

Writing:
Articles and reviews, 1,400 words

Reading:
Which Way to Mecca, Jack by William Peter Blatty

Why Flawed Diamonds?

I took the name of my blog from something Nick Mamatas posted to the Shocklines web board.


"Writers generally move from one to two and then manage to somehow crap out a little diamond of originality which sparks a personal response, and then finally some editor is enamored with story and accepts it. Then it's a bunch more rejections — some form and some personal, and maybe a second sale. Slowly the forms begin to disappear, and then the ratio of personal rejections to acceptances starts to shift in favor of acceptances as well." --Nick Mamatas



Thanks for the image, Nick, but he nailed perfectly the stage that I'm at. Something has sparked an editor's attention, I've got my first story out, and now I'm getting form rejection letters. Since they aren't that interesting, I'm not going to post them, but I do plan (with the publishers' permission) to post any personalized rejection letters that I get.


OK, next time, I start writing about the errors I have made in publishing. I consider that I've made quite a few, so that should keep me going for a good, long time.

Still reading:

JLB's Collected Fictions


Writing:

Finished the essay for a friend at 549 words. Call it 40 words and a lot of polishing.

"Secret History of Earth": 699 Words

The Novel: 400 words