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 (just the) "Happy Fun Log" Entries COMICS ACCEPTANCE! - Outlaw Territory II August 22, 2008  "The Whores in Trinidad Need Witnessing to" is an eight page western comic story (illustrator TBA), and my first time writing in the western genre. Outlaw Territory is a new anthology, published by Image Comics. The first volume of Outlaw Territory (cover above by Greg Ruth, whose recent Conan work with Kurt Busiek has blown me away) is solicited in the present issue of Diamond Previews for an October 15 release. After seeing a script of mine last year, editor Michael Woods asked me for an eight page story for the second volume in the series. After a rewrite, it ended up being a good fit for the book. Now, I'm not one to speculate, but I imagine the first/current volume selling well in preorders would increase that second volume's chances of coming to fruition all the sooner. So ask your local comic shop to reserve you a copy. Also available at Amazon if you must, but won't your local comics retailer appreciate your business more?
 2008 Submission Log Weeks 28-35 August 21, 2008 Submissions 545-550 F&SF (my 23rd sub there) Apex (4th) Fantasy (7th) Talebones (7th) Beneath Ceaseless Skies (1st) Flytrap (4th) Rejections 398-406 The Believer (13 days on two poems) Aberrant Dreams (30 days) Weird Tales (34 days) Chizine (27 days) Tin House (61 days) OSC's IGMS (83 days) Apex (21 days) Assumed Lost, Etc. 71 Drawn and Quarterly, two for two of no replies. Ah well. The slush pile isn't going to be my way into this particular publication... Of interest Why is it that as soon as I finally get a feel (correct or not) for an editor's taste, s/he never gets to read what I send because my stories stop getting past the first reader/slush editor? (Is it because slush editors are much better suited than I am to judge the editorial tastes of their publications? Yes? Well, that's... Oh. I guess that makes sense then.) I've never had stories out so long at F&SF (41 days), McSweeney's (6.5 months), LCRW (13 months), A Public Space (109 days), or Fantasy (73 days; hold request at 19 days). I'd like to be optimistic, but, going by my statistics, I'm about twice as likely to receive no reply as I am to receive an acceptance. Got a hold notice from Apex (yay!) for a story that was rejected a month earlier (boo!). Naturally I assumed one of the editors was a dirty liar (yay?), so I emailed for clarification, and--since the story in question was in circulation elsewhere--offered to pull that story from another market. Alas, they apologized and decided they should go with the original decision (boo!).
And My 400th Rejection Came From... July 18, 2008 ...The Believer! Nobody guessed correctly in the Guess My 400th Rejection Contest, so no prize awarded, unless you count the 400 rejections sent out to some chump. Thanks for playing, all!
400TH REJECTION CONTEST (2008 Submission Log Weeks 25-27) July 4, 2008 (scroll down for the "Guess my Rejection" contest) Submissions 530-544 No brain power for links, maybe I'll add 'em later. Weird Tales (9th) The Colbert Report (1st) Drawn & Quarterly (2nd) The Believer (1st-5th) Abberrant Dreams (1st) Writers of the Future (20th!) ChiZine (7th) Supergrrrl Adventure Comics (1st) Asheville Film Festival (1st) Light (5th-7th) Rejections 393-397 F&SF Haiku Contest (date not available) The Believer (8 days on three poems) Asimov's (15 days) Hold Request From Fantasy, 18 days. Here's hoping. Acceptance 74, Tentative Acceptance 75 Sale of "Dry Frugal with Death Rays" to Futurismic, 42 days. Tentative acceptance from Supergrrrl Adventure Comics (1 day) pending a rewrite. This is a new, nonpaying zine from Rachel Edidin and Jen Vaughn. Pulled, Folded, or Otherwise No Reply 67-70 Cosmos (story), Interzone (story), Murky Depths (2 poems) Of Interest Yes, I entered the McCain greenscreen challenge thing. Don't know what I was thinking other than I needed to finish a project I could actually finish. A couple of bad PCS weeks, last month. Completely flaked on catching the F&SF issue announcing the winners of the haiku contest. Mine was an obvious joke anyway; glad it only had an audience of one (the editor/judge). Wow, 20th sub to Writers of the Future. It's what I was hoping to submit the week I got in the accident, so I _think_ it's finally submission ready, six months later. Brain injury aside, this story had more technical challenges than anything I've ever written, and it's been brewing at least since April '05 when I pitched it to a friend as a comic. Guess my 400th rejection, win a prize! Hey, time sure flies. First (up to) THREE PEOPLE to correctly guess where my 400th rejection will come from wins:
Currently at Rejection #397. Current outstanding subs:
And, okay. If all of the above end up as acceptances, and my 400th rejection has yet to even be submitted, I will be so happy that once I recover from the shock, I'll do my best to give everyone who enters a prize of some sort or another. (EDIT: And if something I've yet to submit--not listed above--ends up as my 400th rejection, prize goes to whoever guesses #401, and so on.)
SALE! - "Dry Frugal with Death Rays" to Futurismic July 3, 2008 "Dry Frugal" is an oddball science fiction story, about 6500 words. Think "The Office" meets Catch-22 meets Alex as a poor substitute for Vonnegut (so lower those expectations, cool?). Futurismic is a popular futurism blog which publishes science/tech articles and tidbits, plus monthly fiction of the near-future and/or gonzo-satirical variety. This was my third sub to them. I'll talk more about the story when it appears online, possibly as early as next month. But I'm extra proud, for two reasons. First, it's one of my rare successes with humor. Most of what I've been placing are barely-successful attempts at "more serious" things I have less interest in. But as I'm developing my "voice," stories like this one--which tries to touch on the human condition in sometimes light-hearted, sometimes dark-hearted ways--are the sweet spot. The more stories like this one I place, the better I feel that my published work is representing me properly, even at this early stage of my fumbling through the writing jungles. And then there's the length. A problem when sending my Clarion application back in January 2006 was how far back in my repertoire I had to go to find a story that was between "ten and twenty-five pages." I tended to write flash fiction (too short) and novelettes (too long). I was lucky what I found to send in even qualified as stories. I've been working on normal-length stories since, and I'd view a few of them as among my best work to date. This is the first of them to find a home. Besides my novelette "Outgoing," this is my longest story sale by half. Next longest, at 2800 words, was my most recent sale "Harp" a month or so ago. Here's hoping good news comes in threes. Or tens. Tens work, too.
2008 Submission Log Weeks 18-24 June 11, 2008 Submissions 515-529 A Public Space (my 3rd sub there) Sword and Sorceress (my 4th) F&SF (22nd) Mineshaft (2nd) OSC's IGMS (5th) Futurismic (3rd) Cosmos (1st) Tin House (8th) Heinlein Centennial Short Story Contest (1st) LCRW (7th) McSweeney's (2nd to Internet Tendency, 8th overall) Asimov's (19th) Fantasy (6th) Rejections 376-392 Talebones (107 days) Fantasy (30 days) Glimmer Train (63 days) OSC's IGMS (99 days) Jim Baen's Universe (5 days) Chizine (62 days) Strange Horizons (59 days) Sword and Sorceress (1 day) Highlights for Children (77 days) Writers of the Future (40 days) F&SF (6 days) Weird Tales (98 days) One Story (106 days) Heinlein Centennial Short Story Contest (1 day) Apex (61 days) McSweeney's Internet Tendency (5 days) Mineshaft (26 days) Phew! Acceptance 73! "Harp" to Cabinet des Fees, 49 days. No Reply/Folded/Pulled 63-66 Wholphin, Adbusters, Mad Magazine, 2000 AD. Of Interest Day 18 or so of that "seven day" cold. Don't think I've ever been sick half this long in my life. I _reeeeeealy wasn't ready for WisCon, was I? McSweeney's Internet Tendency rejection: "Inventive and fun, but for me this inspires more smiles than laughs." Grrrr. Comments on many other rejections, too. How many more ways can editors write "Loved it! Not for us!" ? Current Writers of the Future tally, out of 19 subs over the past 9 years: 8 nonplacers 9 honorable mentions/quarterfinalists 2 semifinalists. EDITED TO ADD: And why was that Heinlein rejection so quick? Because some submitter who shall remain nameless misread a 12:01AM deadline as 12:01PM. I am a great fool... Current Tally
SALE! - "Harp" to Cabinet des Fees May 24, 2008 Real quick: checked email from WisCon this morning with the happy news that Cabinet des Fées wants my story "Harp" for their 2009 volume, due out October or November of next year. They put out such a beautiful book. So pleased I get to be a part of it.
2008 Submission Log Weeks 13-17 April 25, 2008 A bit behind, but only a bit to report... Submissions 511-514 Writers of the Future (my 19th sub there) Fantasy (5th) Cabinet de Fees (1st) Apex (3rd) Rejections 371-375 Clarkesworld (82 days) Polyphony (83 days) Mineshaft (101 days on 3 poems) Of Interest Still couldn't close the deal on the story I was writing for Writers of the Future at the end of December, so again I send them a slightly older story last quarter. High hopes that I'll be well enough to complete it (and a few other things) by June. Twenty-six pieces currently in circulation. Been a few weeks now of nothing in, nothing out. A few submissions have been pending for longer than the average bear, which can be a good sign (held a bit for rereads/consideration, etc) or a bad sign (post office taken over by Visigoths so the subs/rejections never arrived, etc). Or it could mean nothing. And I'm saying nothing. This has been a good use of your time.
2008 Submission Log Weeks 10-12 March 20, 2008 Submissions 508-510 ChiZine (my 6th sub there) Interzone (4th) Strange Horizons (17th) Rejection 370 Eclipse Two (16 days) Pulled/No Reply/Publication Folded 61 Noctem Aeternus (1st sub) Of Interest Among my three subs this period is my first real work completed (from conception to submission-ready draft) entirely after my head injury. Reeeeally needed that. A personal note about the Noctem Aeternus closing, which was a pleasant way to get the unpleasant news. The first issue showed a lot of promise, I thought.
2008 Submission Log Weeks 7-9 March 3, 2008 Submissions 498-507 Fantasy (my 4th sub there) McSweeney's (Quarterly) (6th) McSweeney's (Books) (1st) Zombie Inside (1st) One Story (1st) Weird Tales (8th) Silly Fantasy (1st) Glimmer Train (4th) ChiZine (5th) Eclipse Two (2nd) Apex (2nd) Rejections 356-368 Tin House (68 days) Pseudopod (2 months) F&SF 9 days) Zombie Inside (1 day) The First Line (18 days) F&SF (9 days) Writers of the Future (48 days) Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award (Semifinalist, 134 days) SFReader Contest (50 days) Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine (74 days) Fantasy (20 days) Mythic Delirium (55 days) ChiZine (2 days) Eclipse Two (22 days) Of Interest My 500th sub was to One Story. Here's my Zombie Inside thing, with more info. Looks like I won't be able to vote in yet another SFWA election. Even if I made my third SFWA-qualifying sale today, I doubt I'd get the contracts in in time. Still having a lot of trouble with the head injury thing, but I'll talk about some ways I've been able to adjust this week. I have a bad feeling this is gonna be with me for some time, so... Since I get new emails about it with every mention (and keeping up with email is difficult for me, even if the emails are absolutely appreciated), let's just make a brain injury tag. February was almost entirely spent on a story for Shimmer's "Clockwork Jungle" issue. I wasn't able to get it to a nice enough draft to submit, but that could've been the case even if I was at peak performance and actually could read the entire 2-2.5k word drafts in three sittings or fewer.
2008 Submission Log Weeks 5 and 6 February 9, 2008 Submissions 493-497 Clockwork Phoenix (my 1st sub there) Noctem Aeternus (1st) F&SF (21st) Fantasy (4th) Eclipse Two (1st) Rejections 346-355 Clockwork Phoenix (6 days) Strange Horizons (27 days) SXSW Film Festival (89 days) McSweeney's (121 days) Shadowline/Image Comics (multiple pitches) First Page Challenge Thing Of Interest: Should hit my 500th sub this month, even if I'm unable to write another word. The McSweeney's rejection at 121 days was the shortest response time I've ever gotten from them, and it included an apology for the delayed reply. So it goes.
2008 Submission Log Weeks 3 and 4 January 30, 2008 Submissions 482-492 Clarkesworld (my 5th sub there) Shadowline/Image (1st few subs) Apex (1st) Highlights for Children (2nd) OSC's IGMS (4th) Nathan Bransford's Surprisingly Essential First Page Challenge (1st) The First Line (1st) Rejections 340-345 Aeon (51 days) Helix (just a few hours) Space & Time (exactly 2 months) Apex (8 days) OSC's IGMS (exactly 3 months, as usual IIRC) Fantasy (26 days) Of Interest: From Cat Rambo @ Fantasy: "This was close, but in the end we've decided to pass." Noooo! Found out about this contest too late to do much damage myself, but for those interested: Shadowline/Image is looking for pitches until the end of the month for a 3-issue miniseries. Found out about it by happy accident as I'm preparing a regular sub to Shadowline presently. A pox upon my fellow aspiring comics writers who were being so tightlipped about it! Not very sporting, is it? Not that I'm any better help, a day before the deadline... Link to the Nathan Bransford contest. I entered the first page of Pinocchio is Punching You. And, yes, if most of my other journal entries this month haven't made it clear, Pinocchio's a current semifinalist in the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award (ABNA). Not too unproductive a month for a guy who has trouble reading his own journal entries once they get this long. I pushed myself a little too hard in the last few days working on the above comic book pitches and a musical treat which I hope to release tomorrow. I'm hoping that's the reason I'm so exhausted, and it's not that my head's getting worse.
2008 Submission Log Weeks 1 and 2 January 15, 2008 Submissions 476-481 Fantasy (my 3rd sub there) Helix (1st) Mythic Delirium (4th) Polyphony (2nd) Strange Horizons (16th) Talebones (6th) Rejections 335-339 Fantasy Magazine (33 days) Interzone (74 days) LCRW (35 days on an illustration) The Sun (110 days) Talebones (93 days) Acceptance 72 "Contents" to The Rambler (70 days) Of Interest Finally learning how to do Track Changes in Word for the Shimmer story copy-edit. I'm such a luddite! The no from Fantasy included editor Cat Rambo's note: "mainly because I've got something that's a little too similar in the pipeline," which tells me I'm getting closer there. Should find out today or so whether my entry into the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award Contest (ABNA for the Google-watchers) made the first cut. Odds are in my favor (taking up to 20% of the entries) compared with most slush piles I end up in, but I've got no expectations. As mentioned here, I mainly submitted it because I needed to set it aside for a few months before the next revision... and always better to let something wait in a slush pile than on my hard drive. Still dealing with the head injury so I'm still happy to let it sit. A few weeks back, during my Christmas convalescence, Amazon.com uploaded a handful of excerpts including mine.... and then took them down quickly. It's as likely that these were used as test entries as it is an indicator that they've made it on some preliminary list, but I wouldn't put money behind either guess.
SALE! "Contents" to The Rambler January 11, 2008 "Contents" is a 500-word non-genre story based on a photograph published in a previous issue. It'll will run in the March/April 2008 "Your Stories" section of The Rambler. It's a tiny thing (the story), but The Rambler just might have the largest news stand circulation of any periodical I've appeared in to date. (Locally: Weaver Street Market, Internationalist Books, McIntyre's, the Regulator, and Quail Ridge Books, for starters. Nationally: many Barnes & Nobles and university bookstores) Followed only 4 rejections into the new year, which is a great start to 2008!
2007 Submission Log: Week 52! The Year is Dead! Long Live the Year! January 10, 2008 Submissions 469-475 Murky Depths (my 3rd and 4th subs there) SFReader.com Contest (2nd) Mineshaft (1-3rd) Writers of the Future (18th, yes, 18th) Rejection 334 Weird Tales (my 6th) Of Interest: I put out 148* submissions in 2007, a personal record but nothing to be admired. As I talked about here, it's been more an act of desperation than one of dedication. Glad to have gotten through it with what little progress I was able to make. Feels unreal to still be talking about 2007, when the whole year is (literally) fuzzy in my mind. I'm already into the first submissions, rejections and acceptance (I'll share tomorrow) of 2008, and I'm dizzy just writing what I've written so far for this entry (recovering slowly, but recovering; again, more later). I spent about three hours trying to focus on an interview questions yesterday for the Shimmer story and almost gave up. But then I thought: the first interviews I ever read were with 80s musicians coked out of their skulls; how unintelligible could I possibly be? Mineshaft's in Durham! How come nobody told me? Due to a clerical error on my part, my Writers of the Future entry count is up by two this quarter instead of one. The entry went MIA when I switched tracking methods a few years back, and I was all "this is my sixth or seventh" entry and I went ahead and marked it as a sixth. So my new tally.... Pending: 1 Nonplacers: 7 Honorable Quarterfinalists: 8 Semifinalists: 2 Finalists: 0 Superfinalists: 0 What's a superfinalist? How the hell should I know, with crappy numbers like these? In the interesting-to-nobody-else-but-me department, this does mean I've entered an average of twice per year for nine years. That's once a year at first, eventually upping to quarterly as my eligible days start to number. I have some hopes for 2008, the year my writing/submitting life turns ten (November) and my submission count will likely hit 500. Not a lot of hopes. But some. Don't ask me how long it took to write this. Gonna go lie down now. * Corrected from 147. Two lines in my tracking file got combined. I know nobody cares but me, but if it's worth tracking, it's worth tracking correctly.
2007 Submission Log: Weeks 49-51 December 23, 2007 Acceptance 71 (46th by slush) "Spoils of Springfield" to Shimmer, 71 days (coincidence?). My 4th submission there. Submissions 463-468 Sent stories to.... Ploughshares (my 4th submission there) GUD (1st, reprint) Pseudopod (1st, reprint) Ellery Queen (2nd) Plus a comic to LCRW Rejections 329-333 Atlantic Monthly (48 days on some poems) Murky Depths (83 days on a comic script) GUD (3 days on a story reprint) Of interest: Got an invite to do another comic script for an anthology, based on previous work. More about it later, I hope. Way too much stuff to finish by the end of the year.
SALE - "Spoils of Springfield" to Shimmer December 21, 2007 It's a Christmas miracle! Very happy about this. Shimmer's one of my favorite SF publications these days, if this post (LJ mirror) didn't already make that clear (and, incidentally, they're running their own subscription drive through January 10).  No, Loki, we don't have to do something every time someone holds a subscription drive. 
That's right. Back to bed. "Spoils" is another pre-Clarion humor piece. With zombies. Or class warfare. Or my attempt to write a manga fight sequence as prose. Something. More about it later; I wanna save some stuff for the "reader bonus content" Shimmer runs for each issue.
2007 Submission Log: Weeks 45-46 November 23, 2007 Practically nothing to report. Submissions 456-458 Poetry submissions to Space and Time and the M&SF Haiku contest. An RPG resoure (magical item) to a Paizo promotional contest. First submissions, all. Rejection 320 Strange Horizons (23 days on a poem) Pulled/No Reply 59 Grave Tales, after about a year. Of Interest I have some issues with the copyright policies of the Paizo thing, but I'm looking at this as my last try-and-see in the RPG-writing department, which for a while was a dream of mine. A lot of strikes against me here: I haven't been an active gamer since D&D 2nd edition, and my entry to this first round may not qualify as a "wondrous item" since it has the form (but not function) of an item in another category. I'll talk more about this if I don't qualify (and talk a lot more about it if I do). Got a qualification letter from the Amazon Breakthough Novel Award (ABNA) thing, but that doesn't mean they've made a judgment whether or not my wordcount meets their definition for novel: "if it becomes clear in the future that your entry violates our eligibility requirements..." So a good chance I won't know for sure until mid-January when the semifinalists are announced, and even then I might not know whether a failure to move on is because of quality or ineligibility. The contest is a longshot, especially for a story like this one, but it's not like I've got an endless number of places to send it next. Happy to let it sit, though I can't say that for every submission out there. Things are happening "behind the scenes." Should be back online at full speed with a site revamp, that promised Clarion podcast, and more fun by the end of the year. Got just over a month to make 2007 a net-positive experience.
2007 Submission Log Weeks 43-44 November 11, 2007 Submissions 449-455 Sent stories to... Orson Scott Card's Intergalactic Medicine Show (my 3rd sub there) Strange Horizons (my 15th sub there) The Rambler (1st) Interzone (3rd) Realms of Fantasy (10th) and sent a short film to the South by Southwest Festival in Austin, TX (my 1st), and a short play to the Actor's Theater of Louisville (my 6th). Rejections 314-319 A Public Space (14 days, my 2nd rejection there ) Light (8 days; multiple rejections) Writers of the Future (honorable mention; 31 days; my 16th). Of interest: Fastest rejection ever (honorable mention, formerly known as quarterfinalist) from Writers of the Future, at 31 days. The stink of my stink must have become recognizable from the paper itself. I'll try and use plastic gloves next time. Current tally: 6 washes, 8 honorable quarterfinalists, 2 semifinalists. The Light rejection was an oddly-cut scrap of pink paper with the typed words "Not Quite." I'd thought this was my first sub there, but this looks familiar. Maybe I subbed there in college and lost the record of it. But what are the chances they haven't changed their M.O. in eight years? Should figure out this week whether my submission to the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Contest was too short (a big old probably, but they didn't specify a minimum wordcount). I even padded it with fun-but-unnecessary tangents by a good 500 words prior to submission, so I'll have to cut those out again before I determine which of the few novelette markets might be interested in it. My plays have been getting suckier and suckier, with the latest one unable to hold its own against the worst SNL skit. Comes from only writing one or two a year, I suppose. Maybe it's time to cut that cord.
2007 Submission Log: Weeks 41-42 October 29, 2007 Submissions 440-448 I've got new poetry, and plenty of old verse collecting dust, so I made a concerted effort to get as much of it (back) out there as possible with poem submission to... The Atlantic Monthly (my 5th-7th subs there) Strange Horizons (14th) A Public Space (2nd) Light (1st-4th) Rejections 310-313 MAD Magazine (77 days, snail mail) Strange Horizons (23 days) Orson Scott Card's Intergalactic Medicine Show (3 months on the nose) Realms of Fantasy (45 days from DC, YFOP) Acceptance 70 (total)/45 (via slush) "Church of Saturn" (poem) to Murky Depths. Of Interest I seem to have a record number of unsold stories and other items that I still feel are publishable. It used to be I'd retire a submission after so many rejections not because the editors didn't like them, but because time and growth let me know that the stories no longer represented my best work (or even decent work). Now I seem to be amassing an unpublished library of work that's a cut above the stuff I've sold. For a while it's been at the point where the effort it's taking to keep so many submissions alive and in the slush (including finding and reading new markets, etc) has been overwhelming--and interfering more and more with the writing time. Just when I think I've got a handle on this time management thing...
SALE - "Church of Saturn" to Murky Depths October 22, 2007 Not spilling the beans on Acceptance 69 yet, though it is tempting. So on to... Acceptance 70! Murky Depths is a new UK-based prose-comics-poetry publication, focusing on dark speculative fiction. Warren Ellis pointed it out last month. I had the first issue in my hands a week later, and it's very nice--a fun read in glossy package. Just wish it didn't cost so much to ship it across the pond, though that does mean that the payment plus contributor copies add up to the highest compensation I've ever received for my poetry. "Church of Saturn" is a twelve line humor/sf story-poem, a similar format to "Squatter's Rites" (which I just sold to Weird Tales) and "Stock Car Relativity" (which appears in Inconsequential Art #1). Glad these little story-grenade-poem-things are finding an audience. This was my second submission to Murky Depths, and my first poem submission there. "Church of Saturn" will appear in Murky Depths #2.
2007 Submission Log: Weeks 38-40 October 16, 2007 Submissions 428-439 2000 AD (comic script - my 7th sub there) Adbusters (fiction - 2nd) Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award (fiction - 1st) McSweeney's (fiction - 5th) Murky Depths (comic script and story-poem - 1st and 2nd) Pulp Planet (comic script - 1st) Shimmer (fiction - 4th) Strange Horizons (fiction - 13th) Talebones (poetry - 5th) Tin House (fiction - 6th) Zoetrope (fiction - 2nd) Rejections 305-309 A Public Space (41 days - my 1st rejection there) Asimov's (24 and 18 days - 17th and 18th) Hardboiled Horror (10 days - 1st) Strange Horizons (38 days - 12th Acceptance 69! Wouldn't you like to know? Of Interest: Can't talk about the acceptance yet, but it could be my biggest sale yet. Not saying it is, just saying it could be. The Amazon.com Breakthrough Novel Award/contest has surprisingly few red flags (I say "surprisingly;" it's so sad that I have to say that), so I entered something. They say "no short stories" yet they have no minimum wordcount. My submission is a very short novel in the equally-loosely-defined novella/novelette range. I'll find out in November whether it's disqualified. It was quite impulsive of me, and in the throes of sleep deprivation, I'll plead. I think the cap of 5,000 entrants works entirely in the writer's favor, but the main reason I entered was because I needed to set the piece aside for a few months, let it stew while I work on other things. And if my ChiZine sale taught me anything: better to let it wait in a slushpile than on my hard drive. Recent comments from science fiction editors indicate that my attempts at absurdism (in a few of my favorite submission stories) read like realism. Terrible, tedious realism. "If by Godot I had meant God, I would have said God, and not Godot," quoth the Beckett. I'll work on that, or target only tedious realism markets in the future.
Sale! "Squatter's Rites" to Weird Tales September 25, 2007 Via email (from poetry editor/creative director Stephen Segal), 52 days. "Squatter's Rites" is a poem that tells a quick ghost story in 12 lines. Weird Tales is a magazine that, in its previous incarnations, launched the careers of Ray Bradbury, Robert E. Howard, and H.P. Lovecraft. In its current, quite-strong form, fellow Clarion '06er Will Ludwigsen has a poem (and a few other writers I admire have stories) in the current issue. I'm in excellent company. Flattered and honored. I still remember getting my first rejection from Weird Tales (Guidevines wiki link) in my Ashland University mailbox almost nine years ago. This was my second sub--and first poetry sub--to the magazine under its recently-changed creative masthead. Phew, I needed that.
2007 Submission Log: Weeks 35-37 September 23, 2007 Submissions 420-427 A Public Space (my first sub there) Asimov's (my 17th and 18th) Durham Emerging Artists Program (1st grant proposal for a comics project) Realms of Fantasy (my 9th) Writers of the Future (my 16th) Hardboiled Horror (my first) Weird Tales (my 6th) Rejections 300-304: McSweeney's (4th rejection, just over 6 months) F&SF (20th rejection, 13 days from JJA) Clarkesworld (4th rejection, 14 days) Writers of the Future (Honorable Mention, 15th non-winner) 2000 AD (5th rejection on 6 subs, 68 days) Of Interest: Actually quite pleased to receive my 2000 AD rejection. After no response to my fifth submission, and my sixth one going out just a week before their London offices were flooded, I was starting to think it wasn't meant to be. No comments this time, though, so there's still plenty of reason to be disappointed... Sending out a second story to Asimov's before the last one's back, which is a first for me. Odd that I didn't think to do this when their responses were running 3-4 months last year, instead of now, when I can probably expect a 4 week rejection for the first of the two stories this week. And the latest Writers of the Futre tally: 6 washes 7 quarterfinalist/honorable mentions 2 semifinalists and one pending. Back to work.
And my 300th Rejection is from.... September 9, 2007 F&SF! Yes, following the pattern of my last ten or so subs there, JJA only passes every other one up to GVG. This one JJA sent back to me within 10 days. But good news for my next story, innit? For those playing last week's guessing game, I'm fairly certain I have both winners' emails, so I'll contact them directly.
2007 Submission Log: Weeks 33-34 September 2, 2007 Any bets on who'll send me my 300th rejection? Guess correctly in the LJ comments and get a free set of Inconsequential Art #1 & #2, autographed if you want. One guess per person, and up to five people (the first five to guess correctly) can win. Editors currently in charge of these pending rejections are not eligible. Ends one week from today or when I receive the rejection, whichever is later. My outstanding submissions list is the first comment. Cool? Submissions 416-419 The Sun (my 4th) MF&SF (my 20th) Strange Horizons (my 12th) Clarkesworld (my 4th) Rejections 295-299: Glimmer Train (4 months, 3rd rejection) Tin House (96 days, 5th rejection) Realms of Fantasy (4 months, 8th rejection)* Asimov's (24 days, 16th rejection) Analog (37 days, 11th rejection) Of Interest: Very busy August, but also quite productive in writing and other areas. Hopefully that'll bear some fruit soon. Learned recently that The Sun is based in Chapel Hill. I received my first rejection letters from there in my Ashland University mailbox, and now I could probably walk to the office (don't know if proximity helps or hurts me, heh). Obviously that means I haven't sent them anything in at least five years. Time to fix that. *Those submitting to Realms of Fantasy (via slush anyway) would do well to keep an eye on "Slushmaster" Douglas Cohen's blog, especially when he mentions meeting with editor Shawna McCarthy to pick up new slush stories and to pass promising ones along. Doug has reported response times going down since he started there, though with my last two stories the response time has increased immensely--and it's actually a good sign. Here are the timelines of my last two submissions, my only two stories Doug (or any previous slush editor) has passed to Shawna. 09.16.06 - Sent to Realms of Fantasy 10.22.06 - Doug picks up slush pile to read 11.11.06 - Email from Doug; he's passing it to Shawna 01.03.07 - Actual pass to Shawna 02.09.07 - Rejection from Shawna 05.03.07 - Sent to Realms of Fantasy 06.03.07 - Doug picks up slush pile to read 06.17.07 - Email from Doug; he's passing it to Shawna 07.19.07 - Actual Pass to Shawna 08.31.07 - Latest Acquisitions announced; implied rejection The above makes a lot more sense now that I've been reading his blog. And this weekend he posted recent acquisitions among the latest "batch," so even before receiving a formal rejection, I've been able to determine that I'm free to send that story elsewhere. So: not a magic bullet that'll turn a rejection into an acceptance, but a tweak to the submission process which gives my story a few days it didn't have before.
2007 Submission Log: Weeks 31-32 August 14, 2007 Submissions 414-415 Two comics pieces to MAD Magazine about a week apart. Rejections 292-294: Weird Tales, story, 36 days. The New Yorker, gag cartoon, 32 days Actor's Theatre of Louisville, play, 285 days Of Interest: MAD Magazine just might be the first place I ever submitted anything, back when I was a kid (and before I started keeping track). IIRC they didn't actually _take_ subs back then, though. Don't remember whether I ever got a reply. Quite a different experience to be following the guidelines, though they still say they don't reply to every query. Still: the one part of DC Comics that actually considers script submissions. Until Vertigo answers a query, this is as good a bet as any. The one year anniversary of my graduation from Clarion hit a week ago. I'll say more about that later this week.
2007 Submission Log: Weeks 29-30 July 29, 2007 Submissions 411-413 First film to the Sundance Festival. Tenth story to Asimov's (my 16th sub there if you include poetry). Second story to Orson Scott Card's Intergalactic Medicine Show Rejections 289-291 From The New Yorker (poetry, 75 days via email), Strange Horizons (fiction, 13 days), and Shimmer (10 days). Acceptance 67! As already noted, I won 3rd place in the 13th ChiZine/Leisure story contest, which is my second SFWA-qualifying sale.
SALE/3rd Place Win in the 13th ChiZine Story Contest July 27, 2007 My story "Shooting Dogs for Fun and Profit"* will be published in ChiZine #34 later this year, having won 3rd place in the latest Chiaroscuro/Leisure Short Story Contest. Which means my second SFWA-qualifying sale arrives almost 14 months and over 150 submissions after my first one. Phew. It felt like even longer. (*For what it's worth, the title is quite abstract. No animals appear--much less are shot for any reason--in this piece.)
2007 Submission Log: Week 27-28 July 16, 2007 Submissions 400-410: Stories to Strange Horizons (11th), Shimmer (3rd), LCRW (5th), and Analog (11th). Comics to 2000 AD (6th script), The New Yorker (7th sub overall, 1st gag cartoon), and MF&SF (1st gag cartoon, 19th sub overall, 400th sub anywhere overall). Poetry to Weird Tales (5th sub overall, 1st poem) and the Journal of Impossible Things (1st-3rd subs). Rejections 280-288 From Mythic Delirium (34 days), Interzone (43 days), Analog (28 days), Asimov's (40 Days), a manga proposal for the Feminist Press at CUNY, Strange Horizons (14 days), and MF&SF (11 days from GVG, probably because gag cartoons don't go through JJA). Of Interest:
400th Submission today July 3, 2007 Took 8 years, 8 months, and 2 days from my first submission. It was a gag cartoon sent to F&SF (1st gag sub, 19th sub overall). Phew. Glad that's out of the way.
2007 Submission Log: Week 26 - Halfway Point June 30, 2007 Submissions 397-399: Stories to Strange Horizons (my 10th), Weird Tales (my 4th, but first under current editor Ann VanderMeer), and the 13th Chiaroscuro Short Story Contest (my first, but I've submitted to Chizine before). Rejections 275-279 Strange Horizons (20 days on a story; no comments this time), Shimmer (10 days on a story; "just wish there'd been more spec"--meaning "speculative element") and Tin House (12 days on a batch of poems sent for the Winter issue; form letter) Of Interest: I forgot about this last week: Doug Cohen (slush editor for Realms of Fantasy) emailed me to let me know that my current story submission will be passed to Shawna, which makes two in a row for me (my only two times getting past Doug since he joined the fray). And I woulda hit 400 subs today, but I misremembered a playwriting deadline as "postmarked by" instead of "received by." Now I've gotta get all angsty and superstitious about what that milestone sub should be.
2007 Submission Log: Week 25 June 22, 2007 Submissions 395-396: Stories to Shimmer (my 2nd) and Writers of the Future (my 15th). Though with the finalists posted a few weeks ago on the WotF blog, my story is already at the next market. Rejections 273-274 Honorable Mention from Writers of the Future (2007Q2), rejection from Orson Scott Card's Intergalactic Medicine Show (just over 3 months). Of Interest: "Honorable Mention" is WotF's new name for quarterfinalist, which I think is a smart change. I remember when I received my first QF, having to to clarify with other writers whether it meant "You are a finalist and we'll let you know what happens when the judging is over" or "you were a finalist, but it's all over. Attaboy." And it breaks my baboon heart to read the excitement of recent entrants/quarterfinalists who go from elated to crushed as a veteran entrant reluctantly clarifies. Also a smart move (IMO) is the decision to not list the quarter judges for the contest in the QF/Honorable Mention letter anymore, since Honorable Mentions and Semifinalists don't make it far enough to be read by anybody but the first judge. So the current WotF tally for me at 14 entries is... Non-placers: 6 QF/Honorable Mentions: 6 Semifinalists: 2 Finalists: 0 Placers: 0 ...with the fifteenth in the mail this week, because apparently I need someone to publish and send me a copy of a book called "Dude, Writers of the Future's Just Not That into You."
2007 Submission Log: Weeks 22-24 June 16, 2007 Submissions 391-394: Stories to M&FSF (my 18th), Strange Horizons (9th sub overall, but 6th fiction sub), Asimov's (15th overall, 9th fiction), and Analog (10th). Rejections 266-272: Two from MF&SF (28 days from GVG, 9 days from JJA), Futurismic (32 days), Flytrap (37 days), and the last of the New Yorker Cartoon Caption Contest non-placers which I'll be counting here (see below). Of Interest: Of my last six subs to MF&SF, it looks like every other one got to GVG, and often not the ones I'd expect, based on my judgment of the stories and my reading of the magazine. Decided to stop counting Cartoon Caption Contest entries as submissions, because I don't want it to get to the point where I've "subbed" there more often than I have anywhere else. Might still throw jokes their way, so long as I have stuff in the New Yorker's "real" slush pile. But it's a throwaway thing, on the off chance that my name will flash across an editor's eyeline, but it was never an important part of my submission strategy. Writers of the Future has posted its 2007Q2 Finalists to its blog at just 60 days from the entry deadline. Nice because this has freed up my entry-story to send it to another market, even before I got my rejection.
2007 Submission Log: Weeks 20-21 May 29, 2007 Submissions 386-390: Stories to Interzone (my 2nd), ParaSpheres (my 1st) and Tin House (my 5th). And two more entries into the New Yorker Gag Cartoon Caption Contest. Rejection 265: 62-day rejection from Strange Horizons, with a note about humor being subjective. Of Interest/Queries Corner: After ten unanswered queries to Marvel, I've received my first ever response! It was a form letter saying that I don't quite have what it takes to be an illustrator for Marvel yet. Which I agree with. Which is why I queried them as a writer looking to pitch some stories. But if that wasn't clear, then my writing chops really need work. (Or maybe it was just payback for this submission faux pas). So I have finally gotten Marvel to open one of my envelopes. I know this because the form letter came in one of my SASEs. Now how do I get an editor to read what I send them? It just might take ten more queries before I figure it out...
2007 Submission Log: Week 19 Part Deux: The Revenge May 16, 2007 As discussed earlier, I have begun sending out queries, so I'm thinking I should put some sort of tracking system in place, as I have with my slush submissions, "before I get overwhelmed." And why, pray tell, would someone who has almost 400 submissions under his belt need to bother about organization? What rookie mistakes could I possibly be capable of making after 8.5 years of this? I'll give you a hint: Who has two thumbs and just sent three queries to Vertigo editors at Marvel's mailing address?
2007 Submission Log: Week 19 May 14, 2007 Submissions 381-385 Poetry to Mythic Delirium (my first three; I believe this is the first time they've been open to subs since I picked up my first copy) and New Yorker (6th submission there), and--since I have something in the slush pile--why not resume throwing my name into the Caption Contest pile again (for the 14th time)? Still at 264 rejections, but I've got some miscellany to cover here: First: I noticed that I skipped rejection 259 in my last two Submission Log entries, which is a shame because it was a fun one. I wrote a humor story for the John Joseph Adams-helmed issue of Shimmer near the beginning of the year. I had some time before the deadline so I sent it to JJA in his role as slush editor at F&SF first. He passed it up to editor Gordon Van Gelder, which I believe is the only time he's liked one of my humor pieces enough to do so. It didn't grab GVG, so I queried JJA to see whether he'd want to consider it for Shimmer. "Yes, please," he said, and off it went. It made it to the final cut before getting the axe, but JJA said he liked it enough that if he had more room in the issue, it would have found a home there. Second: Though I received a quarterfinalist notification for Writers of the Future's 2007Q1 period in my SASE back in March, I recently received a semifinalist notice for the same story, along with a critique by first judge KD Wentworth, in a second envelope. If the critique, which specifically discussed my story, hadn't been included, I'd be inclined to think the semifinalist notice was the mistake of the two, but it looks like I can upgrade my current tally to... Non-placers: 6 Quarterfinalists: 5 Semifinalists: 2 Finalists: 0 Placers: 0 ...with my 14th entry awaiting a verdict for 2007Q2. Small victory there, I guess. Third: I began sending out queries last month. Not sure whether/how to tally them here. I figure queries are going to be a big part of my writing life over the next few years, so I better come up with a system before I get overwhelmed.
2007 Submission Log: Week 18 May 9, 2007 Including my 100th submission since I graduated from Clarion nine months ago! Submissions 374-380 Stories to MF&SF (my 17th), Futurismic (2nd), and Realms of Fantasy (8th). Poetry to Sport Spec (1st) and Tin House (2nd-4th). Rejections 260-264 Asimov's (sent 1/17). Gizmodo. Sporty Spec (3 days). ASIM (Sent 2/13, Hold request on 2/17.) Powers Letter Column Writing Contest. Some nice comments in the Asimov's rejection. Of interest: Don't want to jinx anything, but I might be over that "post-Clarion writing depression." Only took nine months and 101 submissions to do it, but here we are. I've been shocked at how many writers I've met at Clarion and beyond who say that, more often than not, they actually dislike the act of writing. It shocks me because they're pursuing this as a career just as I am (and in many cases are far ahead of me in their careers), and I guess I don't differentiate my enjoyment from my compulsion when it comes to storytelling. But for me, Pre-Clarion, I would enjoy the act of writing and be pretty pleased with my final results about 60% of the time. There'd be challenging, awful days, but plowing through the tough times and finding solutions to the worst problems generally left me with a feeling that it was worth my time and effort. Some of the bliss would wear off after a few days, of course. But that, too, was a plus because it would give me enough perspective to revise. Now, post-Clarion, particularly with prose, I can probably count on one hand the number of days I've felt good about my work in either enjoyment or satisfaction, much less both. And I write almost every day. But the last three prose stories I've written have been positive experiences overall. This isn't to say they came easy. They just didn't hurt so much, most of the time. And I don't hate what I've written yet. Some Clarion graduates (including successful authors I admire greatly) have said they waited a year after Clarion before they started writing again. I totally get that. I've been at this since 1998 and the only worse writing-year I can remember is after my father died in 2000. So my strategy has been to plow through, and write my way though it. If it's paid off, maybe my reward will be three months of that 60% bliss I was hitting before the workshop. I'll take that. Now let's see if I can't translate that into a sale or two. How's everyone else doing? (I mean besides my classmate Sarah Kelly who just made her first pro sale: a novelette to Analog, no less!!)
2007 Submission Log: Weeks 16-17 May 1, 2007 A third of the way through the year. Submissions 369-373: Stories to Glimmer Train (3rd), Flytrap (my 3rd), and Sword and Sorceress (my 3rd). Filmish things to Gizmodo (don't ask; it didn't end well), and Wholphin (as writer, not director, which is exactly as it should be). Rejections 255-258: From Sword and Sorceress (about a day) and all the comics awards (when they announced their winners/finalists). Not at all surprising, but it's an honor just to be seen by the judges. Of Interest: Glad to see Sword & Sorceress starting up again. MZB's anthologies and magazine were among the first places I've ever sent my fiction starting in 1998. I never got any of Bradley's legendary berating rejections (just form letters and a few "is this supposed to be humorous?" rhetoricals), but then I probably wasn't worth her time. I actually enjoyed the writing of two new prose stories in a row this month. That can't be right.
2007 Submission Log: Weeks 14-15 April 14, 2007 Nothing in, nothing out for two whole weeks. It happens. Strange Horizons rejections usually come on Sundays, though. And I'm almost finished with multiple new projects. So there's hope. I do have something interesting to announce, probably within the next week. TTFN.
2007 Submission Log: Weeks 12-13 March 31, 2007 Subs 365-368: Fourth story to McSweeney's. Fifth story to Strange Horizons (8th sub there overall). Fourteenth story to Writers of the Future. My first short film sub to the Wholphin ("the McSweeney's DVD"). And I might have another Whophin sub shortly, as the director of a film I co-wrote and performed in a while back just put the finishing touches on it. Rejections 252-3: Four days from Jim Baen's Universe. A few months from AHMM's Mysterious Photo Rejection 254: Thirteenth wasn't the charm from Writers of the Future. Quarterfinalist. Have to admit I had higher hopes for this one than I've had in a long time, if we can pretend no impartiality about my own work. At any rate, this brings my current tally to... Non-placers: 6 Quarterfinalists: 6 Semifinalists: 1 Finalists: 0 Placers: 0 ...since I started submitting there in Dec 1998. I entered annually at most for the first few years, but I've stepped that up to nine out of the last ten quarters, if you include my 14th submission sent this week. I've sold one of my quarterfinalists to Asimov's and another to a semipro market back in 1999 or 2000. I've retired my semifinalist story (which was my milestone 150th rejection overall). It's one of those things where, long after exhausting most potential markets for it, I've decided that it's a far cry from my best work and getting it published even somewhere obscure would be more of an embarassment than a pleasure. It's possible that's why I've never made it past the first reader there; the story she liked the most of mine is the WotF submission that I liked the least. Ah well. I'll keep at it until I'm disqualified. Probably will never sell to Analog or The New Yorker either, but what are you gonna do? In other news, I'm torn about working on long work vs short work. The little success I've had in the short fiction "proving ground" (especially the failure of my short fiction that I feel is superior to what I've already sold) keeps me vacillating between questions: (a) Do I need to spend more time here before "graduating" to longer stuff? or (b) Is short fiction just not my bag, baby? Anything to keep me from asking the obvious: Does anybody even want the kind/style of stories I'm writing, no matter how good or bad they get? And if editors don't believe in my stories, and now I don't believe in my stories, then what am I wasting everybody's time for? I've heard many times how long it takes to get a writing career going. I've heard many times how long it can be between one's first and second pro sale. But with life and my inner and outer critics clearly winning every battle, I'm not sure how much longer I can do this.
2007 Submission Log: Weeks 9-11 March 17, 2007 (Oops. Hadn't meant to go three weeks without an update.) Acceptance 66 (after Rewrite Request 3)! "Groundbound," a 5-page comic story, will be illustrated (artist TBD) and published in the British science fiction comics series FutureQuake! The rewrite request arrived in just under three months. I sent the rewrite within two days, and I got the acceptance two days after that. Subs 358-364 Prose stories to Orson Scott Card's Intergalactic Medicine Show (my first), Jim Baen's Universe (my second), and The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction (my 16th). Rewrote a comic script for FutureQuake (see above). And it's comics awards season, and I actually have a few pieces that are eligible, so I sent a few things for consideration to the Isotope Awards and the Eisner Awards. No, seriously. I did. Stop laughing. Rejections 247-251 Chizine (36 days), Analog (33 days) Flytrap (4 months), Strange Horizons< | ||||||||||||