Living the Fictional Dream

The eternal question of a writer trying to get published, right?

The thing is, it’s so hard to tell. I doubt there’s any way to really answer that question. Perhaps if one knew an editor (publishing company, magazine, etc.)… Interviews, such as D.L. Snell’s, might give some clues, but even that is based on how the editor was feeling on that particular day.

I’ve been reading and listening to stories in more of the professional publications lately, and sometimes it’s hard to tell why those stories got accepted and mine didn’t. Now, some of the stories there are blow-away, and that’s obviously why they were picked. But others… not as much. And I’ve read stories that blew me away in smaller publications, too. “Junk Drawer” in the previous issue of Allegory (the issue before the one in which “The Widow and the Stranger” appeared) had me thinking about it for days. Some stories I’ve read at EDF have amazed me, too. So the professional publications don’t corner the market on the best fiction. Far from it!

In the end, I guess reading is just too subjective to quantify. And if my reading is that subjective, editors’ reading must be as well. My first writing prof (taught undergrad fiction writing) said that publishing was 10% the work of writing a finely crafted story and 90% the luck of getting that story on the right editor’s desk at the right time (i.e., when they were in the right mood for the story to appeal to them). I don’t remember the exact percentages, but it was something quite lopsided like that.

Of course, reading the stories or books published by a market will give you some insight into what the editors want. But the stories can vary so wildly in quality, style, subject, etc., that it really seems to become more of a crapshoot.

I suppose there is no secret to this (though if you’ve found it, please share in the comments!). The best thing to do is to focus on honing one’s craft and making each story the best it can possibly be, then sifting through the multitude of markets out there and submitting repeatedly until you find one that sticks.

Lately, I’ve been fighting the excuse monster — that insiduous little voice inside my head that whispers excuses for not writing. I’m too tired. I’m too busy. I have no ideas. The list goes on and on.

Now, there is a difference between a reason and an excuse. Sometimes, you really do have writer’s block or you just worked a ton of overtime and are brain-fried. But, other times, you’re just giving into the excuse monster.

I guess it’s the same for any aspect of your life. You have to put time into something to get something out of it or to get to the next level. If I don’t spend time writing stories and honing my craft, I’m won’t have stories to submit or ever improve in my craft. Both of those mean that this writing thing is never going to be any more than a hobby for me.

Writing as a hobby isn’t a bad thing. Tons of people do it. But I want something more. And if I want that something more, then I have to banish the excuse monster and his whispers about laundry, returning phone calls, and surfing the Internet, and get writing.

Of course, even still, the odds are against me. There are way more aspiring authors/novelists out there than those that get published every year. But, to quote one of my favorite movies, “Your odds go up when you file an application.”

What about you guys? Career or hobby? What do you think? And what do you think will help you achieve your goal?

In other news, I had a literary flash piece accepted today, so yay! Two acceptances in one week is a very good week.

Man, this week is flying by, and I feel like I haven’t gotten a chance to actually read anything good or work on any stories. Perhaps all the work I did over the holiday had to be counter-balanced? My actual work-work has been very demanding this week, and after I get home, I’ve had little to no brain power left. Plus, there’s been overtime. Not to mention car troubles. Ug!

On the plus side, last night was a submit-a-palooza. I went through all my pending stories and submitted any that had been rejected. I also submitted a few that had already been simultaneously submitted to some new markets, as well. Hopefully work that will pay off in a few weeks or months with some acceptances!

Sometimes, it’s hard to know what market will be the best fit for a story. There are so many out there to choose from — at least when you’re talking about basic literary markets or basic fantasy markets, which were what I was looking for last night. If you go for something a little more specialized, like Christian markets or markets that specifically want superhero fictions, there are fewer to choose from.

The easiest way to find a market that fits, is to read some of their stories, but that is also the most time consuming. I do like to make sure I read at least one story from a potential market before I send in my submission.

Well, that’s really it for me right now. I think the brain-dead-ness is spilling over into the days, as well. See y’all later!

Two strange things happened to me today when I logged onto my writing email account. First, I found a rejection note from a market that I sent to eight months ago (eight months and one day, to be specific). That in and of itself is weird enough — most places I’ve submitted to thus far in my career aren’t that slow.

The rejection itself was actually a fairly good one (as far as rejections go). It said that the editor liked my story, which was what took so long, but ultimately it wasn’t a good fit for the publication. OK… fine. However, the thing that makes this even weirder, is that I had emailed this market back in March and withdrawn the story from their submission queue because it had been accepted elsewhere! Perhaps they are reading all their emails in chronological order? If they are in the November emails now, they will get my withdraw request in another six months or so!

I couldn’t decide what to do about it. Part of me wanted to fire back an email saying that it had been accepted elsewhere and withdrawn months ago. However, ultimately, I decided not to. I don’t know if I will submit anything there again (unless I’m willing to wait eight months to hear back!!!), but I figure it’s better not to burn a bridge.

The sad part is that this was my story that had been accepted by the ezine that folded. Poor little flash piece… it seems destined never to find a home!

The other weird thing that happened today was that I may have gotten an acceptance. It was kind of unclear. My story had passed the publication’s self-imposed response deadline, so I emailed to query its status. The editor emailed back to say that it had done OK in the voting and been forwarded to someone else who was writing the replies. This was followed by a mention of deciding which issue it was going to be in.

OK… yes, it is an acceptance (so, yay!!!), but I’ve never had my query responded to as an acceptance. And it was kind of funny, because it never specifically said that my story had been accepted… it just sort of… alluded to it. Very atypical.

However, I’m excited that this little flash piece found a home. I wrote it based on a prompt from my writing group’s monthly contest earlier this year, and this was the first place I ever sent it to. There is something really cool about a story getting snapped up at the first place it’s sent.

I just got word that the North Point e-zine has closed its doors. It never really got off the ground, I suppose. It seems to have been plagued by problems and scheduling issues from the get-go. I’m sad, though. Any fiction outlet closing is sad, and I liked the couple of stories I was actually able to read at North Point.

However, I’m especially (and selfishly) sad because now the flash piece that they accepted from me will not be published. Or, at least, not yet. I will have to find new markets to submit it, too. I’ve have stories rejected before because the market was closing its doors, but it’s a special bummer when the story was actually accepted!

If you send your stories out into the world, you’ve gotten rejected. It’s just par for the course. Getting published is a mixture of hard work and luck (getting your story to the right editor at the right time).

I think one of the hardest things about writing fiction with the hope of publication is the frequent rejection. These stories are our babies. We work on them, endlessly tweaking one word here and one paragraph there. We cut for flow and add for understanding. We craft characters out of thin air and breathe life into them with quotation marks and semicolons.

But, rejection isn’t all bad. If you can take rejections with a grain of salt and see them as something professional, not something personal (I know that’s hard… what is writing if not personal?), it’s easier not to lose heart. I know… I lost heart when I was in high school and again in college. But when I started submitting short stories in 2007, I promised myself that this time I wouldn’t give up. And I didn’t! And now I actually have a publication list, which thrills me to no end.

Rejection notes still have a sting to them, but it’s so much less now than it used to be. So, if you’re a new writer out there who has yet to garner that ellusive first acceptance letter, I would encourage you to keep trying. Craft the best stories you can, and eventually someone will want to publish it. It might take a while to find that first right fit, but it’s out there.

Also, try to learn something from your rejection notes. Sometimes rejection letters include comments from the editors. That is especially nice – you’re not left wondering why they didn’t choose your piece. (Every Day Fiction is one market that takes the time to do this. Haurah: Breath of Heaven and flashquake do, also.) However, you have to be able to take the criticism. If you fire off an angry response (or even a pleasant, but argumentative one), not only are the editors not going to change their minds, but they’ll probably be glad they didn’t accept your story.

Even if you recieve a form rejection, sans comments, you can still learn something, even if it’s just something about what kind of stories that market likes/dislikes. The more rejections you get for a story, the more it might be that there is a flawed element in the story that needs work before sending it back out there.

So, for all you new writers out there, I say brave the rejections and start submitting. The worst anyone can say is no!