August

So the summer semester is over for me and I've finally found myself with only a honey-do list to hang over my head. My hope was that I could take this month before the Fall semester starts to catch up on some "me time" but I'm still unsure about how much of that I'll be getting.

I don't really have anything profound to say here, but I thought I'd update my current plans. I hope to catch up on some writing and maybe even get to the editing stage of my novel (that's not going to be much fun). Fishing and other total recreational things will be crunched between watching the munchkin and taking care of household chores. I need to baby-proof the kitchen, which might require extensive home modifications...

On the writing front, I got around to submitting the stories that have been sitting around and I want to find a Halloween short story contest for a story I wrote last year. Still waiting on two more stories that have been out for WAY too long. I might have to query them to make sure they didn't get rejected and I just never got notified.

That's about it for now. I hope this is the beginning of regular postings again.

Hello? Are you in there?

The title of this post has actually two meanings: I haven't written anything here for a while, and so I thought that it might be what anyone who is foolish enough to follow me might be thinking, and that my writing has kind of fallen into a stagnation period.

As I've said before, my writing tends to go in spurts, so I might just be in a dry spell, but I think that there is more to it than that. By way of explanation, I'll tell you that I'm currently finishing up my summer semester, which consisted of 3 online classes (one that required me to read 4 textbook chapters a week!) and that I haven't really found all that much time to work on my writing lately. In fact, I've had a few stories that got rejected a while ago that I haven't even submitted again.

The academic writing that I've been doing has not been cutting it, and the lack of any semblance of writing lifestyle is starting to wear on me, I think. Next year won't be any better, but I can hope that I figure out how to balance finishing school, finding time to write the nightmares before they take over, spending time with my family and maybe even spend some time on hobbies like fishing, playing video games, etc.

In the meantime, I thought I'd throw this out so that people don't think I'm dead and hopefully I can get myself back in the swing of finding a few minutes to scribble a post here and there.

Professionalism, rejections, and perseverance.

I don't read it regularly, but the editor of Shock Totem, K. Allen Wood, has a blog that is usually pretty good. I did, however, read this one, in which there are two links to less than desirable ways to respond when someone doesn't particularly like your writing. I found them entertaining, but they made me think about the fact that writers and editors are all people, and as such, are not always the most professional people.

I like to think that I demand a high level of professionalism of myself, even when faced with a less than professional response to my own writing. While it hasn't happened often (I usually only receive form rejections) there are times when I really have to wonder what happened on the other end of the submission email. There was one instance in which the editor, who provided a synopsis as part of the response, clearly didn't understand the story at all. I would normally consider this a problem, but my wife understood it just fine, and she hasn't read that much of my genre. Others have similarly had no issues understanding the story and it definitely was not a "you're not supposed to understand it" type (which I loathe, by the way). That was not an example of lack of professionalism, just an example of editors being human and just as prone to mistakes as the rest of us.

An unfortunate example of unprofessional behavior that I've experienced in my writing career was a personal rejection that I received that felt like the editor was attempting to make a personal attack against me. The funniest thing about it was that I quite clearly got an emotional response, which is generally considered to be the sign of an exceptional story. But this editor decided to pass, and in an appallingly unprofessional manner.

All of that aside, rejections are a way of life for writers who do not have a household name. Even writers that have dozens of published stories still face rejection, and when you have a string of them, it gets a little hard to take. I'll admit that even thought I consider myself to have a pretty thick skin, it has gotten to me at times. The funk generally only lasts a few days at most.

So the name of the game, as far as I can tell right now, is perseverance. Keep trying until your story gets in the right hands. There is an editor that will love it, and the job of the writer is to find that editor. It's really as simple as that. Not always an easy task, but simple nonetheless.

My writing

I often hesitate to give any kind of specific update here, mostly because when I'm asked what I'm up to with my writing (usually by someone who isn't a writer) I am able to answer in the same way: "I'm writing." I could get into specifics about the story that I'm working on or the fact that the ending of the novel I'm trying to finish seems locked inside a Fort Knox style secure location, but most of the time I get blank, glossy stares after a few minutes of this. Most of the people around me just don't want to hear the specifics anymore. Unless there's a particular problem with something or a really clever idea I have (I know, beware cleverness), there really just isn't that much to tell people. Writing is a solitary habit.

But here today I'm going to talk about two projects that I'm considering taking on for good or for ill: a short story collection, and a website.

This isn't a website, it's a blog. A website might have a "News" section, but this is still where I post the insane ramblings. They will be linked. The website would be more for information about me as a writer, links to all of my stuff and to create a true web presence. The question is: Is it really going to do anything positive for me? Well, that sort of brings me to my next section.

I've been thinking about collecting my short stories for a while now, but recently I actually added up word counts and I'm getting close to the 40,000 word minimum. I'd like it to be something closer to 50-60k, but we'll see what happens.

These two ideas go together because a website helps promote and sell the book (and any future books) and the book will hopefully direct people to the website where they'll learn about other things I'm working on, read my blog, etc. The ideal situation is a positive spiral where eventually everyone understands what kind of a brilliant writer I am. Or not.

Maybe I'm just looking for an excuse to learn how to program in Python.

Point of View

I wrote a story a while ago in 2nd person perspective. You see, when I was a Creative Writing major, we had an exercise in a class that forced us to write a scene from a story in all three points of view: First (I'm doing something), Third (He/she is doing something), and the not-often-used-but-when-it-is-it's-usually-terrible Second person (You are doing something). Now, as I said, 2nd person is usually done very poorly. However, I had the misfortune of having a professor (a really good one, by the way) who believed in me and thought that this particular exercise demonstrated that I understood how to properly write in 2nd person perspective, and she told me this. This is unfortunate because now I have it in my head that I'm capable of using this oft misused point of view, and now I have a story that is probably nearly unpublishable. It's been rejected two or three times already (not that much, I know) but I think that the number could grow by a factor of 10 or 20 before I finally try to include it in a short story collection of all my stories, published and unpublished. Honestly, I think it's a great story, but the weird perspective might mean that this doesn't matter, unless I find an editor that hasn't yet been bombarded by terrible 2nd person perspective stories. Maybe I'm wrong and this is just such a terrible 2nd person story, and I'm only contributing to the problem.

For an example of a really good 2nd person story, Google Lorrie Moore's "How to Become a Writer". You'll be glad you did.

So, ultimately, my advice in this post is that unless you are Lorrie Moore, don't write a story in second person point of view. If you do, prepare to get it rejected over and over and over.

Waiting for Responses

I think that possibly the worst thing about writing is the submission process and the waiting for a response. Well, it's possible that repeated rejections are worse than the waiting, but I feel like I have some measure of control over that. When it comes to repeated rejections, I feel that a few things can be done: revise it so it's better, find another place that is better suited to it, or put it away and accept that it was good practice, but not a great result. Finding the right place seems to be most important, since revising and editing a piece should go without saying.

So we come to waiting for a response. I have been guilty at times of finding and submitting to markets that respond quickly (or say that they respond quickly) even if I don't think that my story is a good fit for a story. I find the wait to be nigh unbearable at times. Currently, I have two stories that are out there that I anticipate receiving a response sometime this summer. A third is being revised and will be sent out to wait 3 months when it's ready. All this amounts to a whole lot of down time for those stories.

I understand that magazines get a lot of unsolicited submissions and that there are reasons for the long delay, but that doesn't make it easier to take.

Since I'm currently in school (again, hopefully for the next-to-last time) I find that I relate time to other things, like my daughter's age at the time that such-and-such will be completed. This has bled over into my submissions, too. I think things like "She'll be crawling when I get this one back." While it tends to keep things in perspective, it's still hard to wait so long.

I guess this isn't really an earth shattering post, but I wanted to share. Really, 3 months isn't that long in any kind of grand-scheme time line, but it can seem like forever at times.

Science vs Religion

Sorry to anyone who wants me to discuss this, but I'm not going to. Instead, I'm going to discuss a ridiculous show I was watching. It's called "Incredible Creatures that Defy Evolution". In this show, Dr. Jobe Martin (who gets his title from the fact that he is a dentist) presents and explains animals that have such a complex or baffling set of traits that he claims they could not have come about by chance. He claims that the proof that these things could not have evolved is that modern evolutionary theorists don't know how they could have come about.

I think this whole thing illustrates why I tend to side with the scientific community when it comes to these things. First, they have a dentist present a bunch of pseudo-science under the guise of proving that these things happening by chance is impossible. I might be more inclined to believe it if a biologist, an archeologist, a paleontologist and a mathematician from reputable backgrounds came together and said that the chances were so remote as to be almost impossible. This still would not rule out the possibility, just the likelihood, even over billions of years. But the fact is that they wouldn't rule these things out. My experience has shown me that real scientists tend to follow the words of Socrates: "True wisdom comes to each of us when we realize how little we understand about life, ourselves, and the world around us."

The search for truth, it would seem, is a lot more about admitting how little we know than in claiming we have all the answers. And this, specifically, is where I disagree with the highly religious among us: they think they already have the answers. Telling me it's God's will or that he has a plan is not wisdom. I'd prefer a simple shrug. "I don't know" means a lot more than an attempt at an answer that at its heart is meaningless. Dr. Martin (the dentist) gives us the answers, or his version of them. But not only are they highly suspect, they seem ridiculous when viewed with a curious attitude. His answer amounts to: God made it that way.

If it's all about some mythical ending in which we'll learn all that is unknowable when we die, we should all just lay down and wait for it to happen. I can't hurt anyone or steal from anyone or covet anything I'm not supposed to if I'm simply laying on the ground, waiting to starve to death.

So I'm going to keep doing stuff. I'll keep drinking beer, writing stories and learning all I can (even thought I know I'll never know it all). I'm with Socrates on this one.

Society's Issues

There's a show on HGTV called "Holmes on Homes" that I love to watch. The premise of this show is that Mike Holmes and his company go around fixing houses for people that have been taken for a ride by a contractor or two. There's been some really bad stuff on this show that I've seen. I'm not a contractor, or even any kind of construction worker. I'm just a guy that loves to play with power tools and believes that guys should still fix stuff on their own (assuming it isn't too major).

Regardless, the merits of the show or my ability to do home improvement projects is not the point here. The need for a show like this is my point. "Holmes on Homes" has a great premise, but it shouldn't be necessary. At what point did doing a job properly become a reason to get praised? What kind of world do we live in that needs a man to go around and make a big deal out of doing things correctly?

I understand that this isn't the norm, but it's still an odd state of affairs when we need to give a man a TV show to emphasize how important it is to do things the right way the first time.

I've written a few stories that might have a social comment or two in them, but I've never really been one to do any more than take a cheap shot at something in a story. I generally try to stay away from overall social commentary. For one, I don't feel that I'm well-equipped to do it in a graceful way, and for two, I'm arrogant enough to think that people will be reading my work after I'm dead, and it probably won't matter then, anyway.

I'm working on a sci-fi/horror story at the moment that could contain a few huge societal issues, but I've managed to side step them for the most part. I have to wonder if this is wise. Am I being prudent to keep from alienating a group of readers, or am I missing a chance to make a splash and really say something? I guess we'd really only get to find out after the fact, so I think I'll just go with my gut here and leave most of them out.

I'll just have to hope that I'm doing it right the first time.

Back at it

I guess I'll start this off with some good news: I got another story accepted! Sarah's Basement will be published by Death Head Grin (www.deathheadgrin.com) in May. It's another mag that probably deserves more attention (and staff) than it currently gets. The work featured there is good, and I can only hope that this is a reflection on my own work.

The best part of this is that Sarah's Basement is a story that has been rejected a number of times in the past. I was beginning to think there was something wrong with it.

So I'm back to it, writing when I get a chance or the insanity threatens to consume me. It was great to finally get back to defacing clean pieces of paper again, but now I'm stuck without the time I want to write.

If there's anyone out there reading this that doesn't know me, I'm currently going (back) to school and when I'm not physically at the college, I'm a stay-at-home dad. While the rewards are many, the demands are also quite numerous. Sometimes, I need to call in a babysitter (thanks grandmas!) just to get my homework done. In the end, it's all worth it, I think.

This actually brings me to a point that kind of pains me to make. I am beginning to understand the reasoning behind the blanket requirement for a great number of places that an employee hold a bachelor's degree. I'm not saying that I agree with it, but I am beginning to understand it. I'll get more into that another time.

For now, I'm back to writing, my stories are once again in circulation (awaiting rejection or, hopefully, acceptance), and this blog can continue on. Hopefully I'll have more than just an update in the future. I think that I have a few pearls of wisdom to impart.

Until then, keep writing, reading and try not to sweat the small stuff.