Because It's Funny: Don't Fellate the Monkeys!

Really no point to this one.

Recently I amended a previous blog post to include the funniest rejection response I've received. In part, the "writer" said, "I will Wikepidia your pediphilic feletio lips all over the fucking universe!" Quality stuff.

But today I saw that someone found my blog by searching "feletio" through Yahoo! Not so strange, really, as lots of people like "feletio." But it gets weirder.




Say what?

Back in November someone found my blog by Googling "tha best home grand arab fuck" (I still have no idea how that tagged my blog), and I thought it was fairly bizarre. But "monkey feletio" is just creepy. Does that stuff even exist?

Should I be asking that?

The Case of the Eight and Two Hundred Thirty-Eight Rules

While checking out Bob Freeman's latest LOST in Translation post, I stumbled across an older post attributed to Neil Gaiman.

Neil Gaiman on Writing

1. Write.

2. Put one word after another. Find the right word, put it down.

3. Finish what you’re writing. Whatever you have to do to finish it, finish it.

4. Put it aside. Read it pretending you’ve never read it before. Show it to friends whose opinion you respect and who like the kind of thing that this is.

5. Remember: when people tell you something’s wrong or doesn’t work for them, they are almost always right. When they tell you exactly what they think is wrong and how to fix it, they are almost always wrong.

6. Fix it. Remember that, sooner or later, before it ever reaches perfection, you will have to let it go and move on and start to write the next thing. Perfection is like chasing the horizon. Keep moving.

7. Laugh at your own jokes.

8. The main rule of writing is that if you do it with enough assurance and confidence, you’re allowed to do whatever you like. (That may be a rule for life as well as for writing. But it’s definitely true for writing.) So write your story as it needs to be written. Write it ­honestly, and tell it as best you can. I’m not sure that there are any other rules. Not ones that matter.

Good advice, particularly number five.

As I said to Jaym Gates earlier today, I think non-writers give the best feedback on what works and doesn't work in a story. Non-writers look solely at the story itself, as a whole, whereas writers tend to always view something in light of how they would write it, not as the author had written it. And the advice given is often tough to navigate through, especially for younger writers.

But Gaiman provides some excellent advice here. I wanted to see where this quote originally came from, so I jumped on the trusty Way Back Machine and found Ten Rules for Writing Fiction, posted by the UKs Guardian back in February for in their Rules for Writers series. Aside from Gaiman's eight tips, you can find over two hundred additional tips from a wide variety of authors.

There be much wisdom in all that...

It's a Floody, Buddy

So this past Sunday was the big Day of Change. And it was a day of change. The time changed...and my basement flooded for the first time ever. It goes without saying, but that sucked. I was able to move the important things—namely my book collection—upstairs, but there was no stopping the water. It came up through the hole to the sewage access pipe, in through the walls, and other areas, I assume, considering how quickly it spread.

Once we moved everything, and waited for the inevitable, I busted out my handy Flip Video and documented...well, my idiocy.


Ah, if only I had a brain.

We spent the next few days watching the water and making sure the sump pump didn't overheat and and cause a fire. The pump is old—at least, it looks old—and probably hadn't come on once in the five years I've lived in the house, but from Sunday through Monday and into Tuesday, the pump was running nearly nonstop. It would shut off for no more than thirty seconds at a time. Despite the constant smell of burning plastic, metal and grease, it worked like a champ—in that part of the basement, anyway.

Wednesday and Thursday were spent sucking the water out of the carpets with three wet/dry vacs and removing all the damaged boxes and things that we weren't able to move in time. And not to mention "battling" (i.e. making the lady-friend deal with) a horde of vicious, poisonous spiders.


And so here we are, Friday at last, I'm back to work, and this week's word count is holding steady at a whopping zero. Nil, yo. Nil!

So it looks like this coming Sunday will mark the new Day of Change. And hopefully, you know, it has to do with writing and not another catastrophe. (Puns about my writing being a catastrophe are hereby outlawed.)

I Wrote a Story and All I Got Was This Lousy Form Rejection

Update: See amendments at the end of this post.

So let's talk writers and publishing. And jerks.

Shock Totem is a magazine I publish with my fellow cast of nasties John Boden, Mercedes M. Yardley, and Nick Contor. Ah, you've heard of us! Excellent. Then you know we've published one issue so far—to great reviews, by the way, thank you, thank you. Our second issue is about to go to the printers. A little late, I know, but creative integrity dictates when an issue is ready and issue #2 took its sweet-ass time. More than that, though, publishing is not easy. It's not simple. It takes a hell of a lot of time and hard work to put out a great product, which I think we did with issue #1 and will do so again with issue #2.

But we're jerks.

Why? Because we send form rejections. Yup. Because we don't personally respond to every submission sent, we're jerks. Or so implied another writer who got our standard form rejection last night for a story he submitted just 37 days ago. He replied to that e-mail with a link to this article written by Lorna D. Keach: The Horror of the Form Rejection.

I don't know Lorna, nor do I know if she was referring to form rejections in general or just those that include multiple reasons for rejection with nothing indicating which applies. But I wonder if Lorna or this author truly understand how much time and effort an honest, hardworking editor/publisher, or publishing team, has to put in just to publish a handful of stories each quarter, or every six months, or even yearly?

Let's talk about that. Our first issue featured nine stories. When issue #2 drops it'll also have nine stories, among other things like interviews, editorials, and reviews. So two issues, eighteen stories.

Oh, and that's eighteen stories out of 4,192.

How's that for perspective? Even if we read just the first two pages of each submission, how many hours would that take? And how much more work goes into all the editing (real editing, I should say), the layout, artwork, promotion, etc? Hundreds of hours. At least. Not enough perspective? How about this:

Including travel time and on-call requirements, I often work 50 to 80 hours a week. I write. Hell, I have a life.

John is married, has kids, works long, hard hours. He also writes. Hell, he has a life.

Mercedes is married, has kids, one that requires a lot more care than most. She also writes. Hell, she has a life.

Nick is married, has kids, works long, hard hours. He also writes. Hell—yeah, you guessed it—he has a life.

You see a pattern here? We're busy! And despite the fact that we probably don't even qualify as part-time publishers, we manage to find the time to put out a print publication that pays professional rates (with money from our own wallets, mind you, not from profits, or advertising money, or donations); we respond to submissions in under 60 days, averaging a 30-day response time when many other publications average a year; and we read roughly 300–400 submissions a month. All on spare time that we really don't have. And we love it!

But we're jerks for sending form rejections? Sounds rather arrogant and foolish, right? Because it is.

I can understand, as a writer, wanting a little validation when it comes to my work. I can dig that. But I don't care to judge the character of an editor or publication's staff based on whether or not they send me a personal response. And I sure as hell don't want to wait a year for that personal touch, a little note from someone that "cared" enough to say "This doesn't work for me, so I'm passing. Good luck." My ego doesn't need that, and yours shouldn't either. Instead of a publication holding my story hostage for a year, I'd rather receive a quick form rejection—you know, that "demeaning piece of fill-in-the-blank crap that lacks any semblance of soul or humanity." Yes, please!

Just getting a response, any kind of response, in a timely manner is far more important to me. And it should be to you, too. Shock Totem could start sending personal rejections. It's possible. But you'd be waiting a very long time for something that really doesn't matter.

But I tend to think form rejections are better for a writer.

Paula Ray posted this on our forum:

"I see you as an editor of a pro market and I have a misconception about editors. I used to view them as celebrities, almost, and I figured they must be pros—have tons of stories published in pro markets, masters in writing, etc."

And how many other writers feel the same way? If we say a story didn't work for us, for this, this, and this reason, how unfortunate would it be if a writer took that personal rejection as law, especially when another publication might love it for those very same reasons? Maybe a story doesn't work for us, but Shroud Magazine may love the hell out of it.

Paula also added:

"Since I've been publishing my work, not long mind you, I notice that isn't the case, usually, and most editors are just struggling writers like the rest of us."

And she's right. Most editors, at least down here in the little leagues, are struggling writers. And some of them, sadly, are fucking terrible writers. But you want their advice, their validation? You surely don't need it. What you need is to simply understand that your particular story isn't for that particular publication, for whatever reason. Nothing more. And you want to know that quickly so that you can submit it somewhere else.

If you want validation as a writer, join or create a writers group with people that will read your work and honestly critique it, good or bad. The job of an editor is to make sure the stories he or she publishes are, first and foremost, right for their publication/publisher. Yes, some personal attention to a submission response is nice, a bonus, but that shouldn't be a determining factor in whether or not an editor is a jerk.

And if you disagree with me, then you are probably a jerk.

Amended for clarity: This reads a little defensive, and that's not the intent. It's just my little opinion on the absurdity of placing so much importance on something that, I feel, is relatively unimportant. And the last line was a little nod to Greg Gutfeld and his Gregalogue on Fox News' Red Eye, but I guess if you're not up at 3 A.M. you've never seen the only show worth watching on Fox News.

Amended for clarification: The author who sent me the link above responded and said he wasn't implying we were jerks, just that's it's "tough to be a writer" so he should "get used to it and soldier on." And we'll leave it at that.

But since we've gotten our fair share of insulting responses to rejections, I'm going to leave this post here. And with that, I present you with the best rejection response we've ever received. This was sent from DC Grondo, on Dec 23, 2008:

Now that I have a free moment:

FUCK YOU, YOU IGNORANT SON-OF-A-BITCH!

I made it clear that my time is too valuable to waste with your idioter crap and you send me an email!!!???

Are you fucking insane!!!

If I ever hear from you again, you freaking asshole, I will Wikepidia your pediphilic feletio lips all over the fucking universe!

DG

Still awesome!

Feeling Lightheaded

As discussed here, I've struggled with making time to write. Set time, anyway. So I've finally come up with a plan to rectify that.

Starting Sunday, I will begin waking up at 6 A.M., then sitting down to write, the old ass-in-chair (and-don't-play-World-of-Warcraft-or-surf-the-Internet) technique. It's a drastic change considering I've been a night owl, staying up until the wee hours of the morning, for the past seven years or so. But this is the best time for my writing. As much as I like the quiet of night, I think it also lulls me into a state of inaction. I'm more productive when the sun is shining and there aren't shows like Mythbusting American Loggers of the Bering Sea on TV to distract me.

I might drink tea, too. Some horror writer I am, eh?

When I attended Necon last year, I discussed the issue of finding time to write with Dan Keohane, who said he did a lot of writing on his one-hour lunch breaks. This is how he wrote—at least partially—his first novel, Solomon's Grave, a fantastic and highly recommended supernatural thriller akin to—and I'm sure he's sick of hearing this, considering he's not a bazillionaire—Dan Brown's Da Vinci Code. He also said that he posted progress updates to his blog once a week, and this helped motivate him to make those numbers continue to rise.

Good advice, I think. So I'm also going to update this old blog each week with how many words/stories/whatever I've written. Boring for you, maybe, but hopefully it'll motivate me and put me face-to-face with proof (not that I really need it) that small amounts do add up.

And we'll see how it all plays out. I'm also going to start taking cues from other writers, doing WIP Wednesdays and whatnot. Looking forward to it, actually.

How the Hell Do You Start This Thing?

I'm a struggling writer for the wrong reasons.

Any professional writer will tell you—and you may laugh because it's so obvious—that one of the most important things a writer needs to do is write. He must do it. Write every day, for thirty minutes, an hour, until you hit 2,000 words, until your fingertips bleed. Whatever works. But write every single day. Set aside a time, and when the clock strikes that allotted time, sit down and let the words flow.

Seems simple, right? Well, why the hell can't I do it? Such an easy thing to do, but I struggle with it. I live in the moment. I can't see that saving one dollar a day will equal seven dollars at the end of the week, thirty dollars at the end of the month. I see one dollar. That's it. And it seems, to me, insignificant. In my mind, I think, Hell, I'll just start putting a hundred bucks in the bank each week. Big steps! Well-intentioned, but it hardly ever happens.

I'm trying to change this way of thinking because, while it's okay to live in the moment, it's essentially self-destructive in the long run. Unless you're smart about it, which I'm clearly not, at the moment.

So what does this have to do with writing? Well, it's the same thing. I can't see that writing a thousand words a day will equal a short story at the end of the week, a novella after thirty days, a novel after six months. I see a small amount of words today. That's it. And it seems, to me, insignificant. I keep telling myself that I'll find time to sit down and churn out complete stories in one sitting. That can happen, as it did yesterday, but it's a rare occurrence and not a good way to become a successful writer on any level.

I woke early yesterday, sat down at my computer around 9:30 A.M., and about three hours later I had a complete draft at 1,700 words. An hour after that a revision at 2,000 words. And I was pumped!

Before that, I hadn't written much in way of fiction in over six months. I'd jotted some things down, done a good deal of editing, tons of reading, but the closest I came to completing a story is the one I began writing last July while vacationing in Maine. And that story—a good story, I think—is still sitting in the notebook I wrote it in, waiting to be transcribed and completed. But transcribing a page or two a day doesn't seem sensible to me. I see a day when I have the time to sit down and transcribe it all at once. Big steps!

Did I mention I wrote it last July, over eight months ago? Funny, that.

The hardest thing about this transition is finding time. The days are simply far too short—or so they seem.

So how do I find the patience to make this change? Has anyone else out there had this problem? Anyone else struggling for the wrong reasons?