Well that's just Sucktastic!

So yesterday in my email I received an unwelcome surprise. A "not really a rejection" rejection of one of my short stories from Strangetastic magazine.

Seems the guy got in over his head and can't keep up with the submissions, so he's just sending everything back and starting over with some seriously more limited submission guidelines. My story would have fit those guidelines except that it was about 250 words too long.

Can I tell you how bad that sucks? I spent a long time searching through Duotrope looking for just the right fit for that story. Now, well, just let me give out a Charlie Brown "Augh!"

Oh well, all is not lost, I found another possible home for it. I just submitted Grandmother Dearest to Arkham Tales. We'll see how that goes ;)

A story borne of a Facebook status update

The other day my daughter Caitlin posted this as her Facebook status:

"it is seriously deader than that cat in pet semetary in here. Do I work with live people or corpses? (yikes, zombie coworkers. nope, zombie coworkers would at least be trying to eat my brains)"

To which I responded:

"You just gave me an idea for a short story ;)"

And the story The Office Zombie was born. I kinda intended it as a joke, but it turned out to be an awesome horrific and funny flash fiction piece, so I couldn't help but try to find a home for it where it would be loved and cherished ;)

I've submitted it to and ezine titled Untied Shoelaces of the Mind, we'll see how that goes ;)

In a sea of many agents, one bad fish

In a previous post I told you that my Husband recently finished his first novel and we've been sending out Query letters to agents. I've been monitoring the e-mails for him as they come back. So far we've gotten a few rejections and I am pleased to note that most of them are at least professional and nice about it, even the ones that use form letters still use a form letter that is professional and nice.

Except for one guy. He sent back a one line response.

"Thanks, but we will pass."

Thinking I may just have a thin skin and that wasn't maybe as rude and dismissive as I thought, I Googled the guy.

Where I found other authors complaining that he was rude and dismissive.

Then I looked up some web pages on him.

Where I found out he is a pompous ass.

Now I won't do this, but I sure am tempted to reply with:

"That's okay, I think you did me a favor. Besides, I was apprehensive about sending a query to an Agent who's main office is in Florida anyway. Would you like a coupon for some depends? I think I have one sitting around here somewhere. Snicker."

Write on ;)

The Cat and the Multi-legged Disintegrating Bug

My cat, Anubis, spends his days keeping me company while I sit around and write or edit. He will lounge nearby and whenever I get particularly bored I will call out "Cat!" and his head will whip around and he will respond with a "Meow!". I amuse myself by Meowing back a few times and he will continue the conversation until either he or I get bored with the endeavor.

He also does a pretty good job as a bug slayer. Actually, he does a pretty good job as a slayer of mice too, although those come with a price. The price is paid when I step out of my bedroom in the morning groggy and barefoot and my foot lands squarely on a moist crunchy heap, the remains of a gift that he has left for me.

I am a little happier with his bug slaying abilities however, as we have some pretty awe inspiring bugs in this house. There is a creek behind our abode, and apparently that brings some interesting inhabitants. One of those is the Rabid Wolf Spider. I'm not exaggerating there, that is actually the name of the thing. It's a cousin to the tarantula and it looks the part. My husband calls them Gerbils. Anubis will not eat those, but he will kill them and leave the dead curled up husk on the floor, all the easier to pick up with a paper towel.

That is not the subject of this post however, rather I meant to discuss the House Centipede, something which I have long referred to as the Multi-legged Disintegrating Bug, due to the fact that it doesn't take a whole lot of pressure from a shoe or whatever and these things just disintegrate. Their multiple legs all fall off at once. It's really creepy.

So last evening I was sitting here in my office at my desk, an art deco knee hole model, the kind where there is an opening all the way through for your legs, when I noticed that the cat was stalking something that must have gone under the couch that sits across from me. I watched his antics with interest for a moment, wondering what kind of beastie he might be after, when the beastie in question climbed up the wall behind the couch and I saw it was a House Centipede. Anubis saw it and continued his stalking endeavors and I lost interest and went back to what I was editing.

A little while later I suddenly became aware that something was touching my bare foot, and I looked down and saw it was the cat, looking around my feet with interest. It took me a few seconds to process what that meant, before I shot out of my chair like I was being chased by the hounds of hell and jumped around the room frantically brushing at my pants. I didn't see anything, and then a thought struck me with horror. What if the thing had actually crawled up inside the leg of my jeans? That thought inspired a renewed flurry of jumping around and running my hands down over my pant legs. Of course, that led to the realization that if it had done that I'd just covered my bare leg with slimy nasty bug carcass. Eww!

Thankfully, there was still no sign of the bug. So I gingerly rolled my chair away from the desk and searched for the beastie. I found it crouching in the divot left by one of my chair wheels. So then I got the bright idea to perform a particularly pointless move, and I tried to get Anubis to follow my pointing finger and go after it. Mental note to self: Cats do not give a shit what you are pointing at and they generally will not respond to your efforts to get their attention in this manner. Strangely enough though, Anubis did eventually notice the bug and go back after it.

I decided to go let the dogs in and do some other mindless housekeeping tasks for awhile before coming back to my desk and finishing what I was doing. When I finally returned, I noted that the cat was still sniffing around the base of my desk, but no bug was in sight. Great! Now I still don't know where it went and as I sit here typing, my legs are off to the side rather than under my desk, and I am living in fear that the Multi-legged Disintegrating Bug is actually crawling around in the crevices made by the center drawer of my desk. Yuck!

Whew! I've been busy lately. Unfortunately not on my own endeavors. I'm STILL waiting for responses to the last three stories I sent out. I'm beginning to think I am going to start my own "Don't submit to these guys ever again" list.

Anyway, I've been book doctoring my husbands first novel and helping him get everything ready to submit to agents. He can tell a kick ass story, but his "technical" writing ability is hampered by the fact that he is Dyslexic. So you can imagine what a nightmare that was. Hey, I made a funny! This blog being the Stuff of Nightmares and all. When he told me he was writing a book I rolled my eyes at him and told him not to expect me to edit the thing. I told him he'd have to pay a real book doctor. Much kissing up, puppy dog eyes, and pleading indigence later I agreed to take it on. I made him print it out in manuscript format and three hole punch it so that I could stick it in a large three-ring binder, then grabbed a red pen and snuggled into my favorite couch expecting to be bored to tears, well, in between bouts of pulling my hair out at the atrocious spelling and grammar. Much to my surprise, while I am a little more bald than before, I loved the book. There's just something about it that, well, I'll tell a little backstory.

Recently I read On Writing, by Stephen King. Toward the end he tells a little about authors he personally likes to read. I was surprised to see J.K. Rowling on his list, but he explains that the reason he likes her books is because they are non-stop action all the way through, and therefore fun to read. That's what Jason's book is like. Non-stop action. Plus a lot of really compelling, and frankly sometimes hilarious, dialog. It's quite a bit dirtier than a Harry Potter novel, in that there is more cussing than I would normally allow my kids to read that are younger than teen-aged, but I think the Young Adult crowd will love it.

So, we've query'd some agents, and are waiting somewhat impatiently for one of them to bite. Just one will do.

Meanwhile, I can get back to my own writing ;)

Well, Grandmother Dearest was rejected by Pseudopod and I'm not really surprised, in hindsight it's not really suited for a podcast due to the pacing of the story, and they did reject it very nicely while pointing that out and saying that it was well written though. I just subbed it out to Strangetastic, and we'll see how that goes. They do pay the minimum I need to join HWA, so I'd still meet my goal. ;)

Updates

I finished Boogeyman and subbed it off to Dark Discoveries and am now somewhat impatiently waiting for a response. Still have not heard back from Beyond Centauri and I now am pretty sure I will never again sub anything to that publisher (insert irked face here). Working on a new story titled Grandmother Dearest which my Husband assures me qualifies me as "one sick puppy". When I am finished with that I might try sending it to Pseudopod, or maybe I'll send Boogeyman there if it gets rejected by Dark Discoveries. I think that one might lend itself better to a podcast. Right now my short term goal is to sell something for enough moolah that I will qualify to join the Horror Writers Association at least as an Affiliate, so I am only subbing things out to places that will achieve that for me. I think when I am done with my latest short story I am going to go back to the screenplay that my Husband and I wrote together. I sent it out to an agency that did coverage for me and indicated that they might accept it if I did a major rewrite and indicated what they wanted changed. I've been putting that off, because it's a pain in my butt, but the payoff could be huge so I really need to buckle down and finish the darned thing. I'm waiting for some mood music I ordered from Nox Arcana, I think that will help me stay on track ;)

TTFN