posted
From what I've been able to tell from other acquaintances, accepts and rejects are both running about 90 days.
Posts: 14554 | Registered: Dec 1999
| IP: Logged |
posted
3 months is pretty much the industry standard, unless you're talking about the Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction. They have a turnaround on rejections that's nothing short of depressing-- like 6 days.
It's mostly because JJA (the Slushgod) knows what he wants, I think, and works hard at his job.
Posts: 14554 | Registered: Dec 1999
| IP: Logged |
I cut another 1000 words from Out of the Deep, and sent it to Pedestal magazine.
Pedestal has got a reputation for being a little more literary and psychological; OOTD fits the psychological end of things. Like Eviction Notice, I didn't make it terribly clear whether or not the protagonist is suffering from actual, literal lycanthropy, or if it's all just a figment of his imagination.
An extremely lucid, agony filled, terrible figment...
Anyway. Pedestal pays more than Interzone, and is on SFFWA's list of pro-publications. They also accept email submissions, which is handy. So off it goes. If it's a no-go there, I'll probably sit on it until Baen's Universe opens up again.
Posts: 14554 | Registered: Dec 1999
| IP: Logged |
posted
I bought the Writers of the Future book with your short story in it recently. It's wonderful - it's been my book on the bus since I picked it up. Posts: 26077 | Registered: Mar 2000
| IP: Logged |
quote:I bought the Writers of the Future book with your short story in it recently. It's wonderful - it's been my book on the bus since I picked it up.
If you want to meet in Pentagon City mall sometime, I'd sign it for you.
Yes, my egocentricity overcomes my aversion to meeting people.
quote:How did you manage to cut half of the words out?
Err...I didn't cut half the words out. When I finished my first draft of OOTD, it was around 8k words. I've only trimmed it down by 2000; my preference is for the version I sent to Asimov's, which was 7000 words.
But alas-- most markets want stories shorter than 5000 words.
To trim the story, I use a technique espoused by Jerry Pournelle. I read the whole story out loud. Anywhere I wince, I remove.
Then I edit my style. That's where it really starts to hurt. I use lots of short, descriptive sentences to describe thoughts and emotions-- but I sometimes add too much description. So I cull the weakest.
quote:Will you be keeping it at the shorter length, or is that just for Pedestal?
I don't know. I will probably keep it at the shorter length, even though I *like* the things I've had to remove. Shorter short stories are easier to sell. Maybe if I'd trimmed this much off of it before sending it out, I'd have sold it to F&SF...
posted
Oh, sorry, I was thinking that Pedestal was one of the "flash only" markets, and I knew they had a firm limit of 1000 words for flash. So when you said you cut 1000 words out...my response was "yikes!"
quote:Shorter short stories are easier to sell. Maybe if I'd trimmed this much off of it before sending it out, I'd have sold it to F&SF...
I think that's true in general, but do you know Alliette de Bodard? Her "short stories" tend to turn into novelletes and novellas, but recently she's been finding markets for them even at that length. Still hasn't cracked F&SF, though, so there is that.
Did anyone have anything in mind as to what to do? I don't really know the area that well-- it's tragic, really, I bring my lunch from home, eat it at my desk, and head home as soon as I get off work.
Posts: 14554 | Registered: Dec 1999
| IP: Logged |
If you want to grab lunch, there's tons of places - food court if you want that, or California Pizza Kitchen/Johnny Rocket's/Ruby Tuesday's if you want to sit down.
Posts: 1784 | Registered: Jun 2001
| IP: Logged |
But I'm willing to overlook this lapse in judgment if you continue to create stories on par with "Out of the Deep" -- which is fantastic and should be published.
Posts: 3423 | Registered: Aug 2001
| IP: Logged |
We have the choice of an outside restaraunt, a restaurant inside the mall, Panera Bread or rotisserie chicken, or the food court where people can get whatever they want.
My feeling is for panera bread since they have a little of everything, is not too expensive, and is small enough that we can find each other even without the turkey-red skirt I plan on wearing.
Posts: 26077 | Registered: Mar 2000
| IP: Logged |
posted
You'll recognize me by the glasses, black pants, white shirt, and brightly-colored sweater.
...which description applies to, I swear, 75% of DC's female population. Okay. The sweater is purple, and my hair's a mess because I didn't bring my brush and someone opened the windows on the bus.
I think it's a smoothie place. It's definitely in the middle of the food court, not up against the sides.
Posts: 26077 | Registered: Mar 2000
| IP: Logged |
posted
Oh...I was so late. I wasn't going to be. I was going to be only about five minutes late. But when I got to L'Enfant plaza, the yellow line was delayed and I had to wait TWENTY MINUTES for the next train to come, so I didn't get there until basically noon. Fortunately, the honorable Scott M. Roberts was around anyway and we got to chat about his book and Virginia and writing and tech writing and fiction in the New Yorker for a little while before work beckoned again. Very cool.
I totally forgot half the things I was going to ask - I was going to ask about the poetry and how that was going and try to do some not-so-subtle pleading for a collection of SMR's poetry. Also, the source of nicknames for the kids and what the church is like in Central Virginia - if it's the way it is here in the metro area - and everything.
Posts: 26077 | Registered: Mar 2000
| IP: Logged |
posted
You'll find I'm much more charming online than in person. In person, I'm antsy, combustible, and slightly nauseous.
Also, not nearly as articulate or dashing.
quote:I was going to ask about the poetry and how that was going and try to do some not-so-subtle pleading for a collection of SMR's poetry.
As far as a poetry collection goes, I haven't given it much thought, honestly. You can find all my free stuff on my website-- www.lordofallfools.com-- under the Frivel & Schleck section. Collect away.
posted
To promote both the redesign of www.lordofallfools, and to hopefully find me an artist, I've put the premise, character descriptions, and 8 pages of the script for my webcomic Shipmates on my website.
posted
The story that started off this thread is being revisited whilst I charge my novel-writing batteries.
Yes. I'm rewriting Mouse and Elephant.
One of the things that Olivet mentioned and that really stuck with me was that Anthem and Elephant Girl's relationship seemed contrived, and far too simple. And I think she's right-- Anthem goes from being a suspicious, paranoid, little freak of a kid, to loving this Hindu-goddess/gang leader in the space of about an hour. He abandons his real mother, Monique, far too quickly for the amount of story time spent on pining over her in the first place.
Another thing I realized...the nanotechnology was a macguffin. Really, it didn't serve any purpose but to get Anthem to explore his relationship with his mothers. So, while the nanotech makes an appearance, the thrust of the new story will be less on earrings that can mimic the effects of drugs, and more on mothers and sons.
Here's a snippet:
quote: The pikes kept him in a cell all his own, dressed in naught but what he’d been shoved into the skip with—just his skivvies, mainly. After four hours, they brought him some of his clothes. They stunk of that woman’s vomit. When he was dressed, two men in suits came into his cell, gave him some coffee and some chocolate, and asked him more questions.
Anthem knowed to keep his mouth shut. The coffee smelled fine, better than fine, it was…everything. But he let it sit there, steaming, filling up his nostrils with its fine-ness. Don’t even look at it, and don’t look at them men none at all, eyes down. Just like in his shanty. Eyes away.
They asked him ‘bout his momma, Monique. They asked him ‘bout her pimp, Theo. They asked him how he killed them two in the shanty, and then they switched it all ‘round, and said as it was really Monique and Theo dead in that shanty, and he didn’t recognize them none at all, ‘cause it’d been a while since he’d saw them either one, and he’d killed them. Or maybe they’d come to jig him out, and there’d been a fight, and someone else had killed them, and speak up, mouse!
But Anthem just tucked hisself into hisself. He knowed to keep his mouth shut.
One of the pikes slapped him. Then the other one was hauling the pike who’d smacked him out of the cell, as Anthem found hisself on the floor, and the coffee spilled all over him, and that wasn’t the only thing, ‘cause it’d been hours, days, years, since he’d gone to the bathroom and when he got hit, he couldn’t keep it in him no more, and he couldn’t stop it once it started. So he smelled of puke and piss, and cold coffee, and what was worse, he could feel his chest start to hitch, feel the scratchiness of his own fear crawling in his throat, and if he cried, if he let it poke even a little out of his throat, that’d be the end of him. The pikes would set on him then, they’d drag it all out, and he’d be dead by morning.
But he didn’t cry. And when the pikes knowed that he wasn’t going to, they closed up the door to the cell and left him lonely.
All of this is to prep you lot for the day when I finish it, so you can clamor for first-reader spots. Posts: 14554 | Registered: Dec 1999
| IP: Logged |
(Great word that -- the noun form is in the title of a strange, little short story that I've been thinking of re-kick-starting. I think I will.)
Posts: 3423 | Registered: Aug 2001
| IP: Logged |
posted
Mouse and Elephant is turning into a novel, to be written after I finish the Lord of All Fools series.
:sigh:
I tried to make it a short story, but there's too much story there to fit into < 7000 words. Or maybe I'm just not ready to simplify the plot.
Also, I want to point out the inherent irony of this thread, considering other conversations going on on this board.
Posts: 14554 | Registered: Dec 1999
| IP: Logged |
posted
Creaking and rattling, binging and banging, Gyroscopes spinning and rattler-heads hanging, Out of the star-wastes with wagons in tow, Swoops the Intergalactic Medicine Show!
Monsters they have, both human and not, Truths in a can, and Lies in a pot. A spaceship, a ghost, a traitor, and more-- Elixers and tonics and philtres galore!
All for your drinking! All for your pleasure! We offer for pennies our lies full of treasure! Guaranteed healthy, (at least for a minute), Depthless and strong is the medicine in it.
________________
The IGMS anthology hits bookstores tomorrow.
Posts: 14554 | Registered: Dec 1999
| IP: Logged |
posted
It's been a while since I updated this thread, but I've got a question that I think Jatraqueros might be able to answer.
Can anyone point me toward a resource that discusses Christian pacifism? I'm looking specifically for doctrines that call for complete pacifism, not just abstaining from military service and war, but also from violently defending oneself and one's family from harm/evil.
I need to know the scriptural rationale for such a stance and how they'd answer passages of scripture that seem to contradict that stance.
I've looked briefly at Quakers, Amish, and Mennonites-- there's some stuff there that works for what I want it to, but I couldn't find a direct source saying that they abstained from all violent conflict.
Posts: 14554 | Registered: Dec 1999
| IP: Logged |
posted
There's the Anti-Nephi-Lehis in the Book of Mormon, though their philosophy isn't really carefully disected so much as simply said to be superior to the Nephites.
Rough Stone Rolling by Bushman has some sections that discuss Joseph Smith struggling with the concept of self-defense and yet not taking a life to preserve your own.
I was also under the impression that the Jesuit order espouses complete non-violence in their ministrations. A fantastic movie that discusses the Christian response to violence is Of Gods and Men. There is also the movie The Mission with Jeremy Irons and Robert De Niro. Again though, those movies present the contrasting philosophies, but they don't dissect their shortcomings and strengths in detail.
edit: But they are both based on true stories so that makes them at least applicable.
posted
Scott: I might be mistaken, Jesuits have certainly been involved in violent plots, but I seem to recall that many Jesuits have written on the topic of non-violence. On their wikipedia page I don't find any specific stance on violence.
Posts: 14316 | Registered: Jul 2005
| IP: Logged |
Thanks. It looks like the articles do not explain the doctrine behind nonviolence but assume that the reader is already an adherent. I will keep reading.
Posts: 14554 | Registered: Dec 1999
| IP: Logged |
Printer-friendly view of this topic
![[Smile]](smile.gif)
![[Eek!]](eek.gif)
Sure. ![[Cry]](graemlins/cry.gif)
![[Frown]](frown.gif)
Fortunately, the honorable Scott M. Roberts was around anyway and we got to chat about his book and Virginia and writing and tech writing and fiction in the New Yorker for a little while before work beckoned again. Very cool. ![[The Wave]](graemlins/thewave.gif)
