quote: At last, Toby had found a way to get published. The artistic instinct that so infallibly failed him had been superseded.
Muse 1.0 was a small program. Toby's prose wallowed in words like a sow in a trough, but his computer code read like a haiku. It took the best-sellers list and looked for recurring ideas: love, death, dalliance with sentient plants, whatever. Then the code got creative. It trawled the Internet for words and phrases that resonated with these favored themes, using them to assemble new stories. Semantic analysis sifted out the rubbish. Finally, stylistic processing and cross-filtering against the original books left him with a single perfect story.
He watched in triumph as the first lines appeared on his screen: In the beginning was the word...
Was feeling bitter and cynical about yet-another-rejection-letter, so I turned to flash: a short story in 13 lines.
Just for fun, really
[This message has been edited by Toby Western (edited June 12, 2008).]
posted
Keep submitting, Toby. You have a gift with prose and story. It is simply a matter of finding the right market. As soon as the rejection notices come in send them to the next market.
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posted
Thanks for the kind words, Scott; I ain't quitting yet, just grumbling!
Toby thinks that creeping Snapper out is the cat's whiskers in the icing on the cake.
Tracy, I wanted to suggest--in a lighthearted way--that if you tried to create a book that contained all the major themes people care about, then you might end up recreating the bible. Hmm, another failure?
posted
Didn’t fail at all, I recognized it didn't I. It was obscure I'll admit, but more than a few around here would have picked up on the reference to the Trinitarian’s mantra.
You are, by the way, an amazingly accomplished and insightful writer. By now, I’m certain that life has taught you that product is only 40% of the game; the rest is marketing.
posted
I had a facefull of the same frustrations. Then I came to a pretty serious revelation about my writing. Once again I have something serious to work toward. I can feel your frustration though. It is easy to end up at the end of that seemingly dead-end road.
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