Well, today is the last day for the long-list nomination on project B1. I can't help but think my placing of - Please Use Surprise Me! or Search inside this book for more pages - between my sections was not the editorial masterstroke I had hoped it might have been. Possibly more an indication of previous publication and instant disqualification at first reader stage. Why are readers such idiots? And then project minus A1 - the misogynist monologue didn't even warrant a reply. Do Spare Rib have no sense of irony? Probably just thought I was a nutter. Do I have to preface every submission with 'I am not a nutter?' - I read it again, it's okay - I am almost reduced to travelling the nation in a yurt stage - with a chalk board, thank you, announcing 'next show @3 o'clock.' Son would like that, he could play his guitar. Otherwise, job interview for the dog shit inspector on Monday, I probably won't even get that job. Especially after being deaf for a month since that bath, despair.
Bad show old boy (not the 3 o'clock one). Explain? I demand/ask as I'm annoying the hell out of everyone with 'whats', 'pardons', 'come again', and facial gestures that signify 'can you repeat that please'. I want a kindred sufferer. Mother went deaf late 40s, I'm following her it seems
Okay, I am disabled by 'swimmer's ear' only. I feel, the irony is that great swimmer/surfer hero that I am the affliction occurred in the bath waters. I worry @Seth about you being increasingly deaf, my friend. For my part, and because I am too lazy to visit the physician, my affliction is pretty much SIW. Yet I worry because I have this interview on Monday and one of the side-effects of partial deafness is this loss of confidence in public situations, I can't generate my usual charm, I am quite ordinary out there on the streets, though that may be the crow's feet and the whisky breath etccc ... My news is my immersion in a 4200 - that is 'ready' - but I'm trying this leaving it to rest a while philosophy...
Just over two weeks and I've once again been rejected by The Missouri Review. I'm having a hard time determining how personal this rejection is. Not that it matters. Still, if my submission had made it to the stage where it was under any kind of serious consideration, I imagine the response time would have been much longer. And maybe then a personal rejection would come across as more than just an encouraging note. This is one place that has rejected anything good I've ever written. Oh, the endless tries that come with the attempts to sell short fiction to good publications.
I've never heard of anyone going deaf during a bath, there must be a short story in there somewhere don't you think? I'm curious as to whether you ever let anyone read your work before you submit them, in what seems to be, a flurry of madness? (from your descriptions)
I think letting a story rest a while is key. It's something I've started doing as well. The stories I've sold have all benefited from some time left alone. It gives you fresh eyes when you go back to it and right before you actually submit it. I'm still trying to figure out how long of a rest my short stories need.
If @matwoolf isn't going to use it, I'm all up on that deaf by bath story. I'm not sure if Mat's got a good reader for all his stories, but it's hard to actually get them all read by someone before you submit, depending on how prolific you are and even then no one really wants to read first (or second) drafts. I have some friends who will read my stuff, but I can't ask about everything. And I have a lover who knows how to read. My lover reads my stuff too early a lot of the time. That's hard, too. Having a sort of live-in reader makes me want to give them everything I write right when I type the last word. With my first big sale, no one read that story before it got sent out. I can't find the post with the "flurry of madness" line, but I sure can relate.
I was just kind of paraphrasing from all the entries I've read. Maybe what I'm reading is just Mat writing something comedic just to lighten the mood. I'm just curious about the whole reading thing but I understand that it's not easy to find people to read all your writing all the time, especially with short stories and especially if you are writing all the time. I know I have problems getting my stuff read by others and I only write infrequently compared to you guys. I've dababled in a few of the arts and I find writing to be the most frustrating I've got involved with, and as mentioned, I'm strictly part-time amateur only.
Don't sell yourself or your writing short. Sometimes it just takes one good sale to change everything. But that feeling of being amateur comes and goes for all of us at times I'm pretty sure. Let me ask you this... Why do you need people to read your stuff prior to publication? And do you really? Some stories give us more trouble than others, but is whoever you get to read your story going to know better how to fix things or what the problems are better than you? And what if nothing is wrong? I think when we have people read our stuff, they feel a need to offer so-called constructive criticism. Sometimes this can help, and other times it can screw you up. Where your critique comes from is more important than just getting someone to read your work, in my opinion.
@Moose was being evil. She is evil - but somehow I will forgive her everything for one more tight hug on the East Devon/Somerset border liaison at our usual hard shoulder A303, strangers on the highway, goodbye my @Moose love on your motorbike angel
Some interesting points there. I suppose I want people to read my work because I want to make sure it is actually up to scratch. Perhaps that's an indication that I haven't got enough confidence in my work, but maybe more about not knowing what it is that actually constitutes good writing. It's so ephemeral, the actual idea of writing. I know there are technicalities when it comes to writing, skills that pertain to technical knowledge, but there is also the idea of story, what makes a good story, that is so subjective it's hard to know where to start. It may be that my stories are ok, but not absolutely knowing is a weird position to be in.
generally everything Matt posts is to provoke a reaction (in a good way) or for humour - hes not a troll, it more like having a house elf - subsequently very little of it can be taken at face value (e.g I'm a guy and the only thing hes likely to get on the somerset border is a boot somewhere painful and an instruction not to come ths way again)
Depends on how you look at it. If you're looking to sell and they're a member of the demographic looking to buy, then yes--their opinion is the only one that counts. Which sucks. I deal with it every day in my line of work. Think of it as test-marketing before you enter an aggressive market for what really amounts to an unnecessary, consumable product that people can easily find a substitution for. Or go without.
Haha, yeah, we tend to just view those outside as "furriners" in Devon. I guess as long as people understand what you are saying then jokes are sometimes a good way to say it, I'm just not sure I always understand. House Elf? Like Dobby?
Blow-ins, I think you mean? And there's nothing wrong with south Devon, or Plymouth. Long ther top way it's only n hour to Bood and you are free, technically. @Moose is a Hartland baby by the souns of things, IMO.
I live in North Devon, "Bood", as you so Devonly put it, is only a few miles away. It is over the border though, so technically in furren land, and the Cornish are certainly independantly minded.
I don't think we ever really know what's good until someone wants to by it. I've had stories I thought were great and then been paid very well for others that I had my doubts about. Read the publications you would like to see your work in. Try to dazzle them with something similar or just plan on getting your toe wet it the rejection pool. It's hard to predict how things will go sometimes. Most of the time it's going to be rejection, but them there are those sometimes it's not.
I'm looking to sell to magazines and journals. Sure, you could say my test market are their readers or potential readers, but it's not really going to matter what they think when it comes to if my story will sell or not. It's the editors who buy and publish the stories. It's the editors who know their readers. Sure, if I could get a bunch of these editors to beta read for me, that would be great. But those really aren't the options most of us have. I think it takes time to know if someone gives good feedback. And I rather have no feedback than bad feedback. Sometimes it's better just to send your work out than search down feedback is all I'm saying.
I'm curious. If you don't utilize betas at all (and I don't know if you don't) how do you know if what's clear in your head is clear to the reader/editor?
