Blogetary (Weblog + Commentary = Blogetary)

Needed to be in bed an hour ago, what with my new practice of going to bed, but a good friend called and needed to talk, so it kinda put me behind everything.  I was bummed because my little story was rejected and I wanted to try to fix it, but talking with my friend reminded me that other people have more serious problems.

So, going to look at the rejected story again tomorrow.  Finally got the finished story from the notebook all into the computer and I know I should let it sit a little, but I just want to go in right away and start cleaning up.  Sure, the story is all down and everything, but it’s a mess in there, wanders all over the place, etc.  But I want it to be done NOW.

The two stories I’ve been trying to finish have been kinda downers, so the other day I decided to start working on another idea I had that was kind of happy, and it made me cry.

Can’t win.

Maybe tomorrow I’ll start copying the OTHER downer story into the computer.

I’m gettin’ tired of posting these. And why should I, you ask? Well, because this blog is about my journey into becoming a published author. So, that’s part of the journey. Share the highs as well as the lows.

And maybe someday someone who’s going through the same thing will come through and see all the no thank yous I get and realize they aren’t the only ones getting rejected.

Or, conversely, maybe someone will see my no thank yous and think, “Wow, I’m lucky I get mine accepted so easily.” Either way, maybe this documenting helps someone somewhere sometime.

I think I want lots of carbs, fat, and salt tonight.

This one I kinda expected.  I’m beginning to expect it all the time now – everytime I see something in my inbox.  This is like dating, honestly.  If I just remember to expect rejection just like I do when it comes to dating and men, then I’ll be okay, I guess.

I did some revisions and took out some back story. I hate taking out back story.  You do that and people suddenly say they’re confused.  You keep it in and it’s too much. But, I took it out and changed the title.  Tried another place. We’ll see.

That is what Natalie Goldberg reminds her readers in her book, Writing Down the Bones. Be kind to others. Be kind to yourself. Be kind to other writers. Be kind to other readers. When I first read those words 20 years ago when I first read her book, I remember writing it in my notebook at the time. “Be Kind.” I had just graduated from college at Western Washington University and I was on a road trip with friends as we went to spend a weekend in Seattle. (“Did anyone remember to bring a hair dryer?” Three gay men and a straight woman and of course no one had – but that is another story.)

I had brought the book to read for the times when conversation lagged in the car. I remember writing “Be Kind” several times in my yellow notepad notebook. Of course! How obvious and how simple. I could do that. Doesn’t sound that difficult, but man it can be. Twenty years of jobs in mostly customer service have taught me how difficult it can be. I don’t know about anyone else out there, but it is so easy to get bitter so fast and to make an unkind quip rather than to sit back, take a moment, and say a kind word instead. It’s so easy to be demeaning or angry rather than to take a breath and be meaningfully in the moment as Thich Nhat Hanh would have us do. To think first and make the kind meaninful remark is much more difficult than to make the angry retort. Many times, the best I seem to be able to do is just hold my breath, count to ten and say nothing at all.
I have a list of goals I want to accomplish that I keep on my mirror so I see them everyday (Note: That doesn’t mean I pay attention to them, it just means I *see* them). Two of those goals are to work on my patience and to work on my temper. Maybe I should just consolidate them and write: Remember to BE KIND.

I was reminded of this the other day when I was reading Neil Gaiman’s blog. I enjoy his sensibility, the filter he sees the world through. Plus, I just plain like him.

A young reader of his blog had asked if the book Danse Macabre he was reading was related to another book Danse Macabre she was reading. He could have done a number of things, from ignoring her question to making a demeaning and jaded retort. Instead he went into a simple discussion of where the term comes from, how many of the other works that have used that term as their title, and the play on words.

It was very simply the kind thing to do and it made me cry. It’s so easy when using this machine called a computer and this tool known as the Internet to be impersonal and jaded and think we’re all knowing. So easy to lose patience when we think someone isn’t catching on quickly enough or doesn’t know what we think they should know.

I have a lot of people in my life and that I have met in passing who have been kind to me. That simple kindness and patience have helped me along immensely more than any grand gestures have. This was a good reminder to pass on that kindness to others.

Yay!  Today I got a magical maybe for a poem I sent out!  It could turn into a no or a yes but for now it’s floating on as a maybe.

YAY!

Are beginning to trickle in.  I can feel it.  I got one today for one of the stories I sent out at the beginning of April.  I had high hopes for this one.  Tonight I hugged Pye really tight and daydreamed about self-publishing an anthology of my poetry and short stories, becoming really famous and thumbing my nose at all the stupid editors who lost out because they rejected my work……

Then I put Pye down (he was squirming anyway) and fed him his much delayed dinner and got over myself.

I’ll take another look at this one, this weekend, AFTER I’ve worked on fresh material. I don’t want to get stuck in an endless stream of tweaking old material until it’s not recognizably my own anymore.

I always thought of myself as one of the smart ones growing up.  Maybe I wasn’t pretty but I was smart.  I liked doing this.  I wanted to do this. I knew I could do this. But what if I’m wrong.  What if I’m just not that good? What if, despite what all my friends and critique partners say and what I feel – I’m just not good enough?

So, this morning on the way to work I finished the dire end of the world story. YAY.  Okay, it’s not in the computer and not edited or anything but I wrote through to the end and wrote The End at the end. There was a resolution and it was even sorta upbeat.  Feels good.  Now I just gotta make myself sit down at the computer when I get home from work and copy it in.

Harder than it sounds, believe me. I’ve been trying this little experiment lately? It’s called NOT watching tv and GETTING TO BED ONTIME.  Really.  With a cuppa tea even. After only 4 days I’m feeling a lot better, which means I need to keep doing it. But that means starting to get ready for bed at 9 and turning out the lights no later than 10 or 10:30.

However, it means not staying up late to write unless it’s a weekend.  But I gotta get in my 7-8 hours of zzzzs.  I am not 24 or even 34 anymore. And sleeping on the bus doesn’t count.

I sorta have my witchcraft story figured to the end.  But it’s all written in pieces, not really strung together.  So, now I need to string it together and see how it hangs.

I frustrate a lot of my writer friends because I don’t necessarily write linearly. I write the way I write a poem I guess. A phrase comes into my head, or a personality starts talking and then I go from there.  I write that until it’s written out.  And it may be the beginning, the middle or the end. I just have to write until I figure out what it is.  Then the next time I write I’ll write more of the story but it may not carry on from where I’ve finished. It might be another part of the tale altogether, or simply background to get out of my system.  Then eventually I put it all down and shift it around and add and subtract and rearrange.  Send it to people to read.

I’m working from the character and moving out and not from the story and moving out. That frustrates people because it takes longer.  But just as with a poem, I’m not thinking about where it’s going when I start writing it. There’s just this thing in my head – a character or a thought – that needs to be introduced and made known to the rest of the world.  Introductions take time.  Few people ever tell you their life’s story when you first meet them.  I don’t know why fictional people should be considered any different from real people. Gotta get to know them before they tell you their stories.

And then there’s the other thing. I like being seduced into a story.  I like being drawn into it.  I like meandering a while and getting to know a place before jumping into a story and that’s how I write.  That is not the current mode of writing, however. These days everyone wants you start in the middle of the action. Sometimes that works for me.  But, since I consider reading a leisure activity and not a sport, I’d much rather read in a leisurely fashion.  Again, that’s how I write and it is currently not “in” since most people have the attention span of a gnat these days and not even a gold fish.

*sigh*

But I got my story done.  April finished telling me what she needed to tell me.  So that’s alright then.

Last month, Will Molinar’s first novel, Shadows in the Dust, debuted through SynergEbooks. I had read one of his drafts of the manuscript last year and was glad to hear that, after a lot of hard work, he was able to bring this project to fruition. As anyone who knows Will will tell you, he is nothing if not focused.

Shadows in the Dust is a very ambitious tale that covers a lot of territory in terms of characters and storyline. Told in third person from several points of view, Shadows is the story of a people fighting for their lives against such creatures of death as zombies, vampires, wights, demonic wolves, and lichs. Though it begins as a light-hearted adventure tale of a boy and his friends, as the Prologue hints, this is not a cheerful fantasy of elves, dwarves, and unicorns. It is a dark fantasy that addresses many darker issues.

Not a straightforward war tale of Good vs. Evil or Right vs. Wrong, as Molinar demonstrates, in the world of Shadows, just as in our own world, war is controversial. Not everyone believes it’s necessary or even advisable to go to war. Most don’t even believe the danger from such creatures exists until it is far too late to do anything about it.

However, in my opinion, the strongest sections in this book are those where Molinar addresses the fight scenes. Fast-paced, riveting, and almost gleeful in their gore in some places, they really are a joy to read. If nothing else, read this book for the fight scenes.

The Players:

Marcus Ravenholt – A captain and aristocrat from the old wars. He is the ultimate warrior and strategist and now the ultimate vampire. He has controlled the lands about his castle for centuries.

Young priest Jazlo Kipling had always assumed his life would be the quiet life of service to the community that he had chosen when he decided to give back to the orphanage church the help that he had been given when taken in and raised by Father Mathis. His life takes a turn of the adventurous sort when his friends Bulthus and Armen convince him to sign up with the rebel army to fight the undead hordes and he learns where his special talent lies.
Bulthus and Armen make up the trio, with Jazlo, of childhood friends. As they go off to war together, they have no idea how changed their lives will be ever after.

Barrobos – Outsider and regiment commander of the rebel army. As someone who comes from a place that has dealt with undead hordes in greater numbers for generations, he has a unique ability in knowing how to combat Ravenholt’s army.

As a pacifist priest, Father Mathis has vowed to never be involved in violent confrontation. What will he do when the war comes to the doorstep of his very church?

These and many other characters are woven together by Molinar to depict a world at war with all the internal and external conflicts. Is a war still meaningful if it does good, even if based on a questionable premise? If a person becomes evil to do good, what then? When do you know when to keep a vow and when it is right to break it? When is it right to die for something you believe in? While this story does not preach any one point of view, in the guise of a dark adventure coming-of-age tale, Will Molinar addresses these questions, allowing the story to unfold so readers can make their own decisions.

Shadows in the Dust by Will Molinar, SynergEbooks 2007, ISBN# 0-7443-1062-5, www.synergebooks.com.

Crossposted on Tribe.net and MySpace.com

For another no thank you.  At this point, everything that is finished, is out, and it seems to be the same short story that’s being rejected over and over again while the others are just being sat upon in limbo.  You’d think I’d quit, but it’s a good story. I know it’s a good story. It just needs the right person to see it. It’s not really horror or fantasy or mythic realism.  It could be a YA, but it’s not meant to be. I don’t know. Everytime it comes back I go “EErrrrrr. Bam. Stop” on anything else I’m working on just to get back into it and look it over and see what I can do to improve it. And it’s not even 1900 words. Pretty short for a short story. You’d think someone, somewhere would find a spot for it.

Oh well. Back to the drawing board.

In other news, this weekend, before this most recent rejection, I did get a little bit more done on the post-apocalyptic tale I’ve been working on. And last night as I was working out another story in my head I realized it could go in a lot more directions than I initially intended.  Need to look more closely at that.

Well – either I was expecting this one or I am getting hardened to it.  I’m beginning to run out of places to submit to.  Well, not really.  What the problem is is that most of these places won’t take multiple or simultaneous submissions, which means I have to wait to hear yay or nay from them before I submit something else or submit that particular story somewhere else.

There are a few places from the beginning of April I’m still waiting on.  Sent a query to a couple of them last Friday and I’m still waiting and waiting and waiting…..

Oh well – unless my emails have fallen into blackholes in cyber space, I guess NOT hearing is actually pretty good.  Like Schroedinger’s cat, as long as I don’t open the box, the cat can be both dead and alive at the same time.