Gym and Dark Shadows

Went to the gym Saturday.  I've been advised to mix things up a little more than I have been to help with my shoulder and back (work the back to balance out working the front).  30 minutes and 300 calories on the elipitcal (while I did line edits to a story).  3x12x20lbs on the butterfly pull (a reverse pec-fly).  3x12x80 Lat Pull-downs.  3x12 Roman Chair curls.  3x12 bridges.  Also some assorted quasi-yoga stretches.  Pool-noodle spine stretches and thigh faschia stretches.  30 second planks.   3x12x20lb triceps pull-downs.  

After the gym, I managed to actaully get a flu shot; the closest pharmacy always seems to require two visits for anything, and this was no acception (I'd dont the paperwork yesterday).  The advantage to going early Satruday was that almost no one else was there (sometimes going to this particular pharmacy is like visiting the Emergency Vets on New Years').  

I spent most of the day working on a short story at Caré John, in the rain.  Cicero visited between sprinkles, mostly because I was warm and dry.  He's usually only wants to sit in a lap for about three mintues, but I think he curled up on my lap for about fifteen before a bird or a squirrel or some other defeceless creature lured him into the neighbor's yard.

Mark's been Binge Watching "Dark Shadows," a black-and-white Horror-Soap from 1966.  The premise is that a wealthy, influencial family with secrets is visited by a vampire (and ancestor) who has been released from over 150 years in a coffin, and vampiric hijynx ensue.   It's kind of slow, and extra cheesy.   I have a very vague recolection of seeing the opening or closing credits, but being unable to read the Gothic Script of the show's title.  

I think the Soap Genre demands that the characters connect the dots much more slowly than the viewing audience.  For example, it seems a little odd that a medical doctor with a patient who has inexplicably lost a dangerous amount of blood and whose injuries are only two puncture marks on the neck wouldn't draw some obvious conclusions.  We've amazed The Child on several occasions by predicting actions and dialog.  We've also been coming up with drinking games we could play while watching and pretending to drink whenever anyone says "blood," "Colins", "I'm busy," or "I'll call a doctor-"/"No! Don't call a doctor! I'm not sick!"

A some point, I decided that Smokey should be in Dark Shadows and started to intone a typical opeing:  "My name is Smokey Winters..."

"Smokey Winters!?" Mark said.  "That sounds like a stripper's name."

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Today (Sunday) feels like a slow day.  I think I'm fighting off whatever Back-To-School bug is going around, and I'm a little sore from the shot.   I guess this makes it a good day for marketing.  So I've submitted a short story and a flash piece.  The short, unfortunately, has been making the rounds and finding a good market for it is proving to be a challenge.  The flash is experimental, and we'll see if it sells.

Submission Errors

Ugh. I've been wanting to submit to a market that's been closed to short fiction.  Just before turning out the light Monday night, I was looking at their website, and I could have sworn that they'd closed their poetry and opened their prose submissions.  Tuesday (today) I forced myself to get up a little early and I got everything ready for submitting to them -- I checked my word count, composed a cover letter, made sure that I'd used the proper subject line in the e-mail submission, and sent it out... only to have an auto "we're closed" reply.  When I went back to the web page, I saw that no, both prose and poetry submissions were closed.

In a fantasy, I might receive  an e-mail that said, "Dear Mr. Burridge, normally we'd think that somene who can't follow simple instructions is a boob, but the deathless prose that an author of your calibur writes transcends rules for mere mortals, and we'd like to pay you for your story twice."  Oh, I left out the getting a unicorn part.  Oh well.  I wish I could find when they're open for prose submissions, but I'm not finding the information, so I guess I'll have to re-visit their web site.  When I'm more awake.

The tree pollen count was over 500 yesterday, and I've been slightly conjested for the last week.  I don't mind the eye-goop in the corners of my eyes when I wake up, but the tickly throat is tiresome.  

Manuscripts, Rejection, and the Trunk Process

The other day after Wordos, someone asked me what I do with manuscripts that are rejected: do I send them back out?  What if you liked it when you wrote it, but now you think it's bad?

The Rockstar Writers say, "Write the story that you'd like to read," and "Don't try to write what's 'hot.'"  And this is difficult advice to follow when (as I've been told) one has a quirky writing style, and publishing goes through trends.

When a manuscript comes back, I try to send it back out.  (I should be better at this than I am.)  I may scan through it to see if there's something stupid, like a syntax error that I've missed.   Looking at a story once the brilliance of a fresh work has been dimmed by the submission process makes it easier to see if a scene's staging has become less clear over time, or if the characters have become less clearly motivated.  But I really don't want to get stuck in over-revising a manuscript; to quote Edna Mode, "I never look back, darling. It distracts from the now."

At some point, I may look at a manuscript, say, "What was I thinking?" and pull it out of the submission process.  And then there are the battered manuscripts that have made the rounds to ten or so markets and have either garnered "Guess why we rejected your manuscript" form rejections, or else have gotten glowing rejections prominently featuring the word, "but."  The less personal feedback I've gotten, the harder it is to know what to do with them.

So, do I have stories that I've pulled from the submission process?  Yes:

• The short I wrote about a over-sexed talking teddy bear that I wrote about six months before the movie (which I haven't seen) "Ted" came out.   It's a victim of timing, and will always seem derivative.  
• The fairy tale retelling story that I couldn't sell because the market was either glutted with fairy-tale retellings or fairy tale retellings went out of fashion.   I might have found an anthology, but I ended up using this as a marketing piece.
• The high fantasy story that's at 5500 words, which puts it over the sweet spot of 4500 words for a short story.  I'm running out of professional markets to send this to.
• The quirky Christmas story that I like and think is perfectly fine, but apparently confuses or is unsatisfying -- it resonates so strongly we me that I can't see how it doesn't resonate with others.  
• The samurai story I wrote in 2003 that everyone says is funny, but now feels slightly dated.
• The madcap Superman story that one editor thought was hysterical (but didn't buy), and which another editor scorned with "is this supposed to be satire?"  

Once they're pulled, there's some triage.  The first question is: "Is this manuscript broken?"  If the answer is no, then I have to research a market that might buy it, or they go into the self-publishing pile (right, e-pub formatting...).  If the answer is yes, then the next question is, "Do I want to try to or can I fix it?"  If the answer is yes, then it goes into the "To Edit Later" pile (yes, it's a growing pile).  If the answer is no, then it goes into a trunked stories pile (yes, that's growing, too).    

In terms of trunked stories, it's helpful to remember that painters have scrapbooks filled with studies or first attempts at a subject.  It's helpful to remember the painters, composers and writers who were better known after they were dead.   And, who knows, maybe those old drafts will be the bane of English Majors in a hundred years....

Synthesis and Progress

I've been trying to synthesize what Joanna Russ said about voice being "on the slant," and her imaginings of macho Kirk, the golden grain god and "egalitarian other alien" Spock, the dark Pan god as same-sex lovers; what Jo Eldride Carney says about stories about Queens reinforcing the narrative of patriarchy; and my dreams.


In my dreams deity expresses itself as queer and male which is A) able to balance spiritual love, romantic love, and sexual love; B) a mediator between immanent, nurturing, divine, erotic waters and culture; and, C) in touch with and informed by fiery erotic creative inspiration.  Looking at the dream imagery, I'd paraphrase this as the rhyton and the snake.

Hmmm.  Now all I have to do is write around these symbols in a way that is interesting, yet not preachy.  

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On the submission front, I'd been waiting and waiting for a market to get back to me, and was about to query them when I checked their web site. It turned out they'd rejected my story (based on their usual turn-around-time, probably two weeks ago), but the e-mail must have crossed somewhere. 

 On the writing front, the other night I passed a piece of 800 word flash through the table. This time around, walking over the Plank of Description, I fell not into the Deep Pool of Too Much Detail, but instead into the Trickle of Not Enough Information. Most everyone got bits and pieces of the story, one person figured it all out, and the person sitting next to me kept going "OH!" as the critique progressed and little bits of the puzzle were revealed.

And now, back to writing.