Tag: little green men

Critiquing

As a beginning author (Amazon says I am, so I must be) I wonder if what I’m writing is really any good. I wrote for a year or so before I began submitting to magazines and such. Every now and then I’d get an acceptance, which triggered a little happy dance and a Sally Fields “You really like me” moment. But mostly rejections. The rejections are always nicely worded, saying something along the lines of “not for us, but we’re sure it’ll find a home somewhere.” But I was left wondering WHY is it not for you? What did I do wrong? Very rarely, the submission site would offer feedback for a price. Maybe I should be willing to pay $35 to find out why they don’t like my work, but I’m cheap.

I came upon the idea of writing groups. Checking around the internet I found several options. The first one I tried out was called Scribophile. It was free to join (always a plus) and easy to navigate (an even bigger plus). You had to critique other people’s stories to earn points. The overarching rule was to be nice and critique constructively. Then you could use the points to post your story for critiquing. I didn’t know much about critiquing; I mean that was why I was there, to be critiqued. But I read what other people were saying and figured it out. I know my way around the English language pretty well and after a while I got the hang of it. I even earned bonus points for being a good critter (a critter is one who critiques) and even picked up some followers. I met some nice people and we conversed outside the site, helping each other. It was a good experience and I’m convinced my writing improved.

I tried a couple of other critiquing sites just to see what was out there. I went to Critique Circle and one other place which will not be named – ever again. The CC was much like Scribophile, except the interface was a bit clunkier. I didn’t use it often.

The Other Place, though, wow. I posted a story and within a couple of days got a critique. It was a page long screed about what an awful writer I was. Not only did he hate the story, but he looked me up on Google and found other writing and dissed that, too. I looked at the rules of the site, and there was a brief mention to be polite. This guy was having none of it. So I read his tirade all the way to the end. That’s when I found out what was going on. I was an awful writer, but for a certain amount of money, I could take his course and he would teach me to write. I have to say that was probably the worst advertisement in the history of mankind. I wanted to report him to the master of the website, but couldn’t find a way. Apparently it was a free for all. So I deleted the story from their site and left.

And the awful story he panned? Little Green Men came out Friday as a stand-alone booklet. So not everyone thinks it’s trash. It can be purchased on Amazon. And to the asshole who panned it – well I don’t think WordPress supports the type of language I want to use.

Little Green Men

My story, Little Green Men, is being released today by Water Dragon Press. It is a stand-alone booklet, available on Amazon for $.99. When I was shopping it around, an editor told me it was too long for his magazine, but deserved a volume all its own. Water Dragon apparently agreed. It’s long for a short story at over 9,000 words, but not quite a novella. The story of Earth’s first manned mission to Mars, it’s part science fiction, part horror, part thriller. I hope you’ll enjoy it.

LGM is officially my 30th piece of work accepted for publication. The 31st, Yellow Piece of Paper will be out on Thema in June.

Cheers!

Rejections

When I first got up the nerve to send my scribblings out into the world, I didn’t quite know what to expect. I did a little internet research to find a seemingly suitable place to peddle my work, but it was an unknown world to me. That was April 2019.

Since then I’ve submitted literally hundreds of times to a host of magazines, websites, anthologies, any place that puts out a call for submissions. I’d be lost without my spreadsheet of when what submitted where to whom.

One of the nice surprises was the friendly rejection letters. I don’t know if it’s always been that way, or the ease of email took the edge off their nerves, but it’s a nice touch. It’s obviously a canned reply, but shows that it takes no extra work to be nice to people when saying no. That’s a good thing considering the number of rejections that have crowded my inbox.

I follow a few blogs by successful writers, always interested in pointers and found there’s apparently a hierarchy of rejections. The vast majority of mine have been along the order of thanks for submitting, we enjoyed the story, not right for us, please remember us and send more. That kind of response, especially the last two words is supposedly the first level lower than acceptance. It means they think you have potential. According to the authors I’ve followed, that kind of rejection is the gold standard for acknowledgment that you have something going on.

A few of my lesser stories garnered rejections of basically thanks for your interest. No invitation to try again. I guess this is the second tier of rejections. I imagine there are even lower levels. I wonder how bad you have to be to get a restraining order filed against you? Not that it’s ever happened to me. Well, not exactly. I have been banned from one site. I had sent a fairly grim story with sexual violence and neglected to attach a trigger warning. Apparently I offended the sensibilities of someone on their staff. I figure if you put out a call for stories, you have to expect a few graphic episodes. But now I attach trigger warnings to nearly all my stories, even ones going to horror sites. I checked with some editors I liked, worried that being banned might hurt me in a wider arena, but they said not to worry, nobody paid attention to the yahoos at that particular site.

Sometimes, even though the rejections are canned, an editor attaches a personal note. These are always special. One said that she adored the story, but I should consider expanding it into a longer work. A note on a rejection of my Little Green Men story said an entire magazine issue should be devoted to that work, but his wasn’t the magazine to do it. I got a nice note on a rejection that came in today. I had submitted The Stick Men to a horror anthology. It’s adapted from a story my mom told be from her childhood. After the standard rejection verbiage the editor added that the story was rejected because they ran out of room. He asked that I please resubmit it for their next anthology. Hey, that’s almost an acceptance. I’ll take it as one, anyway. So assuming it’s still available, I’ll send it along to them when the window opens for their next anthology, sometime the middle of this year. It’s nice to have a foot in the door, so to speak.