Submission History

I have written and submitted 17 short stories since this little project of mine began late last November. Seven of those stories have since been accepted for publication. A few of them are even paying gigs. Here are the stories that have been accepted for publication:

Tinni and the Chain -- Absent Willow Review (accepted, appeared in January)
Leaping -- Bewildering Stories (accepted, appears sometime in late March)
Planet Feast -- Big Pulp (accepted, appears May 19)
Grandfather’s Room -- The Nautilus Engine (accepted, appeared in February)
Companion -- Dark Fire (accepted, appears in Issue 47)
Panorama of Failure - Realms Magazine (accepted, appears later in the year)
Seeing Through Doors - Absent Willow Review (accepted, appears March 16)

Current Submission History

As of January 20, 2010,


Story Title -- Submitted To (Response):

Tinni and the Chain -- Absent Willow Review (accepted, appeared January 16, 2010)
Feeding the Grong -- Silver Thought
Robo and the Little Door -- Weird Tales
Leaping -- Bewildering Stories
Planet Feast -- Big Pulp (received, not yet accepted or rejected)
Grandfather’s Room -- The Nautilus Engine (accepted, appears February)
Profaning the Leistra -- Anotherealm
Heart Case -- Twisted Tongue
Attached -- Dark Fire (received, not yet accepted or rejected)
Panorama of Failure - Realms Magazine
Seeing Through Doors - Absent Willow Review

Another Story

"Grandfather's Room" will appear in the online magazine The Nautilus Engine in February. It is a non-paying magazine, but getting stories out there is the real goal here, not money. The one thing I learned from submitting my novel all over the place is that it is vital to have some sort of reputation if you want anybody to pay attention to you.

Now, the downside is that I have also had a few rejections along the way. In fact, "Grandfather's Room" was previously rejected by another magazine, so I just sent it to someone else. "Attached" has been rejected twice, but I did a little more work on it and sent it out a third time. We'll see what happens.

And, actually, the second magazine that rejected it had this to say: "Many thanks for sending 'Attached' my way. I found the story to be very well-written with an interesting concept and a good build-up. I thought that you did an admirable job building up some suspense as the mysterious creature is revealed, and as the humanoid's interactions with its new owner escalate, I was truly horrified. The story had a wonderful 'Weird Tales' vibe to it." Unfortunately, he went on to say, "All-in-all, I enjoyed the story; it's just not for us." His magazine is more gore oriented than what I sent him. Oh well, strike two. On it goes to magazine number three.

Rejections are going to happen. I just have to keep plugging away, and I shall. I just finished a new story called "Seeing Through Doors" and it has already been submitted.

jeff

Story is Online

Tinni and the Chain is online at http://absentwillowreview.com/archives/tinni-and-the-chain

Hey Ho Let's Go

Haven't posted on here in a while, but let's not allow Zen or Gaming or the combination thereof to fade into the terrible night like so much scattered "papel higiénico."

Writing. What has become of my writing? I have been writing short stories like Stephen King's gimp cousin, Arnold. Writing short stories and submitting them to magazines. In the last two months, I have submitted the following stories:

Tinni and the Chain to the Absent Willow Review
Feeding the Grong to Silver Thought
Robo and the Little Door to Weird Tales
Leaping to Intergalactic Medicine Show
Planet Feast to Big Pulp
Grandfather’s Room to The Nautilus Engine
Profaning the Leistra to Anotherealm
Heart Case to Twisted Tongue
Attached to Absent Willow Review

Of those submissions, Tinni and the Chain has been accepted for publication and will appear in Absent Willow Review on January 16. Planet Feast has been "received" but a decision to accept or reject will not be determined until sometime around January 31. I am waiting for responses to the others.

What sort of stories are they?

Tinni and the Chain - about a slave chained to a post by a wizard
Robo and the Little Door - about a boy who lives in a big creepy empty house with a sentient robot toy
Leaping - about people having to make a choice between definitely dying or maybe dying
Planet Feast - about people eating a planet. A truly weird story. Maybe too weird.
Grandfather's Room - about a boy who is not permitted to open the door to his grandfather's room
Profaning the Leistra - about a girl who learns the true meaning of an ancient ritual that she has always taken for granted and disliked
Heart Case - about the real cost of employment at a job one doesn't like
Attached - about people who buy hideous pets and get strangely attached to them

There you go. Brief synopses of each story. Lisa says my stories tend to be "bleak," which is odd because I don't consider myself a bleak person. They also tend to be a blend of fantasy/science fiction/horror. I might be getting better as I write them. At least, I am getting more comfortable with my prose. Some of the stories I particularly like, such as Attached, Heart Case, Planet Feast and Leaping. Some are not my favorite (I'm looking at you, Profaning the Leistra). But it feels good to write, to complete stories, to send them off. I feel like part of my purpose in life is not being squandered, so I will continue.

I just started a new story. It's only a couple of paragraphs. The working title is "The Panorama of Failure." It'll be nice and bleak. Lisa will love it.

--jeffrey

Dead compy!

So, my compy died over a month ago now and I think I like things better this way.

I've been running a Scion game (which is fun) and I've got some rough bits and pieces of children's books floating around on paper and on laptops.

Also, I've been TRYING to write here: http://dreampath.carlburgers.com/

More to come soon.

Did I mention 2 baby girls? Edith and Franny are hard work, but they are awesome.

The Work is Never Done

I am almost done with the ninth draft of Mindy Lightbearer. Yes, the ninth draft. I recently discovered a whole other world of young adult book publishers out there that I didn't even know about, companies like Echelon and Diversion. I knew about all the major fiction publishers, and most of them have been contacted. Some sent rejections, others I never heard back from. What I am looking for is a small press publisher of young adult fantasy. Once the ninth draft is complete, I will blanket the earth with a million centuries of propaganda. And by "earth" I mean "list of small press publishers of young adult fiction." And by "a million centuries of propaganda," I mean, "dozens of queries." And if the small press won't love it, then I will turn to the print-on-demand market, places like xlibris, lulu, and iUniverse, and I will make one of them love me and my money. Then I will have the unutterable joy of marketing and publicizing my own novel and trying to get local bookstores to carry copies. Come on, small press, don't make me resort to that. The ninth draft is good enough for you. For crying out loud, I made the changes you wanted, didn't I? Mindy no longer murders anybody, just like you asked, small press.

It Endeth Never

Rewrite number six is halfway done. Whilst I was in Lubbock for 12 days for my father's brain surgery, I began a sixth major revision of Mindy Lightbearer. I am at chapter eighteen. Some chapters have remained pretty much intact, with a few minor revisions, some editing, and lots of adverbs and unnecessary things being removed. I fiddled a lot with the first page again. I have never been satisfied with the first few paragraphs of the novel. Finally, I think I am mostly okay with them. Major story revisions are coming in this sixth draft toward the end. A minor character is being systematically removed, and another character put in his place during the climax. As a result of these changes, the ending of the novel will, I hope, feel more complete and satisfying. Also, the exploding doorknob has received several new spell effects and a DoT, though I lowered the damage bonus coefficient due to the reduced casting time.

Congrats and Happy Birthday!

to amber!!

NaNoWriMo

With November approaching (Nation Novel Writing Month) I find myself facing three options:

1) Continue writing the van Hunks story, adding 50k words in a month (the number is higher than in years past).

2) Write "Glamor," a story I had conceived prior to the van Hunks projection involving elves and vampires.

3) Do not take part in NaNoWriMo.

I am thinking more and more about starting a new book (or an old book, if you think about it). I have no momentum with the van Hunks project, so it would not be much effort to start a new book.

On the other hand, I have been doing lots of reading for my van Hunks story. I bought some books about Maritime legends and practices to get myself in the know about the Pirate Round and the way pirates worked in the Indian ocean.

Luckily there is no shortage of parallels between various cultures' sea stories. Dwarf pirates kidnap Sindbad and give him to their Cyclopean master. Sindbad escapes by driving hot metal bars into the giant's eye. Anyway, I am learning a lot about sailors in the olden days.

Regardless, my NaNoWriMo profile is available HERE

--Carl Out.

Oh Lime

I know my blog doesn't quite have a following or anything, but I will add a link to the side of my page (you know, one of them pogs).

As far my writing goes... not too much coming. Just had a dream-induced idea and spewed out a plot summary for a children's book. It was exciting AND frustrating, since I can't finish my current ideas.

Van Hunks research continues. Read about Indian Ocean piracy on wikipedia and how pirates normally went no further than the Red Sea. But van Hunks's magical rune stone is in Malaysia so he will have to hit the actual Dutch East Indies instead of just attacking ships on their way back. This move will be surprising to his crew of dwarf pirates and, if I do my job right, I will bring that idea of surprise out by showing that, damn, that is a far way to sail and not necessarily lucrative (unless you are trying to find the dragon of Komodo and kill him to get his treasure).

That story has developed into something I did not foresee when I began it. But who doesn't want to read about a Frisian dvegar and his crew of dwarves sailing to the East with an imp and Khoi god? There's djinns and muti and the Flying Dutchman and dragons. These are things that excite nerdlies, are they not?

stuff

i've been busy alternating between being overwhelmed with and being excited about this.

and, well, other art-related things. trying to figure out how to promote the etsy shop, as well as figure out how to get done the long queue of projects i need to finish for people. my sister's skyline that was supposed to be last year's christmas present, and thembones' wow toon drawings he commissioned. and also a painting/Bible verse for mike, three baby hats, and a something ***enter idea here*** for a silent auction benefit, in three weeks.

also, i have a craft show thingie, my first solo one ever, though i grew up doing them with my mom, and i think effiepalooza sort of counts as a show, on Nov. 1. i'm gonna take a bunch of cards, a few prints, and also some pendants (necklaces, boys. necklaces.) and magnets made with photos.

here are the couple thembones pics i have done so far, as i figured it might be something ya'll would be interested in seeing. one's thembones' priest on another server, and the other is his oldest son's shaman, with that water breathing helmet on. i still need to do his other son's toon, and a group thing with the three of them. they look slightly better in person.

anyhow, that's my story.

Good Job, Jeff

So, I haven't been near here for months.

Congratulations on a finished book, Jeff. E-mail me a copy, if you would. I'd love to read it.

I have recently taken some pains to get on track with living. Today was the first day that I accomplished almost everything I set out to do.

Mostly, I am staying at home and doing nothing all day. Then Kristina gets home and I realise I've done nothing while she's been cutting people all day with leet murder knives.

I have started a book. It is way less than 10,000 words now. Things distract me and I have to learn to ignore them. We had family in time for a few weeks a couple of times and stuff like that, but I need to take on fewer self-appointed projects in order to finish this one (the book).

Anyway, so I have not really accomplished anything all these months, but I do have a blog of my book's progress at http://projects.carlburgers.com/ (it's pathetic and I am unwilling to update it because the numbers are so tiny, even though I do have more chapters done).

Also, Youtube is my enemy.

I have ignored this for way too long!

People, I forgot about this blog.  That is sad and unfortunate.  Here are my thoughts.

Good job, Jeff.  You wrote a book!  That is awesome!  Good luck getting it to the masses, it was a fun read. : D

Good job, Lisa.  You started a business!  That is awesome!  Good luck spreading your particular brand of beauty to the masses.  It's good stuff.

Good job Caal and Juan, for random bits of living.  I don't have specific ideas of what to congratulate you on at the moment, however, I am sure that something will come about soon. 

In my news, I am going to get a job.  I plan on doing more art soon.  That is all.

-amber

Second Rejection

This rejection came from a literary agent. I queried about a dozen literary agents. This particular agency represents Young Adult novels but not really the fantasy genre, so I knew I wasn't quite what they were looking for. I queried them anyway, and this is the e-mail response I got:

"Thanks for taking the time to query me and send your writing sample. While your project sounds interesting, it’s just not what I'm looking for at this time. Please keep me in mind, however, for future projects as I’m always looking for well-written commercial fiction and nonfiction with a strong voice and unique angle."

First Rejection

Hey, I got my first rejection from a publisher, and it was actually rather encouraging. It was a personal e-mail rather than a form letter or even a form e-mail. Anyway, here is what it said (I will blank out the name of the publisher, since they didn't send this to me for public consumption):

Thank you for your interest in ****** and ***** Publishing. 
Out of the many fantasy queries we get, yours is one of the few
that makes more sense than most of the others. 
I enjoy good fantasy stories,
but unfortunately, we are not accepting unsolicited manuscripts at
this time....

Thank you and keep writing!

*** ***
Fiction Editor
******
******* Publishing 

Third Revision = Done

Okay, I just completed the third revision of my novel, and I can say with confidence, it will be my last full revision. I am at a point where the book is not going to get markedly better. Further revisions might swap words around, but the book is what it is. I have made it pretty much as good as I can make it. There are a few chapters early on that I need to go back and work on a little bit more (chapters 2-4), but other than that, I am pretty much done. People will either like it or not like it, but they are getting the best that I have to offer, at this point.

The third revision clocked in at roughly 94,600 words. More adverbs and repetitions were cut. A few more story details were added, some extra dialogue to clarify things, a little more action during the climax, and that's about it.

Dagnab, I've spent too many hours on this dad-blamed story.

Submitting M'Crap

Some publishers prefer e-mail submissions, which is an unusual and recent trend. They tend not to want the entire manuscript but a query and brief synopsis. I have queried three publishers already: Top Publications, Penguin Books, and Sol Books. Of course, even with an e-mail query, it can take from weeks to months to get a response, so I don't expect to hear anything soon.

I have been working on the third revision of the book. I think the first chapter is finally complete, although you never really know. Does it really get any better when I rewrite it for the fourth time? Maybe.

Synopsis

In the world of publishing novels, you almost never send your manuscript to a publishing house uninvited. That is called an unsolicited submission, and almost nobody accepts them. Send your manuscript to, say, Tor, and, guess what, into the slush pile it goes, never to be read.

Instead, you have to query publishers. A query is a small packet containing a brief query letter, a short bio, two or three sample chapters (usually, chapters one through three) and a synopsis of your novel. So I worked on the synopsis of my novel all day today. Sheer tedium. I had seven pages of single spaced writing. Then I did some research on writing a synopsis and discovered that, in general, a book synopsis should never, ever be longer than seven double spaced pages. Preferably, you want 1 page per 50,000 words. Holy crap!

So I went back to the drawing board and wrote a much shorter synopsis. It came in at about 4 double spaced pages. Basically, the synopsis needs to answer, in as few words as possible, these questions:

• What's the setting?
• What's the hook?
• What's the tone of the story? That is, its feel, its authorial voice, its approach to the story. Is this a light-hearted book, a dark book, or a funny book?
• Who are the main characters?
• What are their motivations?
• What are the key scenes?
• What is the prime conflict?
• What are the main characters' blackest moments?
• What is the main character's big crisis?
• What is the story's climax?

So you send the query packet to every publisher under the sun, and if they are interested in reading the full manuscript, they will reply and request it. Only then do you send the full manuscript. Once you send the manuscript, you sit back and wait, wait, wait. I wrote a novel some years ago that sat at a publisher for almost an entire year, before they returned it to me. I received it back all beat up and scribbled on and grungy. They liked it very much, they said, and passed it around the office to be read by one and all, but they ultimately decided not to publish it. Nice. That book was called The Deep Water, and it is never coming to a Barnes and Noble near you.

Revision Two

So the second revision is complete. I found myself increasingly frustrated with the manuscript this time. The prose in places sounded rough, and no matter how much I fiddled with it, I was never satisfied. It is probably because I need to step back from the material for a little while.

Anyway, the text got pared down a bit this time. 93,097 words. Mostly, the removal of redundancies, adverbs, excess words, etc.