Aeryn Rudel's Blog, page 52

Submission Statement: September 2017

September was a slow month, and this is gonna be the shortest submission statement I’ve ever published. I mean, I didn’t even get any rejections. That can’t be good for my brand.

September 2017 Report Card

Submissions Sent: 3 Rejections: 0 Acceptances: 0 Publications: 0 Other: 0

Yep, three submissions and nothing else. Part of the reason for this lack of activity is a lack of new material. Luckily, I finished three flash pieces and two longer pieces late last month, so submissions and their...

Ranks of the Rejected: Mitch Malloy

In the past, I’ve interviewed writers and editors for Ranks of the Rejected, but as it turns out, they aren’t the only creative folks who get rejected. I’ve worked with a fair number of freelance illustrators in my professional career, so I thought I’d get the skinny on the trials and tribulations of that line of work straight from the horse’s mouth. I turned to the very talented Mitch Malloy, an illustrator I’ve worked with recently. Mitch was kind enough to answer questions about his work (...

One-Hour Flash – The Mansquito Returns

Yeah, I know, a bunch of you are like, “Did he just misspell mosquito in the title of his blog post?” Nope. I typed MANsquito to introduce you to another piece of forgotten flash fiction. As with all the stories in this series, this is another bit of flash written in an hour for a writing exercise/contest. The prompt for this one, if I remember correctly, was literally a dude in a mosquito costume. The first thing that popped into my head when I saw the prompt was an original SyFy movie calle...

Ranks of the Rejected – Josh Hrala (The Arcanist)

Time for another installment of Ranks of the Rejected. This time I interviewed Josh Hrala, the editor at The Arcanist, a new flash fiction market that focuses on fantasy and science fiction. I’m always excited when a new flash fiction market appears on the scene, especially a paying one, and Josh and The Arcanist are off to a great start. Josh has an extensive background as a professional writer, so he’s no stranger to rejection, and now that he’s working the other side of the literary fence,...

One-Hour Flash – Keepsake

Yet another story that began life as a one-hour flash fiction challenge/exercise and has languished unloved and forgotten on my hard drive ever since. Again, I don’t remember the prompt that generated this one, but if I know me, it probably didn’t have much to do with the story I ended up writing.  Anyway, this little ghost story is called “Keepsake,” and like the others in this series, it’s more or less the hastily scribbled tale I wrote in an hour.

Keepsake

“Can we please leave?” Robert sa...

AFSG (Always Follow the Submission Guidelines)

Recently, I committed the nigh-unforgivable writerly sin of failing to follow the submission guidelines. I will pause a moment to soak in your righteous and fully justified finger-wagging.

Ouch.

Okay, my particular sin was submitting a story that did not meet the word count requirements. This particular market wanted stories with a minimum length of 2,000 words, and I sent in a story that was a tad below that. They were gracious enough to let me resubmit the story after I revised it to fit th...

One-Hour Flash – Madcap

Here’s another flash piece I wrote as part of a one-hour flash challenge/exercise. This time, I actually have the prompt the story was written for (I was the one who posted it in this case).

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(Exciting, huh?)

This story, “Madcap,” is part of a loosely connected series of stories about an organization called the Bureau of Fae Affairs or BFA for short. The idea came to me in one of these one-hour challenges, and I occasionally return to it in that scenario. Anyway, it’s an urban fantasy concept...

Submission Protocol: Don’t Fear the Query

I’ve previously covered the submission status query letter, but I thought it was worth a revisit mostly because I’ve seen writers questioning if they should send a query letter and wondering if a publisher would be offended or angry if they did. Let me cut to the chase here. Unless a publisher specifically asks you not to query in the submission guidelines, there is no reason they should get upset if you send a query letter, provided you follow a few basic rules. What are those rules? Numbere...

Submission Statement: August 2017

August, the month of my birth, was pretty uneventful, submission-wise. I spent a lot of time working on a new novel, and I finished a novelette that will be part of my first foray into self-publishing (more on that soon). Anyway, here’s the down-and-dirty for the month.

August 2017 Report Card

Submissions Sent: 5 Rejections: 6 Acceptances: 0 Publications: 1 Other: 0

I’m still hitting an average of one submission per week. I keep thinking I should do more, but that seems to be a comfortable...

One-Hour Flash – Killing the Dead

Here’s another flash fiction story I wrote as part of a one-hour contest. This dark urban fantasy tale is called “Killing the Dead,” and like the story from last week, “The Writing on the Wall,” it has lingered on my hard drive for quite a while. I’ve dusted it off and given it a quick polish, but it’s essentially the story I scribbled out in an hour three or four years ago. If you’d like to read the first story or learn more about these one-hour contests I’m so fond of, check out the link ab...