Chantal Boudreau's Blog, page 33

Submission Blitz – Day 24

I finished up “It Was Askin’ fer a Whackin’” and submitted it for an anthology. I think I have my last six submissions all figured out, which means I’ll make it to day 30 without any problem. One thing I am thinking of doing is submitting once again to the pro-rate venue that sent me the highly insulting rejection letter. I have to admit that a rejection letter with a personal attack was jarring and offensive, but should I let that one nasty letter deter me? I may have caught one of the slush-waders on a bad day – some intern who may have just gotten his own work returned to him with a big red “rejected” stamp and he felt like being horrible to anyone he had to deal with that day – out of frustration.

If I send in another submission, I may get “slushed” by a completely different intern, one without a bug up their butt. That, and they’ve now made it clear they prefer submissions that have already been published elsewhere. Since this venue is a podcast, and none of the contracts I signed for my stories include audio rights, that leaves me with a lot of options. I could just start sending in a steady stream of stories until they get sick of me and accept one just to shut me up. Sometimes persistence can pay off in this business and after a month of submissions, all of the angst involved in expecting rejections is wearing thin. I just don’t care about the “no”s anymore. It’s only the “yes”s that count for anything.

I’m not sure what new story I’m going to start tomorrow, but I will be tackling the three novel submissions before blitz’s end. The main cause for reluctance is the time commitment. Most of the bigger publishers willing to consider rookie work (and they consider those small press published as rookies) have wait times of several months to even a year or more.

Ah well, go big or go home – right?

Those Little Extra Things...

Reblogged from Guild Of Dreams:

I have to wonder how much thought an author has put into the smallest of details in a short story, now that I'm a writer myself. It's not something you necessarily think about as a reader. "It's just a short story" you might think – why would the writer have bothered doing extra research on a character name, a back ground story or have gone as far as to implant "Easter eggs" to connect that short story to some of their other fiction (I had three of these in one of my short stories)?

Read more… 543 more words

Submission Blitz – Day 23

I’m about half-way through “It Was Askin’ for a Whackin’,” so I found an online magazine to submit “Implements” to (gotta love flash fiction.) I expect I’ll run out of short fiction to submit by this weekend. I’m building up the nerve to start shopping out the novels I have ready. If I’m going to do that, I’m going to go big, with a few larger publishers who accept unagented, unsolicited manuscripts in mind. Almost a guaranteed rejection, but so what? I won’t be any worse off for it than I am now, and I can add it to my list of experiences.

I think I had forgotten somewhat that that’s all I was really looking for with my attempts to get published: a chance to see where my writing could go and to try new things. If my efforts pan out, fine – if not, well, it’s about the journey, not the destination. We’re all headed towards the same end. It’s a matter of doing what we can to enjoy the trip. Making yourself miserable with hours spent on ineffective promotion, or fretting over a lack of support from folks who are supposed to be adding their efforts to your own or who are failing to follow through on promises, sort of defeats the purpose. I’ll be a little burnt out from this submission push at the end of the month, but I still think this was a very useful project.

I’m actually looking forward to doing some editing next month, if only for a breather, then picking up where I left off on my latest novel. I can hear the threatening clack of cosmic scissors if I don’t get back to it. I’m not allowed to leave it unfinished and I’m motivated now to get it done.

More tomorrow J

Submission Blitz – Day 22

My first blitz acceptance! After getting thumbs up from the small press editor, the associate editor for the anthology liked “The Paint-box” as well, and sent me an acceptance (yay!) I guess I can’t complain about a lack of rejections if it means I’m going to get acceptances. Even if only 20% of my submissions for the month end in acceptances that still means 6 new stories will be published as a result of these trials and tribulations. Not an unrealistic or unpleasant aspiration.

I managed to finish up “In too Deep” today – easy to manage because it was already 2/3 complete. I had started it for a very particular anthology and given it up when the slot I was aiming for was filled before I had even had the chance to finish it. I’m glad I did get back to it though. When I read through it I really was inspired to finish it, and today I submitted it to an appropriately themed anthology. I don’t know how it will fair, but I think it has a reasonable shot.

I think I’m going to go for some dark humour next and tackle my zombie-weasel story. It involves chickens so I have a possible anthology in mind for it – but we’ll see. I still have “Implements” available for submission if I don’t finish this latest one by tomorrow. I have no idea how long it will be, but I’m expecting shorter rather than longer.

Submission Blitz – Day 21

I completed two flash pieces today (about 2,100 words total,) to give myself a breather tomorrow. I don’t want to be left scrambling over the next 9 days as I finish this month up. I submitted one of them, “Some Kind of Rabid,” to an online magazine today. If they accept the story it will also go into their year-end anthology as well.

Still no new rejections, so I’m going to have to rely on other things. I’m picking up another half-finished story to finish off, so this blitz is proving useful in more ways than one. It’s forcing me to clear out the things that have been sitting gathering dust on my shelf AND nudging me into tying up loose strings I’ve left hanging. After finally writing a conclusion to “On the Tip of her Tongue,” I’m inspired to do the same with two others I have that I left incomplete.

I did get a positive response from one small press editor today. They mentioned that they liked my story “The Paint-box” and that they were passing it along to the associate editor of the anthology. It’s always nice to get feedback of any kind. For me it fuels the fires that get me writing. That, and I thought that story was too mainstream-ish to place in a genre venue, and too genre to try place it mainstream. Apparently, that may not matter – fingers crossed.

I feel stretched this month, as challenged as I feel during NaNoWriMo, but I think this has been a great learning experience. I’ve discovered I can write things I’ve never tried before and I’ve connected with publishers who are new to me. And if I don’t get anymore rejections by month’s end, I’ll have 28 new submissions out there waiting for responses…quite an accomplishment for someone who struggles to average two or three submissions a month.

Submission Blitz – Day 20

I finished “On the Tip of her Tongue” and to my surprise, I found a pro-rate venue open to submissions that looked like it might be a good match. This story isn’t run-of-the-mill horror … more of a “weird tale meets horror” kind of thing. It’s certainly unique, bordering on bizarro. That means I’ve made it successfully to the two-thirds point, despite trials and tragedy for the month.

2013 has been a lousy year, but something tells me if I can cope with what life throws at me and struggle my way to year’s end, things will look up from there. I’m a pessimist by nature, so if I get a good feeling about something, I usually trust it. It doesn’t happen very often.

No new rejections, as antsy for them as I may be. I did get an automated confirmation of receipt when I submitted today’s short story. I’ll work on the two flash pieces I have in mind “Implements” and “Some Kind of Rabid” tomorrow and keep my fingers off that I can stretch what’s left to day 30. This is not something I’d want to try more than once a year. It’s certainly a challenge.

Wish me luck over the next 10 days – I’m going to need it.

Submission Blitz – Day 19

Late in the day as it was, I did get out today’s submission, but it was the unlikely-to-find-a-home “The Paint-box” rather than “On the Tip of her Tongue.” I made good progress on it in the morning, and I’m sure I would have finished it if I had not strayed from my usual routine, but things were a little different today because of Barb’s memorial service. I stayed late at work and hung out with one of my co-workers, Sherry, prior to the service. There didn’t seem much point to heading home briefly only to have to turn around and drive back in again. So I kept her company while she shopped, we went for a burger (a super gourmet burger topped with bacon, monteray jack, guacamole, jalapenos, lettuce, tomatoes and fried onions), and when two other friends joined us, we headed out to the service together.

The service was nice, although sad. Terry, Barb’s fiancé, had a couple of slideshows running with photos of her. Terry mentioned she would have killed him for putting up those photos, but I know seeing those pictures made us all feel better. She may not have considered herself photogenic, but she was beautiful in every single one of those shots – and smiling in most of them. I especially liked the ones where she was wearing one of my face-paintings. She insisted I paint her one every year at the Christmas party. I never would have imagined this year’s face-painting would be the last, but that just goes to show you should never take anything for granted.

Seriously – I mean that. Barb never took anything for granted and that’s one of the reasons why so many people loved her. There were a lot of people at that service tonight, and not one of the people there considered Barb “just an acquaintance.” She had a hard life, but she never used that as an excuse for being bitter or inconsiderate. She managed to make everyone she got to know feel special. There’s not enough of those kinds of people in the world. There ought to be more; the world would be a much better place for it. Sadly, the ones we do have don’t seem to last nearly as long as the selfish, inconsiderate schmucks who don’t give a damn about anyone else.

Barb really liked “The Paint-box” but I may never find it a proper home. It is only borderline fantasy, with a bit of a dark flavour, but just speculative enough that I don’t think it could pass for mainstream. We’ll see how it fares with this submission. You never know just what will grab ‘em.

Submission Blitz – Day 18

I checked my inbox hoping for rejection letters, twice even, but no go. I’m starting to employ my emergency submissions. Today I submitted “Winter’s Hunger” to a writing competition, one of my final few remaining options.

I did get three responses to submissions since last I posted: two receipt confirmations and one letter telling me my story had made it into round two of readings for a pro-rate venue. This has happened before; I’ve made it into second and even third rounds. I’ve just never made the final cut – kind of like the writer’s version of “Always the bride’s maid…”

The hubby got around to reading my two Japanese shorts and aside from Sir Niggler finding a typo in one of them (I love him for that) he also commented that while he liked them, they didn’t read as if I had written them. All I can do is shrug and hypothesize that since it’s not my typical choice of theme, I went about it a different way.

I’m hoping to finish “On the Tip of her Tongue” by tomorrow (the foul language in it makes me cringe – but it’s not gratuitous) and a couple of flash pieces over the weekend. I currently have 5 things I could submit right now, if you count the 3 novels – 8 if I get those 3 pieces finished. I have 12 days left in the month, so I either need more rejections or I’m going to have to come up with 4 more from who knows where. I can see me rushing in a few last flash pieces to make this work.

Tomorrow’s going to be another sad day for me. Barb’s memorial service takes place in the evening and just getting through that will be rough. When I post tomorrow it’ll likely be late and I’ll no doubt be unhappy. Don’t expect me to smile.

Submission Blitz – Day 17

Oh joy! Oh bliss! A rejection letter!

No, seriously, I’m happy about this. I was starting to run out of things to submit. Unfortunately it wasn’t from one of my older submissions. It was from a submission I made earlier this month to … you guessed it … a pro-rate venue. Not a surprise. On a positive note, they did not send me a form rejection letter, but instead something reasonably pleasant (they called the story “imaginative”) with feedback. That made me happy, and I turned around and re-submitted it elsewhere (a venue actually looking for Canadian content – yay CanCon!) From the sounds of it, I missed the end of the last reading period by a 3+ months, but they are accepting submissions for the next one. It just might be a while before I hear anything from them – good or bad.

Since I didn’t find any submission requests that jumped out at me, I decided to get to work again on “On the Tip of her Tongue.” I hope to have it done by the weekend so I can work on more flash fiction for a couple of days. It is a Sam Raimi-esque, Evil-Dead-ish, both funny ha-ha and funny strange kind of horror story. I didn’t abandon it out of writer’s block or disinterest but because I had promised Barb that I would start my next novel on the first day of the next month. When that day came, the story was incomplete so I set it aside to finish later – I could never refuse Barb – and I guess later is now.

I’m still stupefied by the fact that I got this far with the blitz and I may make it all the way to day 30. We’ll see what the next couple of weeks bring.

Submission Blitz – Day 16

I managed to finish “Battling the Shikome” today and sent it off to a pro-rate venue as planned. Once again, I’m expecting the big rubber “rejected” stamp, but that won’t stop me from trying. Maybe I’ll crack that pro-rate ceiling someday.

Part of me is surprised that I made it past the half-way point of this month and I’m still going with the blitz. I have almost nothing left unsubmitted at this point. My count tells me I have three things being saved for later submission dates, one barely speculative fiction Christmas story and a couple of reprints, along with three novels that are all set to be shopped. If I run out of my short fiction, they’ll have to go out.

I really was hoping to hear back on several older submissions by now, to fill in the gaps between now and month’s end. Otherwise, I’ll be trying to come up with a goodly selection of flash fiction or shorter short stories to get me through to the end of this blitz. It’s a welcome distraction at the moment, this focus on getting as much of my work out there as possible. The main thing bothering me is not being able to run the new stories past Barb to get her approval first (or notes on suggested changes.) I’m on my own when it comes to that now.

I have no idea what project I’ll be working on next, but if I don’t come up with something soon I’m going to make myself finish one of the two short stories I have that I started but never completed. I’ll let you know what I picked to do tomorrow.