"While your story will not be subject to further review, we wish you the best in finding a suitable publisher for your story."
It's like my story has been sent to the gulag on a life sentence without possibility for parole. And the sentence wasn't handed down by Stalin himself, but by some random minion detailed to the mass deportation department. Unless I can convince Gorbachev to pardon my story, it'll die out there in the cold snow, which would be better than starvation. Damn, that's so deliciously harsh!
When I have my own magazine (and that 'when' is most certainly not an 'if'), I want to be as mean as possible, because you're worthless as a writer unless you can handle rejection, the harsher the better. You have to learn to hate it, but also to thrive on that hate until you stop getting rejected or you knock over the table and do it your way. That is, you know when the rejection is because your work is bad and when it's because your work is not a good fit. As a valuable public service, then, all of my form rejection letters will be a link to this file:
049 - Rejection Letter
Yes, that's me, David Barron performing Christopher McCulloch's Henchmen 24 (from "The Venture Bros.") doing Billy West's Zoidberg (from "Futurama") quoting a modified pastiche of two of the characters' lines. For the purpose of making new writers cry.
It was not a waste getting out of bed today.
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By popular demand, I changed the font to the most acceptable option (according to Professor Internet). My only excuse is that on my 12" netbook screen every font hurts my eyes just about equally. If you want it in a convenient package that you can customize yourself, go for the FeedBurner Feed of "by David Barron"
+-+Jetta.jpg)
As a responsible science fiction writer, I try to make sure everything I write is vaguely plausible. This is not too difficult. It is becoming increasingly clear that absolutely anything is possible given two of three things: Time, Necessity, and Resources. Give me a fulcrum and I can lift the world, and give me all the energy in the universe and I can do anything. Twice. Research? Perfiffle, and Extrapolation. Plausibility? As long as the reader isn't lost, she'll believe anything. Fun? Well, yeah. And you don't even have to make citations.
Robots do not work that way, Dan DeCarlo! ...Yet.
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2000 words? Yes
Book "Lived Too Long To Die"
Project "Untitled"
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Reading - "Dan DeCarlo's Jetta" (Dan DeCarlo)
Man, I feel bad just listening to that audio file.
ReplyDeleteHey! Why is there an asterisk next to my name in your fellow writers feed? Is this some kind of punk-ass joke?
I was actually going to create a section on my own blog titled "Literallies," but there were two problems: first of all, the potential heart-crusher to those whose blogs I follow but do not follow mine in return and hence don't deserve to be a Literally; and second, the mental association I can't help but create with litters of young animals. Whose teats be we suckin'?
-bn
The asterisk denotes either Loyal Alpha Reader status or the sketchiness of your record breaking attempts. Possibly both.
ReplyDeleteAh, I read your blog without any strain. :D
ReplyDeleteCongrats on the rejection.
lol, that audio file is funny. What if your submitters have no speakers though? What then? o.0
ReplyDeleteI disagree that the harsher the rejection is, the better it is. Being harsh for the sake of being harsh isn't going to create better work if they never learn why their work is bad.
So you wanna have a magazine, huh? I've been considering the same thing myself to be honest.
True, true: when it comes to Real Life I'll add a 'But...' on the end of the audio clip and then try to write out at least a sentence of 'Why?'.
ReplyDeleteThe magazine is a 3 to 5 year goal, once I amass some capital and am (probably) not traipsing around a jungle.
I still sometimes receive rejection letters from things I submitted to so long ago that I'm really amazed. "Wow, really, after two years you decided I hadn't figured out that you weren't interested? Okay, I've long since moved on, but thanks for thinking of me."
ReplyDeleteNinety Days is my upper ceiling at this point. It's the Internet Age, people!
ReplyDelete