Rejection Cont'd.

After having a few hours to mull over this latest failure to be published, I've seriously started considering alternate careers. Permanent temp? Dairy milker? I see that one frequently in our newspaper's classified ads--the main requirement being that I must speak English. I think I can do that.

Rejection Blues

Okay. I'm now down to one piece of writing whose fate I'm waiting to hear about from the publishing universe: my article about Shin Yu for Poets & Writers. This means two things: 1) yes, my novel was officially rejected today by the agent from Harvey Klinger, Inc., who said she wasn't enthusiastic enough about it; and 2) I'd better hurry up and send some more writing out again.

If I don't send things out ASAP, and I hear back in the negative from Poets & Writers, then I risk being so down in the dumps that nothing will be sent out for quite some time. And really, that's wasted time. If I'm going to sit around and mope, I might as well still be attempting to get published, since I have nothing to lose but some postage and office supplies which I can later deduct as business expenses. Also, if I'm still waiting to hear back about some piece of writing or another, then I still have a tiny spark of hope. Must...not...succumb...to...discouragement...or...laziness...

Craaaaigslist iiiiiiiiin Spaaaaaace!

I'm not sure I would do a very good job of explaining this, so I'll let you just go to the site yourself to read about job postings being beamed to your friendly neighborhood extraterrestrials. That's right, now you also have to worry about non-earth competition for that plum position.

HA!

The wonderful YA maven TadMack has posted a hilarious new rant on our group blog on young adult literature. Find out about Anne Rice's new foray into the weird and not-so-wonderful.

And, yes, I'm still procrastinating.

Not at Work! Yay!

I actually gave myself the task of researching upcoming writing contest deadlines while sitting here at the computer, but obviously I'm utilizing my skills of procrastination instead. But perhaps I might combine the two and pretend I'm not time-wasting...?

All right. So far, on my spreadsheet tab for Q2 of 2005, I have the upcoming deadlines of Tin House, which already rejected me once a couple of years ago, and the Gettysburg Review, which is currently refusing my internet connection (though that's not as bad as refusing a short story).

I could try the Bridport Prize again, but they rejected my best story last year, so I'm undecided as to whether I ought to send something I'm less confident about just so I can send them something different.

There's Glimmer Train Press, but I think I've been rejected by them no fewer than three times. That tends to discourage a person.

Indiana Review, who I believe I have also unsuccessfully submitted to in the past--let me check--yes, this is true--is having a 500-words-or-less short story contest, but I only have a couple of short-short pieces and they're not what I'd call all that exciting.

There are several awards for unpublished short story collections or collection-length manuscripts, but that would entail me writing about a hundred or so pages worth of new short stories in the next month. That is unlikely.

There's also New Millenium Writings and Red Hen Press, both of which I've considered submitting work to in the past but haven't. Those seem like possibilities.

In other writing news, I haven't heard anything from the literary agent yet about my young adult novel. I'm going to send a friendly reminder letter, though. And I have had a one-sentence review of Shin Yu's poetry book Equivalence accepted to the, uh, One Sentence Review. This is a brand-new lit mag, and I don't even know yet if it's online or print, but it's one teeny-tiny bright spot amidst the rejection.

Refreshingly Snippy

How often do you hear those two words used together? Well, you might find them scootching up to one another in the back of your brain if you take a look at Mean and Catty, Inc., a new blog brought to you by Seren and MeiMei, whom I went to grad school with and who are both extremely cool, funny, and writerly-type peeps. And I don't mean marshmallow peeps. Marshmallows do not in any way come to mind when reading Mean and Catty, Inc., unless perhaps they are directly referenced in the text. No, this blog delivers what it promises, which is "cultural critique with claws." So go check it out!

Argh.

YES, I know, I'm a bad blogger. Good thing I didn't get chosen for that Ultimate Blogger contest (see below--too lazy to create a link).

It's just that I've been so busy, working the same temp job but part-time, and doing my freelance research job, and going to Rob's Color and Design class so I can get back into the habit of doing visual work, and trying to write and get stuff sent out, and getting rejected (this time by the Iowa Awards and Bread Loaf Writers' Confererence). I also applied for a freelance editing job, as if I don't have enough work already. Jeez! So yeah, that's why I haven't been blogging--mainly because of boring crap like needing money and wanting to grow my career.

B-Movie Madness

I've pretty much just been working my butt off lately, hence the lack of posting. Oh, there is some news. Our Geeks Gone Wild crew is starting a new campaign in the Eberron world setting, which will mean nothing to non-gamers and pretty much meant nothing to me until last week. I'll have more on that later. And we got to visit our baby nephew yesterday, who farted big-time while Rob was holding him.

But basically I've been working--at my temp job by day, and at my freelance research job by...well, whenever I can fit it in. Plus I've applied to a couple more random freelance gigs after gleefully finding out that there are now Craigslist websites for both Modesto and Stockton. Not that there's much listed yet, but hey, somebody must have caught my intensely irritated vibes about there being Craigslists for Sacramento, the Bay Area, and Fresno but nothing in between.

Anyway. I have a bit of amusement for you as well today. My ex-IGN.com-colleague Ben has scoured the Internet Wayback Machine and put all of his hilarious B-movie reviews on his website. He used to write a column for IGN Sci-Fi called Movies So Bad You Wouldn't Want to Watch them Sober, which frequently made me laugh my ass off. Just take this small excerpt from his review of Yor, Hunter from the Future:

Imagine if Star Wars and Jurassic Park had a child and you'd have Yor: Hunter from the Future. Wait, that's not quite accurate. Imagine if Star Wars and Jurassic Park were brother and sister, smoked lots of crack, and the resulting monstrously inbred mutant offspring resembled its parents only in the way that all three possess the fundamental properties of mass and volume. THEN you'd have Yor: Hunter from the Future.

For more hilarity, visit the main reviews page.