Well after the last couple of weeks of me being chatty about my checkered past in the horror field, this week we are back on more familiar ground, with a lovely random rejection letter from the Maria Carvainis Agency:
Tag: writing
Okay, So I Lied
Earlier, I wrote a brief story about how I got into the horror field; now, as promised, is the story of how I got out.
Sorry, No Part Two Today
So I was working on part two of my story about how I got into and out of the horror field. I think it was a good post — unusually long (by my standards) and unusually revealing (also by my standards). It was almost finished; I just wanted to add a few links.
And then my browser ate it.
And WordPress, which normally keeps revisions of drafts as you go along, mysteriously didn’t have any revisions of this one.
I’m just not feeling up to retyping the whole thing again right now. So, unfortunately, I’ve got no Part Two to show you today. Can I interest you in some talk about the legendary Chilean Meat Plant instead?
Stumbling Into The Horror Field
In the comments for my “Pinch Bobby ‘Til He Bleeds” post, Almostgotit asked how I got into writing horror and why I got out. Like many things in life, I just sort of stumbled into it, but getting out again was a little more complicated.
New (To Me) “Night Watchman” Review
As I mentioned a while back, I periodically Google myself to see if there are any new reviews or other mentions of my stuff. Evidently I don’t do it often enough, though, because I’ve only just now become aware of this review (published last August by Sharon of A Bookworm’s Journey; Sharon’s dog Rusty is good friends with Dennis the Vizsla, and the two can often be found conspiring together against the squirrels) of Night Watchman. A brief excerpt:
Once I started it it was hard to put down. The characters and places Viscosi created were engaging, interesting. I would have loved for Yolanda, a psychic, to have had a bigger part.
I can’t argue with that — by the time I was done writing this book, Yolanda had become my favorite character as well. Perhaps she’ll get her own story some day …
Sharon gives Night Watchman 4 out of 5 stars. Thanks, Sharon!
Random Rejection: Pulp Magazine
This week’s rejection “letter” can’t really be called a letter. To me, it looks more like a sign that you might see posted on the telephone pole outside your house advertising a garage sale, except in this case, it’s advertising that your submission will not be appearing in Pulp Magazine.
The Superior Scribbler Award
This week I got a cute addition to my iconography from Alyson over at Laugh in the Sun:
Random Rejection: Innovation
Here’s another example of a form rejection letter that manages to convey a little more information than just “go away”. While obviously not nearly as valuable as one that contains actual feedback, I was still happy to get this sort of rejection, because at least I felt that someone had taken the time to read what I sent them.
NaNoWriMo
I had never heard of “National Novel Writing Month” until a very strongly-worded jab against its participants came through on one of my RSS feeds. So I went to have a look at the NaNoWriMo web site to see what it was all about. Basically, the idea is to encourage writers to bang out a 50,000-word novel during the month of November. As the web site says, “You will be writing a lot of crap”, but is that a bad thing?
Random Rejection: Design Image Group, “Night Watchman”
So one of the things you hear when you are submitting fiction, especially long-form fiction, is that lengthy response times are good. It means that the publisher is seriously considering your manuscript, that it has probably passed from the slush pile through the first readers and is perhaps, even right now as we speak, sitting on an editor’s desk awaiting the final stamp of approval before it is accepted.
Or it could just mean that your rejection letter was lost in the mail.
Continue reading “Random Rejection: Design Image Group, “Night Watchman””
Viscosity 