Wednesday, October 7, 2009

Generic October Entry

I haven't been writing much here because I've been writing elsewhere. Or rather I've started submitting my short stories for publications. So far I have a stable of five stories (six if you count that I changed one slightly to "Christianize" it for a particular magazine) and and have received five or six rejection notices. YEAH! I'm not taking it personally, though, 'cause volume is the name of the game. Sure, after 100 rejections and not one bite I might feel the sting but for now it's onward ho!

The plan is to write one short story or make two submissions per week. I found an amazing site that lets you plug in the type of publication and it will give you a massive list of on-line and print magazines, how much or if they pay, their criteria, etc. For the most part it seems that my genre is "slipstream", which not surprisingly is a fancy word for "weird and offbeat." Go with your strengths, I suppose.

I also completed the Fruit Bat song... nine months in the making from melodic and lyric-snippet conception in January, hastily sung into a digital recorder to be revived a few months later when I had time to flesh it out. The amazing Greg Flesh, guitarist for Daniel Amos and The Swirling Eddies, laser scientist for NASA and potential Lutheran pastor, was generous enough to add lead guitar tracks all the way from California. Now it's time to work on a song for a Gene Eugene tribute album ("Hide Away") and two cover songs for Melynda for Christmas.

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