Tag: Editors

  • Just Some General Bitching (Unedited)

    I’m having a hard time getting myself motivated. To do anything, really.

    Doesn’t help that I got two rejections in the last twenty-four hours. But this is part of the gig; Lots of rejection, and trying to not let it get to you. I’m at the point now where I am beginning to think that the story really isn’t that great. Or it needs a rewrite. Or maybe I just need to burn it and rid it’s presence from my life.

    The other thing is that I have spent the past hour catching up on my flash reading. I subscribe to a large number of online journals who email out flash fiction, and I have fallen behind of late, or the whole Summer. Anyway, I’m trying to get on top of it, and see what is worth reviewing. Nothing has been peaking my interest, and I started to think maybe it’s not the fiction, but me. Maybe my head isn’t in the right space for this.

    Time to take a break.

    More like changing gears, because here I am working on the blog. I have to get in my 1,000 words a day. (You know, it’s not so much writing as it is typing, and I think somewhere Truman Capote is laughing with me.) The only way to get better at something is practice. Practice! PRACTICE!

    As I sit here, I remember once, maybe back in college or sometime in my past, there was this writer complaining how much they hated blogs and bloggers. They said it was useless writing as all bloggers do is bitch about things in badly written ways. I don’t think writer was totally wrong.

    Yet, I feel that someone needs to sit down here and take a stand to say that some writing should just bitching, complaints, and listing of grievances. Isn’t bitching a form of expression?

    Sure, it would be better if I could string this expression in a clear narrative form, that has a well-defined beginning, middle, and end – with that end being a wonderful conclusion the initial thought. That would be nice and clean and concise.

    But life is messy and not clean, and sometimes this human experience is muddy, and gross, and undefined and rough and jagged. And uses bad grammar and has typos or type-o’s, or however one would spell that word.

    Sometimes you just got to get it off your chest to move on. And sometimes you want to scream into the void that a blog. A testament, a covenant that this moment existed, and was real, and had a value to no one else other than the person who wrote it.

    There you go.

  • Thinking Out Loud (Online Lit Zine Idea)  

    I’m still kicking around the online lit magazine idea. I haven’t made any plans yet, just thinking it over. I did ask one editor a question about submissions, but other than that, haven’t made any progress on it.

    But I thought today would be as good as any day to put out some ideas and see if any of them stick.

    First, I still don’t have a name for the thing, and knowing me, it will be the last thing I do. What I have been thinking about is calling the project an “online lit zine.” Calling it a “magazine” sounds too ambitions and serious. Now, calling it a “journal” is a bit too pretentious, even for me. And then there is “zine” which feels a bit closer to the spirit of what I am attempting; which at this moment is not a whole lot, but “zine” does leave the door open to being funky and eccentric. Also, the first professional thing I ever got published was in a Dallas music zine, so it’s like an ode to my beginnings.

    I have also been thinking about the format of the thing, and publication in general. My first idea was to publish a flash piece a week, you know, and email it out to subscribers – like most online magazines do. I would like to get away from publishing an issue once, or several times a year. I prefer the idea that someone would submit something, I like it, it goes up right away. I prefer the idea of speed and immediacy. I am sure if and when I do this, I will come to understand why you should take your time and wait months and months after accepting a piece, to publish it. But as of right now, let’s get’em up! (Shoot now, ask questions later!) It would be cool to post five days a week, fifty-two weeks a year, and give around 260 writers a slot.  

    And I have to sell schwag on the site. I mean, is there any other way for an online lit zine to stay afloat? This does go back to needing a catchy name, co-opting an appropriate attitude. Then I would have to make runs of products limited, and over charge for them. Unless you get published on the site, then you would get it for free.

    Okay, I’m going to roll this over in my head now, and see what sticks.

    This might be a mistake, but feel free to drop a line sharing what you think works or doesn’t work when it comes to online lit magazines.

    And while I’m at it, like and subscribe you freeloaders.