Tag: Submitting

  • My Least Favorite Part

    One of the goals that I set for myself this year was to submit my work to more magazines. I sent out a bunch in 2023, and sort of fell off the wagon in 2024, and that is why I am hitting the ground running in 2025. Well, at least relative to my situation. My goal was to send out to ten different magazines this month, and today, I accomplished it. Not an enormous step, but a step none the less.

    And as I was reading issues and guidelines from new magazines and journals, I started to feel like I did when I was acting, and going out on auditions – which was nervous, a little anxious, and also a touch of faked confidence. I mean I got work, but like all actors, I struck out more often than not. I accepted that it was part of the business, but I never learned to enjoy it. I have friends who love to audition – get in the room, try stuff out, see what works. They like the challenge of it all.

    For me, auditioning was the necessary evil that I had to go through to get what I wanted, and that was rehearsal. I loved every part of rehearsal. The table read, getting there early, making new friends in the cast and crew, learning how each other works, the discovery of the process, the bad days, and the good days, and that feeling of at any moment it could all go off the rails but somehow always magically came together. Not always, but most of the time. Performance was extra, the icing on the cake. Rehearsal was the fun of work. And I really do miss that.

  • A Typo in the First Sentence

    There is one continuous issue of mine, which befuddles and frustrates my life as a writer; typos. More specifically, my inability to proofread and catch my typos.

    One of the best Christmas presents I received was a toy typewriter when I was ten years old. I quickly set about writing stories, and trying my hand at creating a newspaper. No matter how hard I tried, I could never produce any copy that didn’t have some sort of mistake in it, which my older brothers loved to point out. Even in the age of early word processors, my teachers would have a field day pointing out my typos, adding snarky advice how if I slowed down and proofread better, than I could have earned a higher grade. I am sure that any of you, who have spent any time reading this blog, have seen my many, and I mean many, typos that proliferate my posts. I do try to correct these mistakes when I do a reread of a post, but normally, I don’t go back and look at my old blogs.

    But I have been trying to get better. Especially when it comes to submitting stories and other written work. I even ask the wife to lend a hand when she has the time, but on the whole, it is a task that I attempt, and maddingly fail at very often.

    Case in point, I just realized a few days ago that I had been sending out a story that had a typo in the first sentence. Right there, six words in. It should have been the word “simply” but I had written simple. No matter how many times I read, and reread this story, my mind kept seeing and saying “simply” even though, clear as day on the page, it said “simple.”

    I don’t know how I could have missed that, over and over again…

    And today was the day that I learned that medieval scribes attributed mistakes in their manuscripts to a demon by the name of Titivillus. They didn’t make a mistake; It was Titivillus!

    (I like this picture of the scribe looking at Titivillus. The scribe doesn’t seem frightened by the demon waiting at his desk, but he seems resigned that the demon is there, and will do what the demon does. I have a feeling that these two are on a first name bases with each other.)

    I do feel better knowing that this really isn’t my fault, my lack of skill when it comes to proofreading, that is. All this time, there was a small supernatural being that was messing with me. A demon that doesn’t commit heinous acts of death and destruction, but causes people mild annoyance and embarrassment.

  • ODDS and ENDS: Tottenham Woes, Submitting, and Ice Cream

    (The past wasn’t that good, and the future isn’t that bad…)

    Though I hate to admit this, I think it is time to say out loud that Tottenham will not make it to the Champions League next season. Ange Postecoglou has done a very good job with turning the team around and stopping the slide to a middle of the table team. And this was going to be a hard season, as it was the first without Harry Kane. But with 7 points behind Aston Villa, and matches against Liverpool and Man City yet to come, the odds are severely stacked against the team. No Champions League for next season, but there will be a birth in the Europa League. But hey, this was a better year, and next year will have extra competition, and more chances for trophies.

    Not on purpose, but I roundabout took the month of April off when it came to submitting stories. But I am coming back for the month of May. I’ve sent out four submissions thus far, and in the back of my head, I have a good feeling that I accidently messed up on somebody’s submission guidelines. Like, I didn’t put the page number in the correct corner. One time, I sent out a story and misspelled the editor’s name in the cover letter. Yeah, there’s no coming back from that.

    And it is true, ice cream does make everything better. Are you having an awful day? Have some ice cream. It won’t solve any problems, but it does make you feel better. And out of all the wonderful joys and experiences I have had with becoming a father, getting ice cream with my daughter is damn near one of the best.

  • Retired Flash Fiction Story

    (This is an experiment of a flash fiction story that I decided to retire from submitting. Enjoy.)

    Airbag

    There was light, and then there was darkness. Maybe there was sound, but I think all I can remember hearing was the fear in my brain; As I was scared. Or was I screaming? Broken glass? I think so, and if that was true, then I don’t know how I didn’t get cut up. I hit my head, and banged up my back. There wasn’t any blood that you’d expect.

    What existed after, most likely before if only I had paid attention, was the feeling of floating, up and away – of relief that I was here and not in some other place, even though no rational person would want to be where I was, and that’s because they weren’t fully/completely aware of being alive in this reality, but now, or at least then – in the aftermath – I was present.

    When I was a child, growing up in the Cold War, knowing that at any second one of two nations could blow up the whole world; so many people lived in the pool of existential threat every day. Life could end at the push of a button, as that was modernity. But what I fixated on wasn’t necessarily that all life could end, but having to wait for it to end. Being told the missile was on the way, that in a matter of minutes I would be evaporated, but I had to wait for my impending death. That count down is what scared me. Sure, if you knew you had one day left, then you could get some stuff done. But with five minutes – I would just be left with my thoughts. My awful thoughts. Even if I tried to be constructive with my five minutes, I’d most likely use four of the minutes deciding what to do, and that last minute wouldn’t be enough time to accomplish it. But I know me, and I would spend five minutes kicking myself for all the things I didn’t do. Hating myself as the doom, the bomb, the endless end drew nearer. Not enjoying what I had, but regretting what was.

    The darkness did give way to the light once again. I opened my eyes. I looked around and made sure I was alive. On the side of a highway, having spun around, I was alive. Excitable, juiced, sweating yet cold. The Universe had expanded, only to contract back to the same place, and I was still there. The blue gray interstate, an airbag deflating – I had the acknowledgement of time.

  • Research and Submission Day

    I am limited on what I can do today. Between chores, and school obligations, and watching the kid, and having to go to bed early, as I have an early morning tomorrow, I don’t have a large resource of time to work with. That is why I am looking up online journals, and submitting stories to them.

    I mean, I also want to get a blog in, clearly.

    But I do like the rabbit-hole game you can play online with writers, and discovering magazines they have written for. I have subscribed to several online lit journals, which means I get a couple emails a day for new works that have been published. I discover new writers this way, and in their bio’s, usually, is a list of other places they have been published. I select a publication I haven’t heard of before, read a story on their site, which will lead me to that author’s bio. And the game starts all over again. It can eat up a good chunk of your day if you are not careful. I set a time limit for myself.

    I will digress for a second, as I would like to say a word about writer’s bio’s. As a theatre guy who has written thousands of bio’s for myself, it was drilled into me that this was the one shot you have to sell yourself to the audience and, potentially, your next job. It is very difficult to sum up your career in 50 to 100 words, but those of you who use this space to share your sense of humor; you are my heroes. Shine on you crazy diamonds!

    Outside of someone publishing me, the thought that I subscribe to is that I need to get 100 no’s before I get my first yes. Right now, I am at “no” #36 for the year. I got some work ahead of me.