Received a form letter from Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine today. No ceremony, no comments, no worries. It was my first sub to them. I usually send my mystery stories to Ellery Queen and thought I’d give the other mag a shot.
Speaking of Hitchcock, I queried the editors of Paging Mr. Hitchcock, the anthology of movie-theme fiction that I submitted to about a year ago, to see if they might want to take a look at “The Converted.” If not, I found a few other markets that might be interested. Including a couple that publish very handsome chapbooks, not unlike the one I got in the mail the other day – Teeth, by Therese Littleton. It even came with a snazzy shark’s-tooth bookmark.
Last week Kathryn told me that her boss, one of the head honchos of the communications department at Trent, wanted to read some of my stories. I finally got around to sending her a few — “Dr. Fall,” “The Tattletale,” and “Charlotte’s Frequency” — and this morning she sent me an e-mail with her comments.
In short, she loved them. She thought the dialogue was “authentic,” and that there was a maturity in my writing. Your prose is smart, crisp, but warm, with an ability to linger over just the right details. Somehow, you move the reader along and I think it’s because of the strong narrative voice. I don’t mean anything overpowering, just the sense that the phraseology is so well built that it creates an empathetic, unwavering and very human “voice.”
I like feedback of any kind, positive or negative, just as long as it’s insightful. It beats the shit out of Your story was really good. As a rule, I don’t let a lot of people read my work before it’s published. I made an exception in this case because Kat’s boss has been asking me for some time, and because she meets a lot of the writers who come to Trent for various events and functions. She said she wasn’t surprised that I was already getting published, and that at this point in my career it’s just a matter of meeting the right people. I’m hoping she might be able to do a few intros some day down the road.
In other news, work on my novel slowed down a bit this week. It was starting to kick my ass, so I decided to take a break for a day or two. Then this morning, I happened upon Jeff VanderMeer’s blog where he gave an update on the pirate-themed anthology he’s currently editing.
Now, I don’t read pirate fiction — never read a pirate story in my life, in fact — and I sure as hell don’t write it. But in typical fashion, as I was reading this blog, a germ of an idea started to form in my mind. I don’t know if this would have happened had I been going great guns on my novel, but that’s beside the point.
All that matters is that on the day I decided to take a break from my novel, I ended up writing two thousand words of what may be the only pirate story I’ll ever write. It’s got a sf twang to it, and will probably be called “Invisible Treasure,” unless I can come up with something better (please oh please). I don’t like the word treasure in the title, but I can’t think of anything else. “Invisible Booty” sounds stupid and vaguely pornographic. I think Claude Rains would do a triple gainer in his grave.
Anyway, the story is really coming along. I’m having a lot of fun writing it, and I’m taking pride in the fact that it contains absolutely no pirate speak, which was ruined for me a few years back after listening to a bunch of fangirls at a Toronto Trek convention.
You can only hear “Ar!” and “Avast!” so many times before you want to shoot someone.
