Category: Writing

Blacklist

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From a literary journal’s submission guidelines:

We do not ever accept unsolicited submissions of art, novels, novellas, novelettes, or anything else longer than 5,000 words. If you submit a novel or anything way over the word count limits, we’ll probably blacklist you.

Okay. Nothing over 5,000 words. Got it. What about content?

There are some things we absolutely do not want. If you send us stories with these, the story will be rejected and you will be blacklisted:

Are you sure?

This isn’t negotiable, so don’t ask. If you need to have these things in your story, find a different market. We really do have a blacklist.

Somehow, I believe you.

Sea Age (from a work-in-progress)

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On the way home, William thought about aging.

William had seen the effects of the Navy. You had a shore age and a sea age, and your age at sea could affect your shore age. For example, a former AG, Tindale, had joined the Navy at nineteen. Four years later, he left at twenty-three, only he looked closer to forty-three. Life as a ship’s company AG — duty days, maintenance, cranking in the mess decks twice — had made him skip a few grades in the primary school of life. Now he was in college, older, wiser, haggard . . . and not without a huge drinking problem, undisputed master of the beer funnel.

Your shore age is twenty-nine. Which made his sea age . . . he thought about it. One did not simply add a number to get one’s sea age.

William parked in his driveway and looked in the rearview mirror. Adding a number didn’t cut it. You had to look in the mirror too. The changes to your face helped determine the number; they didn’t lie.

“I’d say about fifty,” he said to the face in the mirror.

The lines on that face agreed.

 

Other samples from Keepers of Time:

Bloody Marys

Avoid Writer’s Forums

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Take it from someone who’s been there: avoid writer’s forums.

Unless you know exactly who you are as a writer. In that case, you still need to exercise due diligence when taking critiques from people. Most people, and again I speak from experience, have no idea what the hell they’re talking about. They either fill you up with cliched writing “rules” or they change your style to fit theirs, neither of which is going to help you.

There’s a third type too. The oh-so-clever type. From http://www.vampwriter.com/critique.htm:

Look over my website or look me up on Wiki. I have the chops.

Great big choppity-chops.

Twenty-five years of chops, editing New York Times bestselling writers.

Those are big damn chops.

Note how vague that is: New York Times bestselling writers. That could mean just about anything, from top to the bottom of the list. A good way to mislead new writers into thinking you’re an expert, in lieu of saying anything with substance.

Now, I didn’t use her service myself, and in her defense, the people who have used it swear by it. But…I have to say, the way you present yourself on this page — lines in lieu of paragraphs, pseudo-snark, your overall condescending attitude — makes me not want to take your advice “Vamp Writer”, even if it were offered freely.

But what does it matter? There are plenty of writers out there desperate enough to not only accept your horribly condescending attitude but warp their voices to fit what’s deemed acceptable by you and a group of relative strangers on an internet forum.

My advice? Trust in your own voice, and if you do take critiques, please keep the salt handy.