New Year and a Publishing Question (or two, I guess)

[rax]

I went to bed before midnight. It was nice. Happy New Year.

One of the many awesome things about this year for me was that for the first time since high school I read more than 50 books this year. I'm not sure I read more than 50 books outside of required or recommended reading for classes, though I'm also not sure I didn't; I don't really keep a list. But I actually feel well read and steeped in things that I am interested in and care about, which is pretty rocktacular. Last night I read Dude, You're A Fag, an ethnographic study of masculinity in American high schools by C. J. Pascoe that completely rocked my world. I definitely recommend it, and I'd be happy to lend it out after my gender and sexuality book group meeting on the 14th. Terrifyingly, I knew a decent number of the papers the author cited when she talked about theory just from the author and year. And yes, I rang in the new year curled up on the couch with eredien  and a cat reading about gender.

Since everyone else is doing it, here's a little bit about this year for me: I presented at a conference for the first time, I spent a full year in both grad school and the tech industry, I got promoted, I read scads of books, I got a teaching position that takes effect in February, I visited Seattle for the first time, I discovered that I write really well on trains, I found new housemates twice, I biked more than 20 miles a day on Wednesdays and Thursdays for a good portion of the year such that it started feeling easy, I made new and awesome friends, I got unreasonably into Race for the Galaxy, I threw an awesome party, and I've got a literary magazine in production that will be available this month. I've been really lucky, I've been really privileged, and I've worked really hard, so, I guess those things all worked out well for me. I hope I can help make some of your years more awesome in the 365 days to come.

There are things I would like to do that I haven't yet done. I talked in more detail about some of those things on my personal mailing list, and if you're not there and think you could or should be let me know. One of them is submitting my work for publication --- if you've known me for a while, you probably know that I have a completed novella and two half-novels and dozens of short stories and a plethora of poems that I've put a tremendous amount of work into and have never sent anywhere. I was talking about this elsewhere on the Internet and someone asked to see something, and so I sent them the novella, and they read through the entire thing immediately and praised it effusively. Unlike when I usually get effusive praise, this was someone I don't really know (though a queer twentysomething which is arguably my "target market"). I re-read it this morning and it's not how I would write it now and it's not what I would want to write now, but I also read the whole thing in one sitting and enjoyed it, so I figure I might as well start sending it places.

I figured I would start with McSweeney's, who inspired me to start publishing other people's works and also are just awesome, and also I think it would actually fit there, and not much of anywhere else I can think of. In the long term I need to start reading more places, but in the short term, I need to decide if a 30,000 word novella is better sent to the Quarterly, which mostly publishes short fiction on the short side but does sometimes do a novella as part of an issue, or the Books division, which mostly publishes novels 60K words and up but a couple of the books have been shorter. Oh LiveJournal Friends List, many of you writers, readers, and publishers: Which one should I submit it to?

(Yes, I know no one wants a novella from an unheard-of author. I'm not submitting it so they will accept it, I'm submitting it so as to work through my anxieties surrounding having my work rejected from places, but I figure I might as well do it right.)

Also, these aren't 100% ready to get sent out the door, but looking forward, any ideas for venues for:

• A 60-line pantoum about sex in both senses of the word featuring an awkward dinner conversation
• A 5000-word retelling of the Echo myth taking place in the modern-day Rockies that is primarily a critique of third-wave feminism
• An unfinished novel about personal decay, focusing on the intensely sarcastic relationship between a bookstore clerk and a compulsive liar, that takes parts of its structure from and shares goals with Joyce's Dubliners
• Other things that are the sort of thing I might write? (If you're not really familiar with my writing, that's basically "vaguely surreal but not actually fantastic, incredibly non-epic, skeptical examinations of gender and social roles, usually funny in a dark way except when they suddenly stop being funny and you feel vaguely ill.")

My first step will probably be "Read things from that venue" if you recommend something, unless I already have, so even if they end up not being good fits or I end up deciding maybe that poem is too personal and oh god I should lock it in a box and lock that box in another, larger box, and then throw the boxed box into the ocean, it should be an opportunity to pick up some new places to read!

Thanks for your time, and I hope you are all well. I need to get back to that one paper I still have due now...

Comments

[zdenka]

Your cat was reading about gender?

Sorry, couldn't resist.

Happy New Year! :-)

[rustycoon.livejournal.com]

Beat me to it!!

[rax.livejournal.com]

She did seem interested in the book, but unless she reads with her paws, you're right. :P

[trifles.livejournal.com]

Regarding publishing and so forth, I can't recommend enough Lawrence Block's Telling Lies for Fun and Profit (http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0688132286/qid=1120071454/sr=8-1/ref=sr_8_xs_ap_i1_xgl14/002-2319742-4858466?v=glance&s=books&n=507846), a very straightforward and practical approach to writing and publishing. I think I gave a copy to eredien ages ago, but in case it's gone the way books do, the quote in particular I'm thinking of here is:

When novice writers ask my advice about getting published, one point I can't emphasize too strongly is the importance of being absolutely relentless about submissions. Once you've got a story to the point where you think it's worth submitting, you must submit it and submit it and submit it until someone somewhere breaks down and buys it. Before this happens, you will very likely accumulate rejection slips sufficient to insulate an attic. Your collection may not represent any near misses, may not include any personal notes from eminent editors. You may not even experience the wee thrill of seeing Sorry hand-scrawled across the bottom of a printed slip.

Tough. If you really want to be in this silly business, you cannot let this sort of thing bother you. You paste the rejection slip on the wall or toss it in the wastebasket. You take the story out of the envelope it came back in and tuck it into a fresh one. You consult your records, see where it's been, then flip through Writer's Market and pick out a place where it hasn't been. And then you put it in the mail, and you repeat this process ad infinitum until the damn thing sells.

Over and over. Again and again. Relentlessly.

Personally, I suggest putting together a list of places you plan to submit your story, and then as rejections come in, just go down the list. It keeps you from going too crazy.

Here's (http://ralan.com/) my favorite submissions-listing site; you might want to consider the anthology markets, adult markets, and semipro and pro markets. Here's (http://www.duotrope.com/) a source of genre and mainstream markets, with some information (less up to date, often, than Ralan). Here's (http://users.california.com/~sarapeyton/litmags.html) a list of mainstream lit magazines. And here's (http://www.erotica-readers.com/ERA/G/Call_For_Submissions.htm) a list of submission calls for erotic fiction (both het and queer -- I mention the erotic fiction markets because often you don't need to submit actual softcore stuff, but rather sex-related fiction, which may be a nice place to send the poem you mentioned).

[ckd]

Robert Heinlein said much the same thing about submitting-until-sold.

Since I'm not a writer (or publisher) myself, I don't have any first-hand experience to turn into advice, but I've heard an editor (don't remember who, alas) quoted as saying "Submit it. Don't reject it for me; that's my job." This sounds like a good thing for raxvulpine to keep in mind when submitting the novella....

[rax.livejournal.com]

"Over and over. Again and again. Relentlessly."

This is the sort of advice that, either even though or because it is so good, I really don't need any more of. Honestly, being told this a thousand times is a big part of why I have never submitted anything anywhere. But thank you for the list of lists; I will definitely look through them, and am working on making a list of places I plan to submit to once I've read an issue or two and think what I'm writing might fit. :) (Especially for the erotic markets, I wouldn't even have considered that, but it might be a good call.) Thanks!

[trifles.livejournal.com]

Erg. Totally not my intention to step on evil. :( But I'm glad the lists help! If you get the chance, anthologies of the market you're interested in are really helpful -- while there's no guarantee that they exist, I found an antho of The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction a while ago, and just reading that much of an editor's preference was a major whack in the head about what sort of things I could submit there. I suppose the other way to go with that is to find out the editor of the magazine and see if they've edited a random anthology recently (*cough* Gardner Dozois *cough*)...

[rax.livejournal.com]

No offense taken, just figured I should point it out before twenty people said it. :)

I'll look for anthologies! I like anthologies.

I have a novel of my own...

[rustycoon.livejournal.com]

...and I'll be curious to hear you recount the tale of getting published, or not, however the dice fall for you in the meanwhile. I'm not even thinking about finding a home for it until I finish the thing lest I be told it's "unsellable" and stop, then regret not ever finishing it.

Keep me posted, neh?

[kayunderscore.livejournal.com]

You could take a look at Make/shift magazine:

http://www.makeshiftmag.com/

They've published short fiction, poetry and pieces on gender and sexuality in the past, so it might be a good match for some of your work. If you want to thumb through some of the issues I have, let me know.

[rax.livejournal.com]

Doesn't look like a venue for what I've written so far, but does look like a venue for some stuff I might write in the future, and I'm definitely going to read more of it. Thanks!

[hari-mirchi.livejournal.com]

Also, if you want to borrow back issues I can loan you some.

[hari-mirchi.livejournal.com]

Make/shift is awesome, and every issue I have has at least one short fiction piece, often about sex, gender, queerness, or some intersection thereof.

[rax.livejournal.com]

Ooh, if you and kayunderscore both like it, and it's $20 for a year, I might as well just subscribe. :) I might be interested in reading back issues sometime, too.