· writing

New (But Only For The Criminally Behind) Discovery

September 19, 2009 in awesomeness, blogging, funny shit, writing | Permalink

So thanks to Kate Harding and Jezebel, I have just yesterday, discovered Dooce. Where have I been since 2001 you ask? Honestly, I have no idea. I thought I was here, you know, hanging out, but it turns out I must have been in outer Mongolia, or the Congo, or maybe just living in my backyard with no internet connection, because this woman has been a major blog presence for EIGHT YEARS and has written TWO books* and was on the Forbes Most Influential Women In Media (#26 represent!) list and I’m just TODAY learning about this.

Frustrating. Regardless, I’m on board now and I’m SUPER on board. I’m going to have to slowly work my way through eight years of posts, but honestly…every single one I’ve read so far has made me laugh out loud. Ms. Armstrong has a fantastic, honest voice that has the huge benefit of being constantly hilarious. I think (so far) my favorite thing about her is how “normal” and like me she sounds even though she has kids. If gives me hope that if I ever have children that I’ll be better able to hold onto that “me” that I like (the parts I don’t like…happy to be rid of).

But I think the biggest lesson I can learn from Dooce, is that people hate people that I think are AMAZING AND TALENTED BEYOND BELIEF. And I don’t understand why they do that. But maybe it will make it easier to bear when they start hating me. I seriously doubt I’ll ever be as famous or prolific as Ms. Armstrong, but as my blog has become (slightly) more popular and I’ve had to seriously consider the idea of my book actually OMG getting published and bringing attention to myself…it’s been hard for me to imagine people actively hating me…even though they don’t know me. I don’t like how that feels (who does?) but it seems like I have have a little more trouble dealing with it than other people (case in point Adam – “who cares what other people think – they’re morons and they usually can’t spell”). Anyway, I’ve gotten a little tiny taste of the vitriol this summer when my blog got some serious page views and I really didn’t like it – but learning that people actively hate Ms. Armstrong somehow makes it easier to understand that some people are always just going to be crazy nutbags. And that I can ignore and laugh at those people…hopefully all the way to the bank like Ms. Armstrong.

I’ll also confess that we have the “Utah connection” and though it sounds like we had totally different experiences (in a nutshell she was raised Mormon and I was not) I totally feel like we would bond over that. Um, that sounds all stalker-y, but I mean it in the most normal non-stalker-y way possible (seriously though, CALL ME). Anyway, this was just a post to acknowledge how far behind the curve I am, and to formally rectify said situation.

Done and done.

*Okay, she only wrote one and edited one, but STILL.

The Best Shows You’re Not Watching

September 9, 2009 in awesomeness, blogging, television reviews, writing | 4 comments

Hello fans of 1979 Semi-Finalist!

I wanted to give all of you heads up that I’m a contributor to the new The Best Show’s You’re Not Watching blog, and this week my first post – a review of the HBO series Hung went up.

Please head on over and check it out. Leave comments about the post there – so that I become their most valued contributor 😉 and don’t forget to sign up to follow the site on twitter if you like what you see.

Thanks for the support everyone.

Rejection Phase III Update

May 5, 2009 in short fiction, short fiction rejections, short fiction submissions, writing | Permalink

Oy. Here we are again. Was this a mistake? It’s sure going to feel like one if none of these other stories come back with a “yes please”.

So add another rejection to the pile. This was my first ever submission to a Science Fiction/Fantasy publication and I knew it was a long shot as the piece is a bit of an orphan…sort of literary, sort of superhero genre-y (like my novel, “le sigh”).

Anyway, the conundrum now is whether to revise based on the very nice personal rejection I got, or to just send it out to someone else. These guys, though they took the time to write a personal rejection and critique, did not “get” my piece. Is that my failing or theirs as readers? It’s really could be either. Hell, I don’t know. I think I’ll sit on it for a week and then re-read it. Decide then. Until then…or until the next rejection…yay!…here are the updated stats.

Updated Stats: 4 of 9 rejected. 5 still out there.

Rejection Phase III Update (yes, again)

April 29, 2009 in rejection, short fiction, short fiction rejections, short fiction submissions, writing | Permalink

Sonofabitch part deux.

That’s right folks. More goddman rejections. At least they’re coming through fast so I can get back to revise and resubmit. Of course, since I’m about to engage in Query Letter Hell, it’s a bit harder on the ego to get short fiction rejections. Let me just show you how that looks:

“Oh woe is me…if nobody even wants my short fiction who the hell is going to want my giant possibly too long novel?! Oh. My. Gods. Someone bring me razor blades!”

Yeah, it’ll look something like that.

For those of you keeping score (you sadists):

Phase III Rejection Stats: 3 of 9 rejected. 6 still out there.

At least five newish stories are still cooking in the old brain…hoping to be born onto paper (or at least finished). I came up with a brilliant idea the other night that I totally stole from something Tina Fey said (not to me obviously…well, maybe she said it to me through the TV…). Anyway, even Adam wants to steal it, that’s how good it is. Now to get it down…no problem. Yeah right.

It’s Done.

April 26, 2009 in acceptance, agents, awesomeness, being made of win!, query letters, writing | 6 comments

Thank the gods. The novel is finally done.

I do have do a final edit and proofread tomorrow but the novel is officially done. It’s clocking in at a massive 440 pages (119,743 words). I’m hoping to cut that down a little bit tomorrow, getting it closer to 400 pages, but done is done is done. Right?

It goes on Monday to my writing group and an agent that has been waiting for it for months (and by waiting for it I mean he probably has forgotten all about it – but technically I have an email telling me to send it on through when it’s done – so I’ll be sending it).

Monday will be Adam’s and my “big day of celebration that we cannot afford” which will include at least the following things: An afternoon showing of Duplicity in our neighborhood theater (movies on a weekday! this is what unemployment should be about!). Dinner out (probably at a seafood restaurant we like on the West Side). And when we come home we’ll probably watch another movie and just hang out while I drink an entire bottle of champagne, already purchased and chilling in the fridge for the last two months waiting for me to hurry up and finish.

I also already placed an order on Amazon for a few things I’ve desperately wanted but told myself I wouldn’t buy until I finished. I bought them about thirty minutes after declaring it complete

Tuesday a small selection of queries (six maybe?) will go out to agents.

And on Wednesday, glorious Wednesday I’ll move on to new projects, which include posting good posts more frequently, working on Jilted League, building my website, drawing some sample Shiksa pages, and hopefully finding a super talented artist to work on another graphic novel project I have up my sleeve – I’ve actually already found the artist I want for this – but she’s playing hard to get – read: not returning my email

Man it feels good to move on to something new. I just wish I’d managed it before it turned 85 degrees outside. I hate New York in the summer…and that’s not supposed to mean late April, but apparently this year, it does.

UPDATE: It took an extra day, but the final revisions are done. I wasn’t able to cut as much as I wanted, but font changes alone saved me 50 pages. Final draft is 388 pages (approximately 118,000 words).

Interview with Eleanor Bluestein, Author of Tea and Other Ayama Na Tales

April 20, 2009 in book tours, writers, writing | 2 comments

Eleanor Bluestein, the author of Tea and Other Ayama Na Tales, was kind enough to take some time out of her busy interview and PR schedule for her book tour to answer some questions. If you missed my review of Ms. Bluestein’s novel last week you can find it here.

Also, the winner of Wednesday’s contest is Kim V. – proud recipient of a free copy of Tea and Other Ayama Na Tales, courtesy of Ms. Bluestein and TLC Book Tours.

1979 SEMIFINALIST: Welcome Ms. Bluestein – thank you for taking the time to speak with me here on 1979 Semi-Finalist.

ELEANOR: Thank you for having me Kelly.

1979 SEMIFINALIST: While creating fictional countries, languages, and worlds are quite common in science fiction and fantasy short fiction, it tends to be more rare in traditional literary short fiction – what inspired you to create the fictional universe of Ayama Na where all the stories in Tea and Other Ayama Na Tales takes place?

ELEANOR: Some years ago I wrote a novel set in a futuristic world. It was never published, but an imagined universe isn’t unprecedented for me. The South East Asian setting, however, is new. I was inspired to write Tea and Other Ayama Na Tales by my travels to Thailand, Singapore, Viet Nam, and especially Cambodia, a country still recovering from a genocide and, at the same time, coping with rapid modernization. I wanted to try to imagine what that felt like. As the stories evolved, I saw that I was combining elements of settings from various countries, so it seemed natural at some point to create a new country.

1979 SEMIFINALIST: You even went so far in your creation of this country as to create an Ayama Na language and you use it in your stories – how did you come up with the language?

Read the rest of this entry »

Phase III Rejection Update

April 19, 2009 in rejection, short fiction, short fiction rejections, short fiction submissions, writing | 2 comments

That’s right, you all know what this image means…we got a rejection letter…yay! (note sarcasm)

The first of the eight that went out has come back with a “thanks but no thanks”. I’m disappointed that this didn’t work out because I continue to really like this story and this is (I think) its third rejection.

I feel like that means I should take it back to the drawing board, but as discussed previously, I was aiming a bit high last year, and even the people that rejected it this year are pretty difficult to crack, so maybe it’s just not a story that can crack that larger market? I think I’ll send it out one more time and if it comes back I’ll send it to revision hell.

On the upside (we must always find an upside) they got back to me very quickly which is always great because then you can put stories back into circulation quickly.

Updated Stats (for those of you keeping score): 1 of 8 rejected, 7 still out there working their magic.

Phase II Rejection Update

February 2, 2009 in rejection, short fiction rejections, short fiction submissions, writing | 2 comments

rejection1

Ah, thank the gods we are almost to the end of the Phase II (2008 ) short fiction rejections. I’m ready to start with a clean slate!

So you know what this cartoon means – I got another rejection. This one was unfortunate, because last time that I submitted to this highly competitive mag I actually got an encouraging handwritten note on the back of my form rejection. Because of that note, I revised a piece I had been working on that seemed right for them and submitted it almost immediately following my rejection. Alas, there is no hand written note of encouragement on this new rejection. It’s good I’ve learned this lesson though, some of these magazines are out of my league right now. I mean you don’t just go out and get the Olympic gold on your first try right? You have to work your way up winning local, city, state, regional, etc., before you go for the gold, right?

So I’m trying to be optimistic (see “glass half full cartoon“)…Phase III begins shortly as my new 2009 submissions get rounded up and I have at least a dozen pieces both old and new that I want to submit this year already, so wish me luck.

For those keeping score, here are the updated stats:

Updated Phase II Stats: 0 for 6 in Phase II (2008 ) and one piece still out there, trying its best. I should know within the next month or so on that piece.

Updated Overall Stats: 1 for 13 overall since I started submitting in Phase I (2007) with one piece still out there fighting the good fight…

Phase II Rejection Update

November 21, 2008 in craptastic, rejection, short fiction, short fiction rejections, short fiction submissions, writing | Permalink

Double Damnit.

I thought I had this one, I really did. In part because through some quirk of the submission process (it’s online for this particular mag) my submission got switched with another person with my same exact name…but living in Arkansas.

I was able to resend my piece and have the problem corrected, but initially, not understanding what had happened I clicked ont the piece by my name (that wasn’t mine) and accidentally downloaded this other woman’s story. I read some of it (is that bad?) before deleting it respectfully, as I hope she would do with mine, but from what I read I do honestly believe my story to be the superior story. Now I know it’s not like “one of us was getting in and one of us wasn’t” so we could both easily be rejected, but it did buoy my spirits a bit to see another submitter’s piece and to honestly believe mine was the far better of the two (I’m usually pretty hard on myself so I feel pretty confident I’m being at least realistic, if not unbiased). Anyway, so I thought I had a shot…and have now been shot down, again.

The good news (I’m determined to find some good news) is that this piece would be good for another contest I heard about through my writing group, which closes very soon. And having just re-read this piece (while comparing it to the other me from Arkansas’ piece) I’m confident it is solid as is and does not need any editing or clean up. So off it goes, back out into the world to seek my fortune…!

Updated Phase II Stats: 0 for 5 in Phase II with one submission still out there being considered and about six still prepping for submission.

Updated Overall Stats: 1 for 12, overall since I started submitting (with one still out there being considered). I started submitting in winter/spring of 2007. I hope to get another half dozen out there before the end of the year, but man is it a slow process. 1 for 12 is not a bad average overall I guess, but I need to be submitting more and faster and writing faster…it’s all gotta happen faster!

AND a Novel Update: While I don’t talk about my novel much on this site, I just wanted to let you devoted Semi-Finalist readers know that I haven’t forsaken you…I’m on really tight deadlines for my new book draft, and hopefully when I get there I’ll be able to devote a little more time to the blog. My first deadline, to my writer’s group, is actually due today…so prepare youself for a deluge of posts (not really).

McSweeney’s Does It Again…

October 15, 2008 in entertainment, mcsweeney's, short fiction, writing | Permalink

Just when I thought there was no possible way to look at the economic crisis and laugh my ass off, I stumbled across this brilliant piece on McSweeney’s Internet Tendency by Jon Methven called “The Economic Crisis Hits The Markson Family Monopoly Board“. Go there and read it now.

While there you may want to check out this other fantastic gem by Colin Nissan “Diary Of A Woman Trapped Inside A Man’s Body Trapped Inside A Beaver’s Body” – hilarious.

Interestingly enough I must be a pretty big fan of Methven’s because I recognized the name and realized I’ve linked to his stories on McSweeney’s before…he’s got a style and sense of humor I just can’t get enough of.

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