author: Nicole J. LeBoeuf

So I didn't actually announce that "Blackbird" didn't actually sell, right? "Blackbird" got the most adorable form rejection letter ever. Of course, invite-only anthologies mean that "form rejection" takes on a different meaning. It's not like an ongoing quarterly magazine with its dreaded "Did not meet our needs at this time." In this case, a limited amount of people were getting it, all at once, and it was written specifically for this instance, and it was hand-pasted into the body of individual replies to individual submission emails. So. That said, the copy that got pasted was adorable. It also made me grin and look forward to submitting to this editor's next anthology.

Today, I failed to get any new work done on the fiction queue, but I did manage to update my manuscript submissions database. This meant grabbing dates from various emails, and also doing more than a few direct database inserts and lookups via PHPMyAdmin because I never got around to building certain of the key web forms that would make it simple. Yeah, I write my own PHP/MySQL widgets (this blog, for instance -- there's a reason it doesn't look like Wordpress or Typepad). They aren't very well-written widgets. I bought an O'Reilly book that's supposed to help me write better widgets, but first I have to read the book. Meanwhile, I can add a new market or a new manuscript from my Super Sekret Website (Memberz Only), but if I want to juxtapose them interestingly, I have to clamber backstage and futz with the tables directly. For now. Until I get off my butt and fix things.

So. The Feb 15 email submission of "Blackbird" got logged along with the Mar 11 rejection letter in the Correspondence Log table, right after I added the entry for the anthology in the Markets table and the entry for the submission itself (defined as "intersection of this manuscript and that market) in the Submissions table. My table relations, let me show you them! Then I had to go back and add the rejection letter for "Lambing Season" from another anthology last year. Then I clicked "Show stuff in slush," knowing full well I had nothing in slush; when something came up, I had to locate and correct the orphaned Correspondence Log entry.

All of which left me with, like I said, absolutely zero in the slush. We had to fix that.

"Blackbird" has been kicked off the couch with instructions to "get off your lazy bum and get a job or something, I dunno, you can buy your own damn canned herring, these are mine. Especially the herring in cabernet sauce, you try taking those and you pull back a stump, my lad." So the story took the hint and slushed its happy ass out the door.

And then I logged the submission, both here and over at Duotrope, because for once I was submitting not to an anthology but to a magazine, so I could actually pull the market's name out of Duotrope's search engine.

Tomorrow I may be very ambitious and show a couple more manuscripts the slush treatment. Also, I may actually get some work done toward something else being submittable.

Only, I don't know if anyone else has noticed this, but, what's up with 70% of all surveyed pro markets, and some semi-pro too, being closed until May? I mean, I knew the industry was smaller than it looked, but damn. Them's some serious cahoots there, y'all.

Well, and I did go spin yarn. For several hours. I now have all three singles of my Cloud City "Primrose" (some dyed merino I picked up at the wool market) all spun and ready to ply. (If you're on Ravelry, I'm NicoleJLeBoeuf and it's in my Stash. Link will probably only work if you're logged in.)

These several hours at the spinning wheel did wonders for unwinding my naturally high-strung temperment, but did not work any weird supernatural charm on certain anthology editors. I mean, not that I expected it to--I'm superstitious, sure, but not that superstitious--but it didn't. "A Surfeit of Turnips" will not grace the pages of the Haunted Legends collection. Ah well.

So I'll give the story a gentle once-over (I can't believe I turned it in with "momento" where "memento" should have been! also, some lumps remain) and then send it Right Back Out Again.

You know the adage: "Never let a manuscript sleep over!" Because, I swear, you let 'em sleep over, they take over the couch, throw trash in the floor, and, before you work up the guts to evict them, they've burned cigarette holes in the carpet and uphostery. And you never know when and where you'll find their discarded underclothes a year later. So. Best not to go there.

After that, I think I have a date with some knitting. I mean, fictional knitting. With demons or something. No, of course I didn't mean real-life knitting--the singles aren't even plied yet. Duh. And, unlike the characters in this story I'm thinking of, I always bind off before summoning.

(I know, I know. But I only put that joke here to prevent myself giving in to the temptation to put it in my story.)

Hello! I'm in Chicago. I didn't expect to be here at 4:30 PM on Thursday the 29th--I quite expected to be on Amtrak's Maple Leaf line headed for the Canadian border--but them's the freight. I mean, the breaks.

It occurred to me that although I've been blogging up a storm at Metroblogging and Burnzpost, I haven't said much over here in a while. Um. There are reasons. I won't say what they are, because I don't want to disturb any assumptions you might have about them being good reasons. Just you go on thinking that, eh?

Anyway, my pirate story won't be in Shimmer's pirate issue. The rejection letter was complimentary. I don't know whether JJA uses form email letters like he does snail-mail ones. If so, this was the "nice writing but didn't ultimately work for me" one. Which isn't a bad thing.

So "A Wish For Captain Hook" will get in the rewrite queue, right behind all the other short stories waiting to be rewritten. I'm-a gonna be working on that whilst riding the rails. A sort of mobile writing retreat, see. No internet means no Puzzle Pirates to distract me! Yarr! Unfortunately, I can't bring myself to uninstall Spider Solitaire, and it's amazing how addictive that gets when there's other things I should be doing.

How many people bring a printer onboard an Amtrak superliner and set up a mobile office in coach? I mean, really? Can't be that many. People stared a bit.

When next I update, it'll be from the World Horror Convention in Toronto. At which I shall be arriving a day later than planned. Darn it. But for the record, Amtrak treats its "distressed passengers" very well. The hotel was quite posh.

I have got to think up new titles for blog posts that simply say "X will not be published in Y." Most of them start with "Another." In any case, Aberrant Dreams will not be publishing "Heroes To Believe In." I know this 'cause I got another rejection slip. Writers get those. I must be a writer or something. Onward!

The cycle comes round again. "Turbulence" will not be published by Aoife's Kiss. The rejection letter was encouraging. It stated that the story had some "very good moments" but ultimately "did not rise above the rest of the pack."

In updating my manuscript database, I am reminded that this story's previous rejection letter was similarly promising; the editor said it "made our second round."

In terms of the notorious "Slushkiller" post at Making Light, I think this story is hovering around Generic Reason For Rejection #11. Maybe. I hope?

In any case, it'll hit a new slush pile tomorrow. Wish it luck with me!

Well, I'm not. I know people sometimes say "Not that I'm bitter or anything" in a sarcastic sort of way to imply that yes, they are bitter, very bitter indeed, and they'll hope you realize that and sympathize with them, but me, I'm not.

No, really!

Anyway, Twenty Epics is out. And you should buy it. And so, in fact, should I.

The anthology's submission guidelines proposed the riddle, "How can a work of short fiction be 'epic'?" You might remember that I submitted a story to this anthology, but I don't think I ever blogged about the rejection letter. Said letter made me very happy with its handwritten note complimenting my writing while lamenting the story just wasn't quite epic enough. Having failed to answer the riddle myself, I am very curious to read the riddle's various solutions.

It's so very difficult to be bitter when there are 20 new stories to be read, all of them guaranteed epic!

(Meanwhile, this is not the "more later with writing" post I promised. But I am home, and the Dell Inspiron E1505 is with me, and I am using it, and it rocks.)

Annnnd this just in. I am not a winner in Wild Child's Fairytale Contest. I just found this out by visiting the site, where the winners were posted yesterday. (I probably should have figured that out earlier, what with not having been emailed by May 20th as they said all winners would be.)

They say they will put all stories (I presume the winning ones) up by the 15th. Should be some good reading, so bookmark the link!

Heyo. Long week of recovering from after-travel. This happens. You'd think there's nothing to do on a train but relax, y'know, sleep and eat and knit and read and sleep some more? But maybe I suppose the train is stressier than it looks: what stop are we at? how long do we stop there? is there wi-fi nearby? how long until Denver? how far behind schedule are we now? is it dinner-time yet? Sort of a low-grade undercurrent of time awareness and schedule anxiety that makes real relaxation an impossibility. Possibly. In any case, on my first day back home I didn't manage to do anything more than lump.

Got a bit more news about stuff. Fantasy Magazine will not be publishing "Heroes To Believe In", for one thing. Sadness. On the other hand, I got good news from Borderlands Press, regarding my submission of "The Impact of Snowflakes"; I will be attending their "boot camp." Interestingly, one of the instructors who'll be there that weekend was in fact on the judges panel at the Flash Fiction contest: F. Paul Wilson. I am, shamefully, unfamiliar with his writing, which is why I didn't think to mention him in my big "Squeeee!" post, but I aim to rectify that matter shortly.

So I have plane tickets to buy, and I need to submit the story I actually want workshopped. I'll be sending them "Putting Down Roots" after digging up my husband's thoughtful comments on it for a brief rewrite. I haven't looked at that story in almost 4 years now; I need to make sure it isn't embarrassing. (Embarrassing from a craft point of view, OK, it's already embarrassing from the "OMG there's sex in it!" point of view, and I just need to get over that.) I also need to bring it down to under 5,000 words for the purposes of the workshop guidelines. If I can't, well, I guess they'll be critiquing "Heroes" instead.

And that's all I know for now. Lots of work to do over the weekend. Look for revisions to the stories mentioned above, further work on The Golden Bridle so that the next two chapters can be ready for review after the first two get crittered, and the completion and presentation of Tree's Graduation Socks. Busy busy busy! No lumping allowed! Busy-busy!

Just got the email back yesterday afternoon from Fictitious Force. They will not be publishing "Turbulence" after all. Deep *sigh*. The email said something that made me smile, though: "Your story made our second round, but we ultimately decided not to publish it." Oooh! My story was not an immediate "we don't think so"! That's kinda cool.

Meanwhile, I just got done attending the first session of Nancy Kilpatrick's Editing Workshop at the World Horror Convention. I passed out copies of "Still Life In June", which I brought up to something like presentable over the last couple days. Tomorrow we're all going to read our stories aloud, as we have a three hour session and Nancy has figured that all the reading will take 67 minutes total. (One minute per page.) A really exciting thing, besides the excitement of having my work put in front of Nancy herself, is that Stephen Jones will be sitting in on tomorrow's session too. That's just too cool.

A lot of things are cool today.

Now I'm going to take a nap, because one of the things that is uncool is my raging sore throat. I'm hoping to feel well enough to enter the Twilight Tales Flash Fiction Contest tonight... which involves reading aloud. Quickly. Yeesh.

This is just to say that the short story "Turbulence" has now gathered its fifth rejection letter. It will not see print in Asimov's. *Sigh*

This is also to say that the short story in question was only allowed to visit long enough for a cup of tea and a little chat. Then it was propelled firmly out the door again. Consider it re-slushed.

And that is all.