ehh…

… not crazy about doing the double-posting thing anymore.  So just go here for the most recent posts and news.

It aint easy being a horror writer…

… for one thing, were do you submit your work?

I spent some time browsing Duotrope today searching for a potential home for one of my stories, and I noticed just how many markets are temporarily closed.  A database search with “Horror” chosen as Genre, “Short Story” chosen as Length, and “Semi-Pro and up” chosen for Payscale, results in about 100 listings.  Out of those, about a third of them are currently closed, mostly to catch up on submissions and clear out the slush.

I also have a Favorites List with about a dozen markets that are more relative to what I tend to write (and which don’t lean more toward fantasy or science fiction), and of those, about 60% are temporarily closed.

So strangely enough, given how I usually lack any patience, I’m actually sitting on a couple stories, waiting for markets to open back up.

It’ll be interesting to see how quickly some of these magazines get flooded again when they finally do re-open to subs.  I suspect there’s plenty of water behind the dam.

Anyone else having trouble finding potential homes for your work?  Do you have any favorite markets that are actually still open?

Ouch…

Received a rejection for my Haunted Legends sub tonight.  Oh well.  My crossed fingers were getting tired anyway.

On to the next…

Finally writing again

A funny thing happened this week while anxiously waiting for submission responses:  I wrote a new story.  It’s a quick one — only about 1,400 words that I wrote over the last day and a half — but it’s the third story I’ve completed in the last 4 weeks.  This after not writing a lick of fiction in over a year.  Even if they’re not especially good, I’m just glad to be getting them done.

The story, tentatively titled “Like a Lion” was inspired by an assignment I completed as part of the Gotham Writer’s Workshop, which I’ve been participating in during the last several weeks.  I took the online course as a way to kickstart my writing again, to get me back on track, and it seems to be working.

I’ll give it some polishing over the next several days, and get it out on the market.  And that’ll make 3 stories that I have out in submission land — the most ever for me.  Yes, I’m one of those ‘wrtiers’ that doesn’t write very often, but I think that’s changing.

Haunted search terms

Over the last two days, the following search engine terms were used by visitors of my blog:

“haunted legends”

“haunted legends submissions”

“hanted legends anthology”

“datlow haunted legends”

“haunted legends mamatas”

Looks like I’m not the only one getting a little anxious about my sub to this antho.  I mean, it’s been two weeks since it closed.  Isn’t that enough time??

Nossa Morte

The August issue of Nossa Morte has just gone live. It’s another jam-packed issue of some kick-ass fiction!

Haunted Legends – part 2

Story is done. Submission has been sent. I’m not sure if they’re going to love the idea, but the writing is as tight as I can get it. I’m actually pretty happy with the result, and I think it can find a home somewhere even if not in this anthology.

And the wait begins…

Anyone else submit something to this one? Any responses back yet?

Haunted Legends antho

I just finished a rough draft of a story for the Haunted Legends anthology, edited by Nick Mamatas and Ellen Datlow. It takes place at Unit 731 — an experimentation/concentration camp in China during WWII. Not sure if it’ll make the grade and get accepted, but more importantly, I’m glad to just get a story completed. It has been over a year since I’ve written any fiction and my writing is probably not as sharp as I’d like it to be due to the lack of practice, but hey, you have to start somewhere right? Every now and then I had an idea for something and wrote down a few lines, but either lost interest or lost conviction in the strengh of the prose. But this time I really just forced myself to plow through it, to get the full story down on paper and worry about cleaning it up later, and you know what? — it really wasn’t as hard as I thought.

I think Chuck Palahniuk said it best when he likened that first draft of a book or story to forcing a lump of coal out your backside. It’ll be painful and the result will be dirty and ugly. But inside that lump is a diamond that you just need to chip away to find. Might take a whole lot of polishing, but it’s in there somewhere.

I’ve got plenty of work left to do on it, but that first hurdle is over. Hopefully this will be the start of a trend.

More coal on the way…

New Website

My website got a face lift! The awesome new design is thanks to the good folks at The Thirsty Moose Web and Print Design. I hear they are working on some other dark/horror sites as well, so if you’re a writer/editor and looking for a web presence, be sure to check them out. I’m sure you’ll be pleased with the results. I am!

Nossa Morte

For the last several months I have served as co-editor of Nossa Morte, a dark fiction e-zine created by my wife. We went into the venture with only the highest hopes in mind. We want this to become one of the best fiction magazines out there. I’ve been a firm believer from the very beginning that we could reach that goal.

Well call me presumptuous, but I honestly think we’re well on our way. We’ve got 2 issues in the bag and the feedback has been very positive so far. We seem to be attracting more well-known writers with each passing issue. (This is not to take away from the legitimacy of our Issue#1 contributors though; I’ve been immensely proud of the quality of submissions we’ve accepted even from the beginning.) We’ve also noticed that many writers who didn’t submit before are submitting now after seeing the growing roster of fellow writers who have graced our covers as well as the awesome stories we’ve had the privilege of publishing.

So you can hold me to this prediction: within a year, Nossa Morte will be well-known. Maybe not Cemetery Dance-kind of known, but it will definitely have made a name for itself and carved out a nice little niche in the industry.

Check back in a year.