Hope Springs

Well, I’m officially silly. I’ve been striving for this recognition for quite some time, and although I was recognized for my silliness by Lana, I have to admit that I half suspected her of bias. Now I have independent corroboration of my silliness, however, and can feel comfortable in proclaiming it to the world. Lest some of you doubt my achievement, just eyeball the pretty little picture below. Read the caption. And bow, or at least offer the glorious raspberry of goofiness, to my greatness.



Why did I receive such an award, you may well ask? And if you don’t I shall tell you anyway. It’s for a story called “Mirthgar,” which I recently submitted to a humorous fantasy anthology. And which was acknowledged today as “worthy” of inclusion among other jewels of jocularity. I’m not sure when this will be published but will let everyone know.

Just in case readers of this blog begin to suppose, based upon my last couple of posts, that every word that falls from my word processor is immediately snapped up for publication, let me copy a selected section of my submission record below:

Dec 1, 2007 – Sub “Love in the Time of Cybersex” to Space & Time. Rejected.
Dec 1, 2007 – Sub “Life is Football” to Today’s Christian. Rejected.
Dec 1, 2007 – Sub “Charade You Are” to Otherworlds Anthology. Rejected.
Dec 1, 2007 – Sub “Unicorn Lost” to Coyote Wild
Dec 6, 2007 – Sub “Insomnia in a Quantum World” to Abyss & Apex. Rejected.
Dec 6, 2007 – Sub “Silence Razored” to Abyss & Apex. Rejected.
Dec 6, 2007 – Sub “You Were There” to Abyss & Apex. Rejected.
Dec 7, 2007 – Sub “Blue Soul” to Dreams & Nightmares. Accepted 12-23-07:
Dec 7, 2007 – Sub “With Souls Electric” to Dreams & Nightmares. Rejected.
Dec 7, 2007 – Sub “Exquisite Machine” to Dreams & Nightmares. Rejected.
Dec 7, 2007 – Sub “In Poetry We Trust” to Dreams & Nightmares. Rejected.
Dec 7, 2007 – Sub “Neuronomicon” to Dreams & Nightmares. Rejected.
Dec 7, 2007 – Sub “Recompense Reprise” to Niteblade. Accepted, one line change
Dec 7, 2007 – Sub “Psychosorcery” to Niteblade. Rejected.
Dec 7, 2007 – Sub “Need” to Niteblade. Rejected.
Dec 11, 2007 – Sub “Emotion and Medium in Writing” to Bret Funk. Published
Dec 28, 2007 – Thank you note to Dreams & Nightmares.
Dec 29, 2007 – email note to Space & Time, thanks for consideration.

START OF 2008
Jan 1, 2008 – Sub “The Unshriven” to MicroSpec.
Jan 1, 2008 – Sub “Inspiration” to MicroSpec.
Jan 1, 2008 – Sub “Love in the Time of Cybersex” to Strange Horizons. Rejected
Jan 2, 2008 – Sub “Worms in the Earth” to Flashing Swords. Contract Sent.
Jan 3, 2008 – Sub “Plague” to Whispers of Wickedness. Rejected.
Jan 3, 2008 – Sub “In Poetry We Trust” to Whispers of Wickedness. Rejected.
Jan 3, 2008 – Sub “Forever” to Whispers of Wickedness. Rejected.
Jan 3, 2008 – Sub “Exquisite Machine” to Whispers of Wickedness. Rejected.
Jan 3, 2008 – Sub “Neuronomicon” to Whispers of Wickedness. Maybe?
Jan 5, 2008 – Email thank you note to Flashing Swords.
Jan 5, 2008 – Sub “Grammar Primer” to Bret Funk. Published.
Jan 6, 2008 – Sub “Branded” to Star*Line. Rejected.
Jan 6, 2008 – Sub “She Is” to Star*Line. Rejected.
Jan 6, 2008 – Sub “Song to a Rose” to Star*Line. Rejected.
Jan 6, 2008 – Sub “Remember” to Star*Line. Rejected.
Jan 6, 2008 – Sub “Far Beyond Home” to Star*Line. Rejected.
Jan 10, 2008 – emailed note back to Whispers of Wickedness.
Jan 26, 2008 – Sub “Mirthgar” to Silly Fantasy Anthology. Accepted
Jan 29, 2008 – Sub Where it Wanders, 500 words to blog contest. Rejected.
Jan 30, 2008 – email Strange Horizons thank you for consideration.
Jan 30, 2008 – Sub “Love in the Time of Cybersex” to Heliotrope.
Feb 2, 2008 – email Abyss and Apex acknowledgement to their email.

Rejections are a fact of life for writers. 2008 has been a good year for me so far, but as you can see from the entries above there have been more rejections than acceptances. So what. You keep going. A story comes back, it goes out again. I got a rejection on “Love in the Time of Cybersex” on January 30 and sent it out again later that same day, even though I had to edit out 250 words to get it down to the submission requirements for that market. You get a rejection, you send a note to that magazine saying thanks for their consideration. Because you know it’s nothing personal. And one day you might send something their way again. Maybe they’ll even take it. Hope springs eternal in the mind of a writer.

ADDENDUM:
By the way, when I first posted this I forgot to mention that many of these subs are poetry. To avoid confusion, the stuff to Star*line, Abyss and Apex, Niteblade, Whispers of Wickedness, and Dreams and Nightmares is all poetry. The stories here are "Love in the Time of Cybersex," "Charade You Are," and "Unicorn Lost." "The Unshriven" and "Inspiration" are microfictions. "Life is Football" is an essay.

Also, this is not all recently written stuff. Some of it's new. Some is older stuff I'm still submitting.

Flashback Corner

I was converting some old REHupa (Robert E. Howard United Press Association) files into new Word and found some commentary that brought back memories from what is now a fairly long attempt at a writing career. Take the following little nuggets, for example. (Modern day comments are in parentheses.)

1. Good news on the writing front. I've sold an SF story called "Floater" to a mag called Radical Infinity. Sounds like an interesting magazine, though their contract was almost as long as my story.

(This magazine folded before publishing the story and although it was submitted several more times the tale has yet to see print. It was written in 1991.)

2. I just got one of the most insulting rejections of my life. This was from Jennifer M. Caudle at The PostModernist's Journal of Horror. I quote: "Mr. Gramlich, You're headed in the right direction. There is potential in your prose, but you should consider concentrating on refining both your basic writing skills and your storytelling skills. Good luck." OUCH! That hurt. And, what's worse, I thought the story was one of my better efforts. Just goes to show what I know.

(This story was "Splatter of Black," and I got this rejection in 1994. A few months later I sold the story to Dark Terrors, a hardback horror anthology that marked my most lucrative sale to that date. One editor's reject is another's buy.)

Maybe I'll post a few more such nuggets next time, just to show the ups and downs, and sometimes the just downright sideways weirdities, that happen in the writing biz.