I have this short story that I started writing in October 2001 (according to the document properties in Word). It was going to be my Ray Bradbury story reined in. A touch of Bradbury excess in emotion and zeal, but nothing approaching the level that only Bradbury can do.
When I finished it, I thought it was perfect. I’m pretty sure I wrote it in response to a call for submissions for a themed anthology. I got it in fairly late in the process and I received a very encouraging rejection letter from the editor. The gist of the rejection was that she really liked the story, but had already accepted one that was so similar in setting or theme that she couldn’t justify taking mine, too. (That in itself is a cautionary tale—don’t wait until the final day of the submission period to send in a story.)
Encouraged, I started sending the story around and gathering rejections. A lot of rejections. I had so much faith in the story that I probably submitted it more than any other. I workshopped it at World Horror one year, and received lots of positive feedback. I’ve filled up one entire page of markets where it’s been, and still no takers.
Clearly, there’s something wrong with the story. There is some delicate content, which probably puts editors off. So, I’ve decided to revisit the story. My original plan was to tame down the controversial material, but when I started reading the story this morning, I realized that I had about three pages (of an eleven page story) of prelude before the story begins. The writing is fine, but there’s no hook. The story problem isn’t clearly stated until almost a thousand words in. What a revelation. I skipped down to page three and started the story from there. I copied and pasted a few nice details from the earlier material, but not nearly as much as I anticipated.
The whole thing is, at the moment, scattered across the tarp like an engine undergoing an overhaul. When I was a kid, I liked taking things apart (alarm clocks especially, because they had so many pieces) but not so fond of putting them back together again. This time I think I can reassemble the parts to make something that works better than the original. I anticipate having some parts left over, but that’s okay. They were the appendixes (not appendices) of the tale, vestigial paragraphs that had a purpose in my mind but not in the story.
My quandary, once I’ve finished, is this: do I resubmit the story to some of the places that have already seen it, some as long as five or six years ago? The tale has a lot going for it. I’m convinced of that. I’d really like to see it well-published. We’ll see.
The Monday night CBS comedy trio is going strong. Big Bang Theory tickles the crap out of me. One of the funniest moments in last night’s episode was the closing shot. Sheldon had lamented earlier that the name of a fast food restaurant (Soup Plantation) made no sense because you don’t grow soup. It was part of a rant about the relative merits of his obsessive eating schedule. Several minutes after that diatribe, Lenny says, “You can grow the ingredients for soup.” You can see this information being absorbed and parsed by Sheldon. His only response is a sage nod as he acknowledges the point. Roll credits. If you haven’t been watching the show, that makes no sense whatsoever, but I thought it was brilliant.
I’m currently reading Fatal Revenant by Stephen R. Donaldson, the second volume in the final chronicles of Thomas Covenant. At present, I have a strong distrust of this version of Covenant, the one who presents himself to Linden Avery at Revelstone. It’s a long book, and my reading time is seriously curtailed by research and writing these days, but I’m looking forward to digging into the story. I’m about 65 pages in so far.
