Cemetery Dance Rejected The Storm Chaser...

Checked my mail today and there was an SASE of mine from Cemetery Dance. For whatever reason, when I see one of those, I always know it's a rejection slip. It just is. I guess maybe in my deluded mind, it would have to arrive in my mailbox to the accompaniment of a brass choir heralding its greatness. And so, as of yet, I have not heard the golden notes of heaven's instruments. Fuck.

The blog title says it all. CD rejected The Storm Chaser, a story of mine. A little less than three thousand words, dark and moody, suspenseful even. The only thing wrong with it, as far as I can see, is that it's written first person and for whatever reason, some folks HATE that. The idea is sound. I know it is. Waterproof even. What the fuck?

Now, I love Stephen King's work and I love Brian Keene's work and Gary Braunbeck's and Brian Hodge's but I sure as fuck hate competing against it. Motherfucker, what do I have to do to make my shit acceptable?

Granted, I'm no expert and yes, most of the people who have read and liked my work are people I was already acquainted with prior to them reading my work. But damn it, I've been reading since I was 8 and I know when something is fucking good and when it blows and my stuff is...fair. Okay, so it's not the best I've ever read. I'm no John Updike and don't want to be, or try to be, or think I should be.

I've written one novel that sucks ass and I know it. Amaturish, bad pacing, hanging plot lines, spoiled metaphors, etc. But it's a hundred thousand words. I've started no less than three novels with the two unfinished ones standing at forty thousand words or more.

I've also written 25 or so short stories and although five or more of them suck balls, at least 12 of them are strong, with good pacing, impeccable style, and real characterizations. The rest are average to good. So why in the fuck won't people buy them??? Beats the shit out of me. Remember when Charlie Brown would be getting ready to kick the football and Lucy, as always, would pull it out from in front of him at the last instant? Of course you do, it's one of the great tragi-comedic scenes in American culture. And then he's lying flat on his back in the grass and says, "I Can't Stand It!"

Welcome to my world.

I've written at least four hundred thousand words of fiction and although that's not a ripple in Stephen King's pond, it means something. I've written well over five hundred thousand words of journal entries. Let's face it, it's not prime reading material, consisting mostly of "Fuck the Police, Fuck the Police, Fuck, Fuck, Fuck the Police" type entries...but it's still me, putting words on paper and I can do this. I write, in one way or another, on a daily basis and although only a smart part of that is fiction, I think I can adequately express an idea with words and...

You know what? It doesn't make a fuck to me whether CD buys my motherfucking story. Except, it does. Brutarian, many, many, many years ago, rejected my first piece of submitted fiction--rightfully so--and I knew they would. I knew the rejections would come. Now? I've had about forty, and two acceptances. When lord, when's my day? I'll keep writing because I can--my wrist surgery and 8 weeks in a full arm cast made me realize how miserable I am when I can't write. But damn, I don't know which is harder on the ego, competing with the big dogs or competing with the lap dogs.

Jb