in the fall, i sent out queries to agents, seeing what sort of response i would get, not taking it seriously too much. i got rejected within two weeks by almost all of them. so i decided to send the manuscript to one independent publishing place to see what kind of response i would get. that was like four months ago and i got the rejection today. it was personalized, i guess because it has to be, and was nice enough. it said nice things about the collection. but that doesn't matter. i am now retiring all the stories that were in that collection except maybe two. that collection was called Marathon, Ohio. the collection, the book, the stories except two, are retired. a couple of the stories in that collection are linked on the right. i don't know if i will take those links down yet or not (my blog would look sadder and more depressed), i haven't decided. but i'm retiring them. *retired officially.*
since november, i've written five new stories: "Foreign," "In Japan," "Sympathy," "Dana's Sister," and a new one i just finished, called, i think, "House Guests," though i don't like that title much. these will compose a new collection, which will be called i think the title of this blog. i will also include a short thing coming out in Hobart soon. these will 'take the world by storm.' it's a good idea to stay friends with me or try to become my friend. i'm already thinking about what i'm going to say in my letterman interview. i'm also pleased, because by the time this book peaks at 1 million sales, Conan will have the new late night slot and i'll be able to display my humor, sarcasm, and cynicism, yet also a deep sense of compassionate detachment on his show.
i wrote most of a novel this summer, called Meridian. i've looked back over it and i don't think it is tight enough. it feels good for maybe the first sixty pages, then it gets too sloppy or lazy. it is currently 150 pages. i would like to get it down to eighty or ninety and have it be a novella and include it in this new collection. the collection would be around two hundred pages, near 50 k. all the stories in this new collection, as opposed to the one now in retirement, are more sarcastic, cartoony, and mean. they are also better, i think, but that has no objective reality, it's just a feeling i have. nothing in the outside world has confirmed this, the outside world being people who publish things. the true nature of this post is to express great concern, depression, and self-pity. these things will be cleaned away by the time letterman and conan want to do their shows.
here are some good links i've come across lately that have to do with writing. i will put these over on the right soon:
interview with Joy Williams.
essay by John Barth about minimalism. thank you greg.
article by Gary Lutz on the sentence in The Believer. the only thing i dislike about the article is that he doesn't mention william gass. if you're going to talk about the sentence, you have to talk about william gass. you have to at least mention him. while lutz's article is really good and i agree with most of it, he never addresses the problem of having great, honed, and narcotic sentences but also leaving the reader a little cold, emotionless. the names brought up in the article seem to be the typical names. gass is the best sentence writer, and the best writer about the sentence there is. his opening to Gertrude Stein's The Making of Americans kills this article a little. it's still worth reading though.
wait, wait. yes.
article by Kenneth Harshbarger about New Orleans book fair.
4 comments:
unsolicited advice/pep-talk here, but i think you gotta try more than one publishing house, dude, and i don't think you should "retire" any of your stories until you've sent them to like, i don't know, seventy five magazines or so. my story "you used to be funny" got rejected literally fifty times before it got picked up by the saint ann's review, and they pay (only like a hundred bucks, but hey, you know. mary gordon is on the advisory board; remember the lit/porno debate? she's the one who wrote the article). "wolfman," my most recently accepted story, got picked up by the georgetown review after it got rejected by 26 places, and from what i understand the g'town review is sort of prestigious, too. more so than most of the other places i've been in.
as for looking for an agent, i think they generally don't give a shit about short story collections. you gotta look at publisher's weekly, or whatever that magazine's called, and also at the lmp, and find agents who have represented short story collections in the past, or are actively looking for them. a random agent is usually going to say know as soon as they see the words "short story," unless they see the words "the new yorker," or "the paris review" right next to them. otherwise my guess is you need a novel.
which is why i'd say don't try to cut your novel in half. at it's current length it IS a novella. the word count on a novel manuscript should be 75-preferably 80 thousand, which means that rather than trying to cut it in half you should be thinking of ways to double it. i remember reading the first forty pages or so and it was really good. fucked up shit kept happening. fighting the girlfriend, finding a dead guy in the street, meeting the dope-smoking cop.
anyway, i know you weren't asking for an advice/pep-talk column, but for what it's worth, i think you gotta make the novel bigger and keep sending out the stories.
the thing is that ultimately we don't have any control. let's say an agent likes one of your stories and says sure i'll look at the collection. unless you're like, richard ford, the agent is still gonna have the ability to say "take this story out and write three more and i don't like the title" before it ever makes it to print.
anyway, i hope i'm not pissing you off here. i'll get back to you on that story you sent me pretty soon.
yes, this makes sense. i need to send out more. emily says this too. i send out to like ten places always thinking that's enough. your comment is making me want to send out a bunch more. i think i'm going to do that next weekend.
part of the reason i'm retiring some of these stories is because i think i'm in a 'new phase' of writing now and i don't think those older stories match up or something. i don't think they're bad, just different.
the novel thing i don't know. i plan on rewriting it this coming summer (for some reason i can only write it during warm months), so i will see then. it is probably better to lengthen it, i'm just worried about lengthening it to lengthen it. i would rather read a tight, short book, from a small, independent press, than a three-hundred or four-hundred page book that feels like it has extraneous scenes and chapters.
i will send out more. i'm not pissed off. this is good. take your time on the story. did you see Doubt?
I feel compelled to say something lest I be a peeping tom. But everything I type seems so weird.
hello alice. typing is weird. i don't know. i think that's what people reading blogs do, be 'peeping toms'.
how is mississippi and usm?
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