New Low in Submission Etiquette

An editor I know received a submission that was, get this, landscape format AND in all-caps.

Wow.

Note to submitters: Don't do this. Ever.

Dilemma

I belong to a reading group, and it's an awesome reading group, populated by writers and editors and such-like.

This month's book is called Casting Spells. It's a romance. There are only a few genres I very rarely read. Romance is one of them.

I'm having a very hard time reading this book.

It's not awful. It really isn't. It has an engaging narrative style, it's witty, it's got the makings of a pretty good storyline. I've tried to read MUCH worse published fiction, like Stephanie Meier's The Host. But I'm reading The Book of Atrix Wolfe by Patricia McKillip as well, and the two just don't compare. It's like switching back and forth from Masterpiece Theater to Sesame Street.

So what do I do? We're meeting next week, though I'll probably only go if I can get someone to come with me. I'm horrible at night driving, and night driving an hour away is darned near terrifying.

But just say I find someone to come with me? What do I do? Do I read the book, even though I'd rather be reading (or SHOULD be reading, a.k.a. slush) something else? Do I NOT read the book and go to the book group and tell them I just couldn't get through it?

What would YOU do?

Feel Goods!

One of the worst parts about editing for a fiction magazine is sending out rejections.

Well, I lie. I can't say it's ALWAYS the worst. Sometimes I really enjoy it. But only rarely. Only when a writer clearly disregards all guidelines of decorum and street smarts. When self-proclaimed experienced writers are snooty, thinking they're too important to follow our submission guidelines, or making sure I understand just how important they are.

But most writers aren't like that.

At FFO we go through a great deal of extra work to provide friendly, positive, helpful rejections--especially to those writers who make it past our first round of the selection process. I collect, save, and send comments form our editorial team about their stories, for which most are very appreciative.

Some even blog about how appreciative they are. I LOVE those kind of writers. They make me see how worthwhile the effort is.

Like this guy. Jay Garmon.

http://www.jaygarmon.net/2009/11/short-story-crimes-against-science.html

Thanks, Jay!!

Tom Phillips: Giving Conservatism a Bad Name

I have now received on the order of a dozen unsolicited emails from someone by the name of Tom Phillips, a wannabe conservative associated with this website:

http://www.stophamilton.com/index.html

Now, I don't have any problem hearing about the causes of other conservatives, but a dozen mailings? All identical?

So, I did what any smart emailer would do, I popped ol' Tommy-boy on my junk mailer list.

Guess what? The emails kept coming! So I did a little looking and found that every email he sends has a different return address.

The freakin' skunk! So at this point, I don't give a flying rat's ass what Tommy-boy's message is. He WAY crossed the line by wasting my time, making himself look like a creep, and giving conservatism a bad name. I have NO tolerance for idiots who give conservatism a bad name. Especially now. Especially when restoring this nation to its core conservative values is so crucially important. We can't make a single misstep.

Tommy-boy, you not only took a misstep, you stepped right off the edge of a freaking cliff and took a huge chunk of conservative credibility with you.

At this point, the only response I'll give is on this blog. But I sent Tommy-boy an email and warning. "Get me off your mailing list or I go to every forum I'm a part of and smear your bad name everywhere!"

We'll see if he's smart enough to take me seriously.

Articles for Writers

Great article from Writer Beware's Victoria Strauss on, well, articles!

Articles for Writers

The Ant & the Grasshopper

Remember that timeless fable? Remember the lesson it teaches? That lesson is as timeless and true today as it ever was. Or is it?

Here's a retelling for modern times:

The ant works
hard in the withering heat and the rain all
summer long, building his house and laying up
supplies for the winter.

The grasshopper
thinks the ant is a fool
and laughs and dances and plays the summer away.


Come winter, the shivering
grasshopper calls a
press conference and demands to know why the
ant should be allowed to be warm and well fed while he is cold
and starving.

CBS, NBC , PBS, CNN, and ABC
show up to
provide pictures of the shivering
grasshopper next to a
video of the ant in his
comfortable home with a table filled with food.


America
is stunned by the sharp contrast.


How can this be, that in a country of such wealth, this
poor grasshopper is allowed to suffer so?

Kermit the Frog appears on
Oprah with the grasshopper
and everybody cries when they sing, 'It's Not Easy
Being Green.'


ACORN stages a
demonstration in front of the ant's house
where the news stations film the group singing,
“We shall overcome.”
Then Rev. Jeremiah Wright has the
group kneel down to pray to God for the
grasshopper's sake.


President Obama
condemns the ant and blames President
Bush, President Reagan, Christopher Columbus,
and the Pope for the grasshopper's plight.

Nancy Pelosi & Harry Reid
exclaim in an interview with
Larry King
that the ant has gotten rich off the back of the
grasshopper, and both call for an immediate tax hike on the
ant to make him pay his fair share.

Finally, the EEOC
drafts the Economic Equity & Anti-Grasshopper Act
retroactive to the beginning of the summer.


The ant is fined for failing to hire a proportionate
number of green bugs
and, having nothing left to pay his retroactive
taxes, his home is confiscated by the
Government Green Czar and given to the
grasshopper.


The story ends as we see the grasshopper
and his free-loading friends finishing up the last
bits of the ant’s food
while the government house he is in, which, as
you recall, just happens to be the ant's
old house, crumbles around them because the
grasshopper doesn't maintain it.

The ant has
disappeared in the snow, never to be seen again.


The grasshopper is found dead in a drug related incident, and
the house, now abandoned, is taken over by a gang of spiders
who terrorize the ramshackle, once prosperous and
once peaceful, neighborhood.

The entire Nation collapses
bringing the rest of the free world with it.



MORAL OF THE STORY:
Be careful how you vote in
2010.

Poetic Justice for Stimulus Opponents

Heard on the news today that Ford, who did NOT take stimulus money, is on track to the black. They've pulled themselves up by the bootstraps, all on their own, and are FAR ahead on the road to recovery of Chrysler and GM, whose efforts to revitalize have been crippled by the heavy hand of self-imposed government enslavement.

Ford took a lot of criticism at the time.

Now they're proving, again, I might add (Ford refused government help during the Great Depression as well), that the American Way is NOT the government's way.