wistful email to myself

Subject:   Apex From:   "Linda Talisman" Date:   Tue, April 20, 2010 9:16 am To:   "Linda Talisman" Priority:   Normal Options:   View Full Header |  View Printable Version  | Download this as a file  | View Message Details Sender: blacklist whitelist

Dear Jason Sizemore,

Please decide to publish my story The Daily Grind. It's a good story, and
I was thinking of you when I wrote it. I hope you don't think the turtle
shell or the bird are too lyrical. It's your choice, of course, but I hope
you decide to publish it.

Hopefully,
Linda

finally a rejection

On Halloween, no less, "A Singular Being" received a rejection from the New Yorker. Now I can submit it elsewhere.

Yes, even the New Yorker can sometimes behave like a black hole

Here is the New Yorker's entry on the black hole page:

Magazine/Book Publisher	Response time (#days)	Submission date	Response date	Still waiting for reply?	Type
Magazine: New Yorker	125	2/10/07	6/15/07		Rejection
Magazine: New Yorker	81	07/21/07	10/10/07		Rejection
Magazine: New Yorker	79	8/11/07	10/29/07		Rejection
Magazine: New Yorker	84	9/21/07	12/14/07		Rejection
Magazine: New Yorker	93	08/02/08	11/03/08		Rejection
Magazine: New Yorker	90	07/02/2010	09/30/2010		Rejection
Magazine: New Yorker	101	06/11/11	09/20/11	X	Other non sale

 This includes 2 "data points" I submitted, the 2010 one and the "still waiting" one.

 

My 2 bring it up to a grand total of 6. (Analog has 99.) The 125 days "data point", along with the 93 days one, shows that they don't always respond within 90 days.

To clarify my blog post about my queries, the first time I put the whole story, not just the word "query" in the message box. (I think if you pick "fiction submission" and don't include a pdf it triggers an automatic response telling you that your submission is missing.)

So I have queried twice using the "contact us" form and once using the email address the rejections come from. I think that's enough querying.

So now it's back to the waiting game. 

"A Singular Being": 101 days and counting.

The 90 days have come and gone for my submission of "A Singular Being" to The New Yorker. I am now in Black Hole and Query Land.

Here's how I've attempted to query:

First, using the same "contact us" form you use to submit your work, I put my query naming the date & title of my submission and the word "query" in the "message" box. I picked "fiction submission" as the subject line & got a response that I hadn't enclosed an attachment. Next, I sent a query to the email address the rejections come from. Third, back to "contact us" using "other" as subject & my query in "message".

With so much pending in my life right now (mostly the disability application)... well, a black hole also means infinite possibilities, or infinite time, or infinite gravity, or... infinite something. A rejection is so... finite.

submissions status

It's all about The New Yorker right now. "

"A Singular Being" is 67 days into a New Yorker submission. "The Daily Grind" is 38 days in.

Here's hoping!

Ok, make that rejection at 60 days

Strange Horizons rejected "The Daily Grind" on the 60th day.


I haven't forgotten what I said I would do...

The latest about "The Daily Grind"

Strange Horizons submission: 59 days without a rejection!

Check out MS World's Creative center:
http://creativecenter.msworld.org/

People have submitted some amazing work. I submitted my blog, My Multiply Scleroded Life but it's not up yet. It's inspiring.

I just watched a video of the song "Growin' Up" in which Bruce tells the famous story of the first time he met Clarence. (this link goes to several videos, it's one of them. I'm sure the others are worth watching too.)

That song played a role in my first novel, the title of which kept changing. It was a long time ago, but I already knew that very useful trick in which you refer to a song in such a way that you get the effect you want on your readers even if they don't know the song, and even more so if they do, all without direct quotes and copyright fees.

"Grownin' Up" played a big role in my growin' up, & I'm sure that's true of anyone who ever heard it.

If Strange Horizons ends up rejecting "Grind" I'm going to submit it to The New Yorker again.

I sent it to them about a year ago and they took the full 3 months to reject it, which I think is a sign they seriously considered it. When in April I got ready to send it out again, I realized the version I had submitted to The New Yorker was the one without the beheading. I made that spectacularly unhorrifying revision for some complicated reason i no longer remember. So before its next submission, I put the beheading back in. Let's face it, it's a better story with the beheading.

"Grind" is such a New York story, about how the city needs all the people who can no longer afford to live here. The New Yorker seems like its natural home. So if Strange Horizons takes a pass, back to The New Yorker it goes.

With the beheading.

By the way, The New Yorker is a Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America Qualifying Short Fiction Venue.

As well it should be. I'm sure they do still publish "realistic fiction", or whatever that thing that's not science fiction or fantasy is called, but those are probably the stories that lose me.

I was so encouraged by my personal rejection from F&SF that I submitted "A Singular Being" to The New Yorker on June 11.

Meanwhile my submission of "The Daily Grind" to Strange Horizons is still under consideration after 53 days.

Their guidelines say they always respond within 70 days.

I got the autoresponse they send when you submit, fiction@strangehorizons.com is whitelisted so no response is ending up in the spam folder.

53 days and counting! XXXXXX!

Saw Mattie Stepanek on Oprah, & I thought of the role of muscular dystrophy in That and a Token.

After I thought the novel should touch on disability in some way I decided to write about muscular dystrophy.

I definitely didn't want to write about the disease I have. I have to focus on that way more than I want to in real life! It had to be something else.

I had written that Segullah had 3 brothers who died before she was born and her parents moved from Uganda to the U.S. So I decided what they died of; something called Duchenne muscular dystrophy or DMD. It affects even the muscles that enable people to breathe & their hearts to beat. That's how most of the people who die of it die, especially in early childhood.

Mattie had something that sounds even more pervasive, affecting the mitochondia, which are like the power source for every cell.

Mattie and his mother both needed oxygen frequently. Seeing them I wondered if patients could live past early childhood with better medical care.

DMD usually only affects boys. Women are carriers who can pass the disease on to their children but usually don't have symptoms themselves. I'm not sure whether Segullah is going to have any symptoms herself. I'll figure it out when I get there.

"A Singular Being" was rejected by THE MAGAZINE OF FANTASY & SCIENCE FICTION. I got a personal letter from an assistant editor after 7 days, saying he had decided to pass, good luck on this one. I never submitted to them before. Am I deluded to find this encouraging?

After Nina's comment on diversity I just realized my novel is ridiculously diverse.

Deborah is white, a fairskinned redheaded Jew.
Segullah is a tall darkskinned black Jew from Uganda with a disability.
Dov is a Jew, white and Ashkenazi apparently, though not stated.
Sal is Puerto Rican with a Jewish grandfather.
Moshe has the same background as Segullah, Abuyudaya, a black Jew from Uganda.

I submitted "The Daily Grind" to Strange Horizons. :-)

I decided the other day that with everything going on with me I don't think I can go back to the happy carefree novel I was writing in which all the characters are ablebodied. So I decided to give Segullah a disability.

I see now that I spent a long time obsessing over 1 paragraph in the story of Deborah. I'm glad i did, & i'm happy with how the movie scene came out. February 13 was when i got sick, nasty flu with lingering cold symptoms. Feb 15 was my 1st appt with the nyu ms center, & it's all been a round of bizness about health insurance, treatment options & the like. Tonight was the first time I've paid attention to the novel since all that. No wonder I've felt so weird!

After what seems like an eternity of obsessing about issues that seem earth shatteringly, excruciatingly important without having anything to do with writing, I finally got back to looking at my novel. Do i ever have my work cut out for me!

I'm going to change the spelling of the name of Sisera's killer in the movie scene from Jael, as in my English translation, to Yael. It's spelled with a yud. Where did they get the "j"? This book is the Artscroll Joshua/Judges. I'm not at all impressed with the translation, but then I can't really "judge" because my Hebrew's not good enough.

I'm still working on understanding the translation of the dialog between Deborah and Barak. I'm imagining that in the movie it's a duet they sing.

The word that's translated in my book as "your glory" is tiferetecha from tiferet. Tiferet is the 6th sefira in the Kabbalistic Tree of Life.

It seems like a different meaning of "glory" than kvod.

The main point is that the real meaning of the prophecy turns out to be different that what one expects. When Deborah says "Hashem will have delivered Sisera into the hands of a woman" of course you think that woman is Deborah. But it turns out to be Jael. Barak will not be the one to kill Sisera. A woman will kill him.

I just found out from this great Artemisia Gentileschi site that she painted Jael killing Sisera from the story of Deborah as well as Judith and Holofernes. I never knew that, and Debra might not have known it either. Maybe I can add this info to the glossary.

The web page for the Sisera painting says "The act fulfilled the prediction of Deborah, prophetess and Israelite leader, who foresaw that a woman would slay Sisera."

I had thought it meant, and the commentary in my text agrees, that Barak wants Deborah to go with him to the battle and Deborah says ok, but then people will say Hashem delivered Sisera into the hands of a woman. Because if the woman is Jael and not Deborah, what difference does it make whether Deborah goes or not?

But Barak says I will only go to fight Sisera if you, Deborah, come along. And Deborah says "Indeed I will go with you --- but the path on which you have chosen to go will not be for your glory, for Hashem will have delivered Sisera into the hand of a woman."

I wish my book were interlinear, so I could see the English and Hebrew right on top of each other. You get a much better sense of the meaning of the Hebrew with an interlinear text. My Hebrew is not so great. Path and hand of a woman are clear, but the translation of words like "but" and "indeed" aren't always so straightforward. Also I don't know about "glory" since I don't see the word I know as glory, kvod, spelled kuf bet dalet.

I think what it means is this: Barak says I will only go if you go. That means no Deborah, no deal. It's never in question, of course she will go. Regardless of whether Deborah goes or not, regardless of the victory of Barak's army over Sisera's army, the victory will not be complete because Sisera will escape. The Canaanites will not be vanquished if their leader still lives. The true victory, the death of Sisera, will belong to a woman. To Jael. Deborah is not the woman she spoke of in her own prophecy.

That's prophecy for you. It never means what you think it means.

For Part III of my novel, all I have to do is describe the movie from the point of view of Debra sitting in the audience. I don't have to write the screenplay or direct the movie, just describe seeing it.

Of course, the movie doesn't exist, but why should that be a problem? I've described planets and life forms that don't exist. If i can imagine them, I can write about them. How is this different?

One of the many words the most brilliant Torah scholar I know personally uses to describe the Torah is "cinematic." Since I heard that, I haven't seen the Torah the same way. There's gotta be at least 23 screenplays in there. Why have so few of them been written?

So this is just one. And, as I said, I am not writing the screenplay. I am just pretending Debra's friend Segullah did, and Debra is watching it. The other significance of the movie is that seeing it is a turning point in Debra and Sal's relationship. They don't call it a date, at least Debra doesn't, and Sal's too smart to draw attention to it, but it is their first date.

Writing. It's what I do when I can't stand the thought of another day.

Not now, though. This afternoon I thought of some ideas to flesh out the turning point in Debra's life when she decides to change her major from studio art to art history. Decides to become a professor, in short. But it's been a long and exhausting day, and I think it will have to wait for another one.

So now I've written a novel. Or at least, I believe by the time I finish revising it will be a novel.

I see how getting people to critique a novel is a problem. Critters seems to have solved this problem. You have 2 choices: either send your novel through the queue in pieces or ask for dedicated readers, who will read your novel exclusively.

Trouble is, my novel is not one of the genres Critters deals with (sci-fi, fantasy, and horror.)

Back in the day I joined the International Women's Writing Guild and a "kitchen table/meetup" writing group. That's how I met Sapphire. Now I don't think running around town going to meetings is the way to go. I'd rather do it online, just like critters.

On the other hand, IWWG has something called "clusters"and zip code parties. The members of the writers group i was in were from all over the city. Maybe there's something there for me.

In any case, getting feedback about anything you're writing is essential. Thanks to all who have volunteered to read THAT AND A TOKEN. A leaner "part I only" document is now available. Let me know if you would like one.