Category Archives: General Bloggity Stuff

First proper rejection, and more

Posted on by under General Bloggity Stuff, Short Stories

I took a short, unexpected vacation from a lot of the Internet, and an actual, scheduled vacation to Edinboro this past week, and both of those things proved tremendously helpful.  The latter more so than the former, of course, but that’s because it involved good times with friends (and, of course, shitty fast food and some alcohol consumption).

The week also involved a good deal of editing on “Death at Teatime” because it received its first proper letter of rejection.  I sent it to a magazine titled Bartleby Snopes (absolutely, definitely check out their page and read some of the stories they’ve published, because it’s really enjoyable), and within twenty-four hours I received a detailed, polite, and very nice rejection.  Despite my anxiety over the whole affair, this ended up really giving me a boost to get this story fixed up more and sent out again.  The only major issue I could fix without a total rewrite involved a few odd point of view shifts.  A couple other little tweaks were made, thanks to the very helpful editorial eyes of a handful of people, and I looked around on Duotrope again on Thursday night.  Sent it out for its second go at getting published, and I’m hopeful so far.

Regardless, I’m going to keep at this until I get published, or die of old age; whichever one happens first.

Speaking of Thursday, or Thor’s Day perhaps, I did get accosted by a drunk man who I only know as Thor.  That’s a story I won’t be sharing, mind you, but it’s worth mentioning because it’s one of a few things that helped make this past weekend a memorable one.

Writing and whatnot will resume tomorrow, once I feel less dead from staying up far too late.

Posted on by under General Bloggity Stuff

Submitting a work for publication reminds me a lot of what it felt like to ride my first real roller coaster, which, by the way, was Millennium Force at Cedar Point and, frankly, it scared the hell out of me.

As did submitting this story.  There was the choice: I picked, from the search results Duotrope spat out (a really handy web site, by the way, should you find yourself looking for places to send writing to).  In the case of Cedar Point, my friend chose Millennium Force because he was a weaselly little bastard and knew I’m afraid of heights.  The anticipation and, let’s face it, fear while in the queue, so to speak.  Finally, the thrill of hitting send and knowing, acceptance or rejection, I’ve finally grown enough of a backbone to get this far with something that wasn’t my school’s literary magazine.

Millenium Force actually just made me scream noiselessly for about half a minute before I though I was going to black out, but that’s really where the comparison falls apart (except not really, because I’m actually losing my mind over whether or not it’ll get accepted).

However, after much panicking and worrying over specifics and editing the absolute crap out of it, I’ve finally sent “Death at Teatime” off for publication consideration.  Something I should have probably done sooner, based on the choruses of “It’s about damn time” the news was met with over on Facebook.  Updates on how that goes will follow, naturally.

More importantly, I have ideas for writing, which is awesome since I haven’t had ideas I liked in weeks.  Weeks, people.  That’s way too freaking long for me not to be able to get writing done, because then I start considering what weird possibilities could happen in real life and that’s not good for anyone.

Opinions wanted

Posted on by under General Bloggity Stuff

First, can I just say “holy shit, I am on fire with energy for posting on here which totally sucks because I wish I could put that energy towards something more productive (ie: writing a story)”?  Too late, I just did.

Follower-type people of a writing persuasion, or just a follower persuasion (since you’re bloggers and, as such, writers by association).  I’m considering making the money-requiring leap from being misadventuresinfiction.wordpress.com to being misadventuresinfiction.com.  Unless someone else takes this as a sign to steal the URL, in which case I shake my fist at the heavens and curse your name.  Seriously, that’d be a terribly dickish move.  Please don’t do that.  On a related note, can I just say you follower-type people are beautiful and wonderful and it’s good to have you all around?  Because it is.

Thoughts?  The pros, as far as I can see, are how it’d help the blog have an air of being a little more professional (or at least look a little cleaner), it’d be a motivator for me to get my ass in gear and start producing things (I would hope so, anyway, since the people who have agreed to harass me have bigger issues to contend with at present).  The cons are “boo, spending money”, “do I *really* need a dot com?” and “is this just me going for something shiny because, let’s face it, it’s shiny?”

Please share thoughts, encouragement, discouragement, or even large, unmarked bags of money should you feel so inclined.  I’m joking on that last one, of course.

Unless you happen to have large, unmarked bags of money you’re just so tired of having around.  Then I’m completely okay with helping take care of that problem.

So…tomorrow’s election day.

Posted on by under General Bloggity Stuff, SRS BSNS BLAHGING

What’s up with that?

Cheesiness aside, this is a topic I’ve been wrestling with myself on how to tackle, because it’s something that’s been gnawing at my thoughts for a fair bit now.  No, I’m not about to say why a vote for Obama is a vote for (good thing here/bad thing here), nor am I about to do so for Romney or any of the other candidates.  I trust enough people are decently informed (I promise this isn’t a dig at people being informed, but wording shit like this requires a fine-toothed comb I do not posses in my present state and that’s a giant pain in my ass) on the issues that matter most to them, and have decided whose views and beliefs matches their own as completely as possible.  The nagging, gnawing, unpleasant thing in the back of my mind is this: whether it be Obama, Romney, or another candidate you intend to vote for, please go out and vote.

Yes.  Go forth and be a part of the great democratic process of voting for the next President of the United States.

Why, Phil, are you spewing stuff about politics when your blog is supposed to be about fiction?*  Because I believe in the importance of participating in the voting process, regardless of your overall feelings toward the election, the months and months of ads (horrible and tiresome as they can, and do, become), and the unfortunate divide between parties.

Hence my urging to vote.  That, and I honestly don’t give a damn what people think, post-election, if they can follow their opinions with “Well, I didn’t vote” or some variation of such.

Stay safe, happy voting, and remember; it may suck if your candidate doesn’t get elected, but the world will keep on keepin’ on Wednesday.  I’d say “Hey, can’t we all just get along,” but, historically speaking, people who say that seem to lead much shorter lifespans and end up suffering a terminal case of being shot.

*Or maybe you’re asking why I’m talking to myself in the third person, which is a perfectly reasonable concern I will dismiss in a perfectly reasonable fashion.**

** I totally forgot I had meant to insert a footnote, then remembered and felt like an asshole because of it.  I’m conveniently blaming eight hours of retail and elderly people saying “Gimme,” which SHOULD NOT BE A PART OF ANYONE’S VOCABULARY, FOR CRYING OUT LOUD.  Pardon the caps lock.

Rolling with the punches

Posted on by under General Bloggity Stuff

Or writing with the punches?

It’s been an oddly hectic time in my life, which is terribly frustrating since I’ve been all “Huzzah, graduation!  Goals goals goals ideas plans” and then life responds with, “Hey, Phil.  I see you have goals, ideas, and plans there.  Let me piss all over them.”  The big issue of sorting out student loans has really punched me in the face, and then there’s other things that don’t bear mentioning here (It’s my misadventures in fiction, folks, not my misadventures in sorting out life; that’s far, far less interesting, and you should all be grateful I’m not making those posts here).

I’m reconsidering my plans for NaNoWriMo, if only because it’s not entirely conducive to what I’m aiming for (I need to try getting my work out there for publication consideration, and though the challenge is totally awesome and horrifying, it’s not really jiving with everything else at the moment; I’ll probably keep with it in some way or another because I’m terribly bull-headed).

Right now the biggest plan is to get “Death at Teatime” out there.  I’m thinking I might dust off some of the things from early-summer, fix them up, and then share them because I realized I have no actual samples of my fiction on here and that goes against one of the major points of this blog.

Thanks to my followers, and anyone who happens upon this blog otherwise, for your patience and sticking with what’s been relatively erratic updating and an unfortunate lack of content.  Also, sorry that I’m sort of not sorry for the post that’s to follow.

NaNoWriMo’s here.

Posted on by under General Bloggity Stuff

NaNoWriMo, or National Novel Writing Month for those of us who aren’t particularly fond of acronyms (Hi, my name is Phil and I take issue with abbreviating shit down to silly little phrases), has arrived like it does every year.  I mean, November does show up around the same time, generally speaking, and it’s not only marked by the turning of a calendar page.  As a mildly unrelated side-note, calendars in question should be on November, not December, and so I’ve got to very politely, but very directly, ask you all to shut the hell up with your Christmas cheer and wait one more month.  Much appreciated.  Moving on.

There’s that deep, unshakable feeling of dread everyone who has ever participated in NaNoWriMo feels as it approaches.  It should be noted, by the way, that it’s already almost November 3rd, and I’ve made slightly less progress on this year’s NaNoWriMo than I have on working out my income tax-related business.  I wish I were joking.  However, have I lost hope?  Slightly.  Will I let that be the slaying of my writery-dragon-beast-nonfunctional-metaphor?  No, absolutely not.  I will use that as fuel to kick ass, take names, and write what I assume will be really slap-dash fiction in the name of testing myself and seeing just how close to the edge of madness I can get without falling in (short answer: I’ve already been there and back; got the t-shirt, had souvenir photos taken, and I wouldn’t recommend it to anyone).

Here is my challenge to fellow writers: if you’ve never, ever tried National Novel Writing Month, give it a try.  Go for it.  I’m not saying hit the 50,000 word mark, as I’m well aware that life is full of unexpected impediments that leave us swearing and cleaning up messes and swearing some more (my life can, at times, be one long series of should-be bleeped expletives).  See where it takes you.  Maybe you’ll end up with something you look at and think, “Man, with the right editing this could be pretty neat.”

People who have been through NaNoWriMo before: join me in returning to it!  If you got to 25k words last time, go for 30k.  Or 40k.  Or maybe even the whole 50k.  Just give it another go, really, because misery loves company, writing loves company, and the two can be oddly synonymous with one another at times (except when there is bourbon involved in writing, in which case the only things suffering are grammar, spelling, and Microsoft Word’s spellcheck feature).

To those of you who started on time and are well into their National Novel Writing Month experience, I wish you the best of luck (with a side of “I hate you” because I totally should be where you all are at but I am instead sitting at the starting line with my metaphorical thumbs up my metaphorical nose).  To those of you who are in the same spot as me: let’s do this!  Updates will occur as possible, and I’m totally going to hit at least 35k this year because of reasons.

Edit, because I am le dumb: click here to visit the NaNoWriMo site for all the shiny information and encouragement you’ll need to get started.

So I sort of fell off the planet for a little there.

Posted on by under General Bloggity Stuff

By “a little” I guess I mean about a month.  Short version, so as to bypass the boring, messy details: a combination of work kicking my ass, some strange insomnia-like nonsense, and a host of other unpleasantries.

However, that still isn’t progress and a lack of progress is no good for anyone, especially since it’s only adding to the stagnancy of post-college, pre-whatever-the-hell-else life.  And that is something I can’t very well let happen.  Some srs bsns stuff coming up shortly, followed by me doing a ridiculous amount of writing tomorrow (got the whole weekend off, and to myself, so aside from maybe a little time for reading, sleeping, eating, and so on, I should be set) and Sunday.

Once again, apologies for falling off the planet.  I’ve come back now, at least, because there’s writing to be done.