The Journal of Michael Merriam

Hilary Moon Murphy (hilarymoonmurph), Jaye Lawrence (wordswoman), and Michael Merriam (mmerriam) will join Terry Faust to discuss speculative fiction, rejection letters, and writing in the face of everyday life on The Writer's Reject Sack. The show will air live on Sunday, May 17, 6 p.m. KFAI is 90.3 FM in Minneapolis and 106.7 FM St. Paul.

I believe KFAI streams all of their programming: http://www.kfai.org/

98-day release from round three by Andromeda Spaceways Inflight Magazine.
(I have another story in round three with them right now.)

27-day "blame it on the weather" rejection by Interzone.

21-day "This was the last story we cut. Please try us again." from Lorelei Signal.

Just back from talking to wordswoman about the Phantom Streetcars Novel. There was much blood spilled, but it was good. She really hit on the things I need to fix and she gave me some clever ideas on how to fix them.

I talked with greykev this morning about the novel as well. He hit several of the same points, which is an indicator that those points need work, and also had some good ideas and suggestions. Some of those same trouble points were in redheadedali's feedback too.

So far the consensus seems to be that the novel is about 70% ready for prime time and the other 30% is fixable. There's still a lot of work to do, but that's okay.

After that, I came home to a big fat rejection.

1. A rejection on a story I withdrew three months ago.

2. An offer to resubmit from one editor at a magazine, four months after another editor at the same magazine sent a slightly nasty rejection on a story I had queried on three times after they held it for nearly a year, and finally withdrew two months before said nasty rejection. I have since sold the story elsewhere.

1. I just discovered that I qualify for an affiliate membership with the Horror Writers Association. Do I join HWA? I'm taking advice and opinions.

2. The Reverend is sleeping on my legs. I'm lying on my stomach and she's curled up in the crook of my knees. She is very warm.

3. I finished the requested rewrite and sent the story back to the editor.

4. In a rejection I received today, the editor pointed out that the piece read more like the beginning of a novel than a short story. I am concerned that it may morph into "Untitled Novel #6."

5. It's snowing. Seriously.

Rejection x2.

One of them was a quarter-final notice from WotF. I don't know why, but it bummed me out especially bad. Usually rejection just rolls off me and I send the story right back out. The story I had entered had come very close to selling at three different pro-markets (according to the editors, not rejectomancy), and I'm convinced this is the best story I've ever written. To have it place in the quarter-final, which is a step backward from the last two times I was in the contest and finished as a semi-finalist, was - disheartening.

For the record: I have been a quarter-finialist 6 times and a semi-finalist twice in the WotF contest.

March Stats
Submissions Made: 10
Sales: 2
Rejections: 10
Other: 0
Publications: 0
Crits Given: 2
Approx Word Count: 9457
Stories Circulating: 15

I can live with everything on this stat list except the word count, which was about half of what I would like my monthly word count to be.

I still need to decide what to read at Minicon, both for my 30 minute reading slot and for the 10 minutes or so I'll have at the TCSFWN group reading.

careswen and I are going out tonight. Dinner and a movie (a bargain movie actually. Hopkins has one of the best cheap theaters in the twin cities).

So, since I need to shower and trim the yak-fur and otherwise engage in good hygiene, I'm knocking off early today, which means you get the update early.

1200 new words and I've closed out the scene. Jill and Mae got chased by dark creatures before their own bit of dancing around each other could resolve. They're hiding in Jill's townhouse and Mae, desperate for someone to talk to about all this, is spilling her story.

314-day "We felt the characters too weak and the story too slight" rejection from Weird Tales on a story I withdrew two months ago, after they ignored three queries.

Meter, Meter, on the LJ...

700+ words on "All the Leaves Your Bed."

The section I finished this afternoon will need to be rewritten. In fact I might well be able to make it part of the section before. I also worry that it might be a little heavy-handed, but again, that's what the rewrite is for. The section I'm working on right now will probably be the hardest to write in this story. The tone in this section has to be just so, balanced between the heaviness of what is going to happen and the brighter promise that I hope the story expresses. While writing emotions is one of the few things I consider myself reasonably good at as a writer, this section might need a finer tool than I'm use to wielding and a defter hand than I have developed.

This just means I'll need to learn how to do that sort of fine work.

This story is giving me that same sick to the stomach, emotionally drained feeling that "Fetch" left me with.

I also came up with some ideas for how "Ectobytes" should play out. That makes me happy.

160+ days "This story is not for us. However, we like your writing style and would love to see more of your work in the future" from Nanobison.