WRITING & LITERATURE: Lit Journals and Getting Published

Posted on March 5, 2007 by Susan

Just spent an hour looking back through several websites looking for that one Precious Literary Journal Editorial Staff that just made my day.  What they noted in their submission guidelines was that no author would be published more than twice in their publication.  How terrific is that?

What this journal seems to understand is that while famous names or established writers may sell a journal, their reading audience is made up in the largest part by writers.  Mostly writers who haven’t been published yet.  How many years will they be willing to shell out that $25/year for a subscription to the journals that keep rejecting them when there are hundreds of journals out there to support instead.  If a reader/writer keeps seeing the same folk being published and they never seem to get a shot at it, it tells them that the magazine is in business not to help or promote new writers, but to make it worthwhile or profitable. 

It was especially upsetting to see one of the big name journals point out how many times so many of their authors had previously been published in their journal:  "This is the fourth time…"  What sense does it make to support this journal both by submission and subscription, when what they’re obviously interested in is pushing the credentialed writers and give them several coveted spots in their pages instead of giving a shot to a new writer.

I hope to find exactly which journal had this bold restriction placed within their acceptance policy, since I believe they should be supported by writers in return.  I’m sure they’re not sacrificing quality by giving space to the unknown writers; as a matter of fact, I think they’re probably more quality-minded since they’re basing their decisions on the work alone. 

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TECHNOLOGY: Feeds

Posted on March 5, 2007 by Susan

A couple of weeks ago I started using that little symbol at the top of the IE7 bar to list a couple sites on a separate RSS feed system.  It works–but not well.

I’ve put my own site on as a reference, and find that Bloglines manages to get updated sites (postings to weblogs, for example) within minutes.  The RSS feed from IE takes hours–and you have to refresh them manually sometimes for it to catch–like a nudge saying, "no really, they’ve updated, go look."  The only thing I haven’t figured out yet with Bloglines is how to check a particular post for comments.  But for my own weblog, Typepad sends an e-mail immediately that a comment has been posted.  Good thing too, as it’s a fast way to go in and delete any possible spam.

So Bloglines is still my reader of choice.

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NEW MEDIA & TECHNOLOGY:

Posted on March 4, 2007 by Susan

Anybody out there know a way–short of an expensive software conversion program–to convert .DXF or .DWG files to PDF?

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LITERATURE: At Swim-Two-Birds – Art

Posted on March 3, 2007 by susan

It dawned on me what this book reminds me of:  Heronymous Bosch’s Garden of Earthly Delights.  I’ve always loved that piece because it fascinates, there is so much going on at once that one cannot take it all in in a single viewing.

O’Brien’s novel has three stories going on, one nested within another like the Russian wooden dolls.  They belong together, but the thread is tenuous and the reader must seek to fit them together just so.  One must look and wonder about one scene, and before it’s completely understood in itself, we are pulled out and dropped into another.  The birth of the reader perhaps?

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WRITING & NEW MEDIA: Self-Effacing vs. Facing Self

Posted on March 3, 2007 by Susan

I give up. I’m not a writer, not an artist.  I’m a reader of others’ words and framer of their art.

I’m just too late and still not good enough, that’s all there is to it.

But I can sew, I can cook, I can shoot arrows–or used to.  That’s my place in this life.  It’s been a bad, bad day and I just broke a coffee mug I’ve had for thirty years; through several jobs and always here in the shop. 

Tired of fighting for what I believe in; tired of fighting everyone who blocks my way.  Just…tired.

Posted in NEW MEDIA, WRITING | 4 Comments

NEW MEDIA & WRITING: And TurboCAD!

Posted on March 2, 2007 by Susan

Might end up not posting on this project here, but rather switch it to Pseudohyperfiction, a blog I’d set up a while ago to handle this particular thing.

What I’m doing is working with four stories that had been relative to each other, while each could stand alone.  They range in size from 900 words to 1500 words, and the original plan was to link them together to produce a storyspace of approximately 5000 words (and no, I didn’t plan it out by word count–that’s sacrilegious and against my beliefs) via several thoughts or ideas that would flow through each, breaking the time barriers and settings that set them apart.

(NOTE:  Just hit spellcheck to verify sacrilegious which was spelled right, but it wants to fix Pseudohyperfiction into Stupefaction.)

So the CAD program I found is working out well–though I haven’t gone much further with it today because of other more pressing concerns.  But I think what the program might do is clarify the direction I should be taking with this project; it may even become a short film clip if I could unravel the storylines into a whole.  The layers are affected by time–but more by the decisions made by the characters in one brief period of time in the past.

Very interesting process.  And if I decide to move the posting to the other weblog, I’ll link to it here.

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REALITY?: HELP WANTED:

Posted on March 2, 2007 by Susan

An honest attorney who not only knows the law and understands how it works, but still has his/her sense of justice and balls intact.

Must practice in the State of Connecticut.

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NEW MEDIA: CAD Storyboard

Posted on March 1, 2007 by Susan

Good grief.  Only I would have a TurboCAD 3-D program down in the cellar among the old software compatible with WIN 3.1 and WIN 95.

And yes, it works with XP.

Loaded it in–in 2-D format since that’s all I’m interested in right now.  I remember buying it.  It was for my neighbor to go with the computer we bought him for Christmas, 1998 so he could design the addition for our house. 

He died on January 9th, 1999.

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TECHNOLOGY: Daylight Savings Time

Posted on March 1, 2007 by Susan

Let me be among the first to remind everyone that our beloved PC’s that could once be depended upon to wake up some Spring morning and know the time better than we ourselves did, need now to rely upon human intervention.

With the new Daylight Savings Time going into effect three weeks early–on March 11th, and ending one week later this year, Microsoft has made available this workaround:

Don’t Let Your PC Fall Behind

And for Outlook:

Update Your Outlook Calendar

Posted in TECHNOLOGY | 1 Comment

WRITING: Publishing Posthumously

Posted on March 1, 2007 by Susan

Since I’m rewriting some of my stories in the couple dozen I have–and stopping just short of deleting many others (likely I’ll just refile them under "Dead Issues" in my Creative Writing/Stories Finished Folder)–I’m taking into consideration the reading periods for all the literary journals to which I submit and subscribe, as well as their admonishment about simultaneous submissions and their response times.

So here’s what I’m working on now:  The alpha version of The Posthumous Collection of Short Stories by Susan Gibb.

I figure I need some time to collect the best together and edit them fully, rewrite them as my own skills increase (or maybe it’s just the awareness of lack of skill), and get them put together in some semblance of order for publishing an anthology.  That, and write up the new ones that pop into my head.

Hope I don’t miss this deadline. 

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WRITING: Submitting

Posted on March 1, 2007 by Susan

Just one story; just one literary journal.  When the Crows Gather is just right for them; I know it.

Was it finished?  As good as it can be?  I don’t know; I think so.  Few was the better story for this journal, but there’s still that one part in it that I can’t get straight in my mind to put down and feel good about.  So that will have to wait until what, September?

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LITERATURE: At Swim-Two-Birds – Humor

Posted on March 1, 2007 by susan

Not really into this book; there’s a lot else going on so that I’m easily diverted.  It’s also a matter of the way this book is written.  It’s like reading several novels at once–which, of course, it is.

But I picked it up again for a few minutes this morning as I counted to 300 slowly while holding down  the pilot light knob on the shop heater since it keeps going out on me overnight and it’s freezing in here.  But I loved this sequence in the "coming to life" of the character, Mr. Furriskey:

He found it in the third wall he examined and it may be valuable to state–as an indication of the growing acuteness of his reasoning powers–that he neglected investigating one of the walls as a result of a deduction to the effect that the door of a room in the upper storey of a house is rarely to be found in the same wall which contains the window. (p. 71)

There are several things happening here:  Furriskey is the creation of Trellis, who is the creation of the first person narrator of the physical book which is the creation of Flann O’Brien.  So we’re several layers deep here.  O’Brien is telling us how a character is created–born then, at the exact point in which he appears in a story.  What intelligence do we give him?  What experience?

And all the while, O’Brien is having a good laugh.

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NEW MEDIA: Workspace

Posted on February 28, 2007 by Susan

Been checking out a number of free CAD programs for use as a layout to map out interweaving plots–in other words, hyperfiction. 

What the CAD software offers is a large work area thats maneuverable to allow for managing the plot points or portions of each story and spot the obvious areas that tie them in together.  I had suspected that the CAD layout would possibly be a good workspace.  As my husband pointed out, any program I used would be subject to others having to have the same program in order to view it.  But there may be  ways around that; many can be converted to PDF files.  As a matter of fact, a blueprint of a kitchen remodeling job my friend, Nancy, is having done and sent me as an e-mail attachment revealed a program that can convert most files.  It also showed me that the work area was great for everything I wanted to do as far as moving around within a large space. 

Some of the programs have a black background–not too good an idea for mostly text.  Some of the programs didn’t allow large sections of text to be placed within a box and moved around.  But I do think that trial and error here may eventually produce what I’m looking for.  The research at this point is taking my mind off other things and I do like the problem-solving part of a project.

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WRITING: Is It Soup Yet?

Posted on February 28, 2007 by Susan

Suffering from the it’s-not-good-enoughs.  Avoiding the issue is becoming a way of life, working up to the deadline at not getting it done.  Self-sabotage is half the problem, self-doubt is the other.

Likely only two more months at most to get through.

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WRITING & REALITY?: Emotion

Posted on February 28, 2007 by Susan

I am so full of repressed anger that I can’t even sputter for fear of exploding. 

Within an hour of filling the birdfeeders with the mid-range priced seed, I see four squirrels dumping out the feeders to get the choice sunflower seeds.  The feeders are just about empty and all the seeds are on the ground, in the snow. 

I have named the squirrels.  One is Andrea.  The other three are attorneys. 

Why can’t I channel this outrage, this rage into my writing?

Instead, I’m sure that in a very short time, I shall explode into a million pieces and though many will be touched by a flake of me, none will remember or care.

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