Going All Out

After a concentrated two weeks where LB and I saw both our families back to back, I'm finally getting back in the groove with my writing, revising, and submissions.  And today I've realized that I'm going all out.

Recently, a bunch of my friends have been getting agents, then two-book contracts, thereby fundamentally changing their literary careers in the span of literally one year.  A boy can only dream . . . Of course, because I'm human, I've been waiting by the phone too for the same phone call, waiting for the same miracle to magically transform my writing career into a solid object, but so far, I've been mostly stood up by publishing industry (literary journals have been much kinder to me).  Agents are happy to tell me how talented I am, but their rejections are always about the fit.  Truthfully, it's hard not to feel bad about yourself, especially when you stroll through the local bookstore and you see straight up shit on the coop.  But I'm an eternal optimist, obviously delusional, and also very stubborn, so I'm not giving up.  Not when I'm so close.

This leads me to the whole point I was making before I digressed earlier.  Now that I'm back in action, I'm going all out, man.  I'm submitting queries for NINJAS to a bunch of new agents soon (I'm still waiting to hear from three agents who are reading full manuscripts, but the longer time passes, the less hopeful I get).  If Kaya rejects AMNESIA (they're taking their sweetass time, by the way), I'll send a query for it to fifty agents the next week.  I just sent out several novella manuscripts to Plougshares and the Massachusetts Review.  I'm also sending one of my best (and fave) short stories to several literary journals.  Lastly, I'm sending my memoir to a few indie presses that I think would be a good fit aesthetically, conceptually, and structurally.  Instead of staggering my submissions as I was forced to do during the school year, I'm now going full force.  And that's not even including a screenplay I'll start revising/continuing this weekend about two bike messengers in DTLA.

And it don't stop . . .

 

 

Finishing My Collection of Flash Fiction about Glass

I finally fished my novella/collection of flash fiction a few days ago and i'm really happy about this. it's 52 pages and centers around people looking through windows, which includes:

12 small blurbs about the molecular composition of glass, the history of glass blowing
and 12 short shorts ranging from 2 to 5 pages each, that include the stories of:

1. a girl looking from the backseat of her car.
2. an alcoholic who pawns her grandmother's jewelry to buy a gold beretta
3. a japanese woman who stays in tokyo hotels to see her city for the first time
4. a father on the amtrak who is visiting his daughter with the creepy militia husband for the 1st time in 15 years
5. a man who walks through portland late at night to see his life inside the window display of stores
6. a woman who watches her schizophrenic neighbor through the peep hole of her door
7. a boy who turns his father in for stealing his collector's edition hans solo action figures
8. a girl who watches the city from juvie detention for ripping the gun out of a cholo's hands
9. a guy who gives his brother advice on how to sleep with smart chicks by wearing fake glasses
10. a woman who falls in love with a man working in a window office
11. a man who deliberately boards crowded el's in chicago to be touched by passengers
12. a man who tries to live his whole life with open windows

I'm going to include this novella in my second collection of short stories. i've already submitted many of these stories to journals like the santa monica review, sentence, boulevard, flyway, and others too. now it's up to lit journals to get their shit straight and publish them!

Now if i can just think of a name. . .

4 Things to Inspire Hope

1. I recently submitted defiance of objects, my first collection of short stories that i've been working on for years now (and this summer, revising) to 2 more first book contests at:

FC2's innovative fiction prize
The bakeless prize at middlebury college

2. Brick Magazine sent me a nice rejection letter that said "piano lessons" was engaging and stylistically beautiful. right then.

3. I'm still working on my short novella/flash fiction collection about people looking through windows. i'm almost halfway done. i'm planning on including this in my second collection of short stories once it's finished. Maybe.

4. If i don't get an agent or a publisher in the next 6 months, i'm gonna start submitting to some of the excellent small/indie presses: greywolf, soft skull, red hen, granta, stuff like that.