John Woodington The official site for the author.

Threepenny Review Rejection LetterPosted by John Woodington on May 10th, 2012

I received this rejection letter from Threepenny Review today, and I’m not sure what I think about it.  Check it out for yourself and judge:

We have considered your submission carefully, and unfortunately we are not able to use it in The Threepenny Review.  Please do not take this as a comment on the quality of your writing; we receive so many submissions that we are able to accept only a small fraction of them.

Thank you for sending your work to us, and please accept our apologies for the automated message system. We wish we had time to reply to everyone individually.

The Editors

Now, while this is a very fine rejection letter, and did come as a very quick response from the journal, there is something about it that rubbed me the wrong way.

I showed it to my wiener dog, Penny, and asked her if she could put her paw on the problem.

“I’ll tell you what the problem is,” Penny said.  “It’s called Threepenny.  There is only One Penny, and that’s me.  Now feed me a mini carrot or I’ll howl and swiped at the door-stopper-spring-thing until you go nuts.”

Then she gave me the grump face:

So I suppose that was what was bothering me subconsciously.  Maybe.

Submissions Slowdown SeasonPosted by John Woodington on May 8th, 2012

We have hit that time of year.  The time when short story publishers stop reading short story submissions for the duration of the summer.  I’m trying to send out my work and website after website says, “Closed for Submissions,” or “Check back in September,” or “Why are you even bothering with us?”  (*cough cough* The New Yorker *cough hack cough*).

I guess I’ve never understood why lit journals shut down for the summer.  Why not allow writers to submit over the summer and then read through the submissions in the Fall when y’all get back to work?  I’m assuming it’s is a very real fear of the backlog of work that will be waiting for understaffed editorial boards when the Fall semester starts, against which I have no logical argument.

In the meantime I’ll be sending my work to those places that do take submissions year-round.  They will have a leg up on the other journals because they’ll get the chance to reject my stories first, and that’s a good feeling.  For them, I mean.

For all of you interested, I currently have 5 stories making the submission rounds right now, with two more soon to join their ranks.

Maybe those seven pieces will last long enough to get me some time to work on a longer piece of writing (*cough cough* a novel that will be awesome or terrible *cough hack writer cough*).

Thanks and BusinessPosted by John Woodington on May 7th, 2012

Thanks to everyone who donated to the Animal Humane Society Walk for Animals this year.  The walk was a resounding success (at least on our level) as we raised over $1300 this year.  Well, my wife raised about 90% of that, so wish her the congratulations, not me.  If the lives of abandoned animals were in my hands, they’d be in a heap of trouble.

In writing news, I’ve polished up a few new pieces to send out, and will begin that process in the next couple of days.  All stories have been preapproved by my editor (who also holds the position of “My Wife”), except for one, which I forgot to print off last week.

Let’s hope it isn’t crap.

Too Many Words, ManPosted by John Woodington on April 27th, 2012

I’ve started to receive rejection letters once again, mainly from competitions I’ve entered this Spring which are now wrapping up their deliberations and judging.  Can you believe I didn’t win them all?  Me neither.  That’s just crazy.

I’m finding lately that a lot of my short stories are starting to run longer than I would like them to.  I prefer a short story to end up right around 5000 words, but the last couple I’ve worked on have soared past 7000 and 8000 words.  I don’t know if that means I’m freewriting to much, or if I should be gearing up to tackle another novel soon.

In the novel space, I have a few ideas, but I think I want to go back to the YA novel I finished last year.  I got some good critiques on it from my trusted reader (wife), and I think I may be able to punch it up and make it something much better than it currenly is, which is a thriller with solid violence and angry 18-year-olds trying to kill each other.

And no, it is not a rip-off of The Hunger Games.  It is more of a rip-off of Ender’s Game which is a totally different game than the game in The Hunger Games.  Trust me.

Also, did you see the new movie coming out?  It’s called The Hipster Games, and it is everything that is great about the internet.  Also, it has PBR.

Happy Friday.

Writing SchedulePosted by John Woodington on April 23rd, 2012

I would say I’ve been a sporadic writer in the past, never adhering to a schedule for writing, but instead sticking it in where I could.  Lately, however, I’ve been getting up early every day and writing for about an hour (unless I hit the snooze button), and I must say my productivity has increased dramatically.  I wrote through nine drafts of a short story and most of a first draft of a second short story, and that took me about 3 months.  I’d say that’s about double my regular speed.

OFFICIAL RECOMMENDATION: Schedule time to write.  Make it a part of the daily routine.  I consider it a part of my working day, and even if I don’t feel like doing it, I do it anyway, because I’m a little OCD about routines, and I’m trying to use that to my advantage.

In other news:

• Can I buy a rejection letter, please?  I can’t get these things to come in at all.  Some of you will say that’s a good sign, that my stories are being considered longer because they are better and that they may in fact be published.  I would say the number are not in favor of that belief, and I’d prefer the rejections come in quickly so that I can get the story sent out to other markets.  A couple months is fine, but I have a few out there from the Fall of last year.  Not cool.
• I’m reading through the 2012 Pushcart Prize stories.  They are really good.  So far my favorite is “Girls, At Play,” by Celeste Ng.  Really good, really unsettling, really real.
• The Animal Humane Society’s Annual Walk for Animals is in a couple weeks.  My wife and I are doing fundraising to support cute little puppies (not the ugly ones, though.  Gross.).  If you’d like to donate a buck or two, you can do so through our website.  All the money goes to the Humane Society.  And cute puppies.

The New Yorker Rejection Letter is ShrinkingPosted by John Woodington on April 9th, 2012

A long time ago, in a blog post far far away (or maybe just a hyperlink away) I posted my thoughts and feelings about the rejection letter The New Yorker sends out to the broken-hearted authors of the world.

It read as follows:

Dear John,

We’re sorry to say that this manuscript is not right for us, in spite of its evident merit. Unfortunately, we are receiving so many submissions that it is impossible for us to reply more specifically. We thank you for the chance to consider your work.

Sincerely,
The Editors

I am here to tell you that some crazy witchcraft is going on, and that the rejection letter from The New Yorker is shrinking.  Yes, shrinking.  Like sweaters in the washing machine.  Like electricity bills in winter.  Like you-know-whats in a chilly swimming pool.

This is the latest rejection letter I received from The New Yorker, a couple weeks ago:

We regret that we are unable to use the enclosed material. Thank you for giving us the opportunity to consider it.

Sincerely,

The Editors

They didn’t even say “hello” in this email reply.  Or “goodbye.”  Sad face.  Also, the email came with this as the “Subject” line: “Re: via contact us form.”  It doesn’t mention anything about a submission of any kind.

I can understand brevity in a form rejection letter, but I think this is a clear indicator that things are slowly progressing to the future-rejection-letter-state that I once hypothesized on this blog a while back.

Rejection letter of the future:

Author,

No.

The Editors

I know.  I know.  I can feel the chills already as well.

Not-so Short StoriesPosted by John Woodington on March 27th, 2012

Been working on a new short story lately about unrequited love near Omaha, Nebraska, and it’s going okay.  Problem is, the thing’s 8200 words long.

And that’s after I cut out a whole scene this morning.

I don’t think the story is missing focus, or has a lot of fat to trim off.  I just think it’s a longer story, and I have no idea what to do with that.  I prefer my stories to come in around 5000 words, because I find that that is a suitable length to establish good characters and beat the hell out of them in an engaging plot, while still being short enough to fit within the publishing requirements of most literary journals.

So here’s a question for all you writers and readers of short stories:

What do you think is the perfect length for a short story?

I’m sticking with 5000 words until the masses reply and force me to change my opinion in the face of extreme peer pressure.  Maybe this would be a good time to figure out how to do a cool survey thingy on my blog, huh?

I’ll look into it.

The Sun Rejection LetterPosted by John Woodington on March 8th, 2012

I received this form rejection letter from The Sun.

Check it out:

Now, I know what you’re thinking.  The Sun is a difficult market, and a rejection should be no surprise.  And I’m not surprised.  I’m never surprised by rejections, personal or literary.

I guess I had just hoped I could get published here so that I could say I was published by The Sun, but when I’d say it to people, I would make it sound like I was published by the sun, the solar body, not the magazine.

“Yeah, I was published by the sun recently.”

“Really, dude?  That’s friggin’ amazing!  Are there any other celestial bodies considering your work right now?”

I’d shrug, brush a fleck of lint off my cashmere smoking jacket.  “I’m in talks with the earth about a flash fiction collection, yeah.  Nothing big.”

Something like that, you know?  I guess I’ll have to bide my time on this one.  I think it’s readily apparent to all of you now just how big this is for me.

Western Humanities Review (Judgmental) Rejection LetterPosted by John Woodington on March 2nd, 2012

I received this rejection letter from the Western Humanities Review for the first time yesterday, and thought it was kinda cool, what with the bird on it and all:

Not bad, right?  Sincere letter, well-structured, cool picture of a bird with a bunch of callouts labelling its various parts.

Well just hold on now.  Imagine my surprise when I looked a little closer at that bird picture, and the callouts jutting around it.  Here’s a zoomed-in image of the poor avian creature:

Wow.  I mean, really wow.  Talk about judgmental.  I just hope my short story didn’t feel the same sadness I see in this bird’s watering eye when the editors rejected it.

That said, I would be honored to be published in this respected literary journal in the future, and I hope my exposure of their hatred for birds does not hinder my chances long-term.