John Woodington The official site for the author.

Black Warrior Review RejectionPosted by John Woodington on August 10th, 2010

Contrary to the ominous, depressing tone of the title of this post, I’m relatively pleased with the rejection letter I received from Black Warrior Review for a short story of mine.  It appears as follows:

Correct me if I’m wrong, but I don’t believe this is the standard rejection slip from BWR.  This is the next step up.  “We were interested in it,” they say.  And I say yay.

Unless someone replies and says that this is in fact the standard rejection slip.  Then I will look very sad.

Or maybe scared, as can be seen in this picture of me looking outside at the pounding rain:

A Novella Rejection and Still No TVPosted by John Woodington on May 11th, 2010

I mentioned not long ago a new publication that specializes in novellas called Short Sharp Shock.  I submitted my novella “Goodwill” to them and they asked for more and more of it, but in the end rejected it.  I thought I’d share their rejection here, as it was very nice and also helpful and enlightening for me as a writer trying to get stuff published:

Hi John,

Sorry, but we’re going to pass.

You can write. I’m sure you know that. Goodwill is smooth and the voice is clean and engaging. It’s a character study and a well done one at that. I think it would be a better fit for S3, though, if you took that same interesting character and put him in a plot-driven book. I have no idea if you wrote this before or after the appearance of the show Dexter. I think the success of that show – I haven’t read the books – comes from interweaving the character’s development with an unfolding plot.

A smaller, detail point: I still think the beginning would be stronger if you didn’t spill the beans right at the start. Let Gabe’s obsession reveal itself a little more slowly.

One person’s opinions.

Feel free to submit another manuscript whenever.

Best,
Eric

I really like what Eric et al are doing at their publication, ‘nough said.

I didn’t think that editors would be comparing the submissions they receive to television shows they watch, but I suppose it’s inevitable.  I’ve not personally watched the show Dexter at all, but I have seen the DVDs for the first season on sale at Target, and I believe they have blood on the cover, which I take as a good sign.

It’s also worth noting that I will not be watching any episodes of Dexter in the future, since my wife and I are giving up watching TV.  We officially removed the TV from our main family room, and I will try to post a picture of the beautiful vacant space it has left.  We are currently looking for new bookshelves to fill in said space.

It’s been 8 days since I’ve watched a TV show, and in that time, I’ve read all of Fight Club (brief review to come) and begun reading a novella called The Lemur, which looks to be a crime/mystery story, which is a new genre for me.  This is significant because I am a slow reader, and have not read an entire book in a single week since college.  My hypothesis that TV sucks up the best parts of your life is now further strengthened.

The Best Weight-loss Plan EverPosted by John Woodington on April 7th, 2010

On Monday, I discovered the most effective weight-loss plan in the history of the world.  I call it the “Stomach Flu” plan.  In twenty-four hours I lost about 90 pounds.  At least, it felt like I did.

Glimmer Train has a nice little interview with Thomas E. Kennedy, in which he describes and provides a great little exercise called the “cut-up technique” which gets you to stop thinking logically and start writing better.  Scariest of all is that it makes sense.  And works.  I may have to try it.

The Alexander Patterson Cappon Prize for Fiction is taking submissions until May 18th, and if you win, you get $1,500.00, which is like $8,765.93 in Writer Money and $12,346.17 in College Money.  Of course, there’s a $15.00 reading fee when you submit, but that’s about as low of a fee as you will find for a prize that size.

My short story “Memorial” was rejected by Crazyhorse, though the rejection email disappointed me a bit.

We are sorry this particular manuscript was not selected for publication in Crazyhorse. We hope you will send us another soon, though. We could not publish Crazyhorse without the fine writing submitted to us. While we regret that the large number of submissions we receive makes it difficult for the editors to respond personally, we want to emphasize that an editor personally read your manuscript. Devoted reading is part of the Crazyhorse editorial mission; it is also our own personal one.

I was really hoping for an image of a truly crazy horse to come violently neighing out of my computer screen to slap me in the face with its oat bag and shriek at me that it hated my story and it had bigger fields to gallop through.  Basically Mr. Ed after a trough of Mountain Dew.  Ya feel me?

The New Yorker Rejection LetterPosted by John Woodington on March 5th, 2010

I submitted a story to The New Yorker on December 4th of last year.  Exactly three months to the day later, March 4th, 2010, I received the most current version of their standard rejection letter (email).  It reads 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 told them not to be so long-winded in their response but they never listen to me.  I just hope the exactly-three-month rejection time isn’t some blatant indication that they never read the story in the first place.  I’d rather be rejected than not considered at all.

…

In more promising news, Glimmer Train has a $2000.00 top prize in their Fiction Open competition, which is accepting submissions currently.  So maybe I’ll send this New Yorker-rejected story to them.

I’m 150 pages into my edit of my novel AlieNation which is looking more and more like the title will change to either Alien Nation or The Alien Abduction Consultant, though the latter seems very bland and not-thoughtful.  I’m finding that there are certain section which are far easier for me to edit than others.  The most difficult sections to edit are the ones where I read through them, realize they are redonkulously horrible, and then agonize for an hour about cutting it out.  After the cuts are made, however, everything feels better.  Onward and upward.

Dealing with (Humorous) Literary RejectionPosted by John Woodington on February 26th, 2010

Here’s a short post for you.  I got a short story rejected by The Normal School, and to my surprise, included with this rejection was something I’ve never seen before.  Check it out.

I got rejected by The Normal School, and now I have this awesome sticker to remind me of that failure every day.  Actually, this made me genuinely laugh when I first saw it.  Everyone gets rejected as a writer (or as a human being).  Rejection is all part of the game, so there’s no reason to get down about it.  And I think that’s what The Normal School is showing with their rejection sticker.  Don’t take it too seriously, it’s all part of the game.

How to Deal with (Tiny) Literary Rejections, and 2010 PronunciationPosted by John Woodington on January 2nd, 2010

Well, in honor of the new year, I thought I’d post something slightly humorous, though slightly disheartening.  I figure it would be a good combination of melancholy and happiness, to mimic the passing of the old year and the beginning of the new one.  So check out this beast of a rejection letter, from a literary journal which shall remain covered by a quarter for scale.

So that’s pretty tiny.  One of the smallest rejections (as far as physical size goes) I’ve ever gotten, no doubt about it.  I refuse to be disheartened, however, and figure that it is this journal’s way of being “green” with their rejections.  I mean, they could probably fit a dozen or more of these little guys on a single sheet of paper.  Woohoo for saving trees.

In more important news (for me, not for anyone else) I am unbelievably happy that it is now 2010, because we can finally get away from saying the words “two thousand” when pronouncing the year.  “Twenty ten” is how it shall be pronounced, and anyone caught saying “two thousand ten” will be immediately slapped in the mouth.  Not by me though, ’cause that’s illegal.

I hope everyone has a great new year and a great new decade.  By the end of this decade, I’ll be 36 years old and ready for the nursing home, so I’ve got to make this one count while I can.