John Woodington The official site for the author.

Review of The RoadPosted by John Woodington on June 9th, 2010

So far I haven’t heard anything else from the other two literary journals about submitting an updated version of my short story “Memorial,” but these things take time, especially in the summer, when most universities and their lit journals are off doing crazy summer vacation things.  Like teaching summer classes and preparing for fall classes and taking classes to learn how to teach classes better.

In the meantime, I’d like to mention that I just finished reading The Road by Cormac McCarthy, and I still can’t get over how good this book is.  The writing is on a level that I didn’t know existed.  McCarthy breaks every rule of writing and does it so well that to read by-the-book writing afterward feels dull and uninspired.  Finding a book that reads quickly but contains great depth is really difficult, but McCarthy does it with ease here.  Or at least it reads like it was easy for him.  I’m actually hoping it was wicked difficult and took him endless months to get the narrative to read as well as it does, otherwise I’m going to lose a little hope in myself.  I read a book by Hemmingway about writing where he talked about trying to beat other writers of his day in order to become the best writer in America.  I really don’t think you beat The Road.  “Beatable” is not an adjective I’d use around this book.

I’m currently working on finishing up two short stories, and then getting back into revising and polishing my novel Alien Nation.  I head off to a writers retreat in Pennsylvania at the end of the month, and I’d like to have a few things to show the editors there.  Pretty sure they won’t thing Alien Nation is the next The Road, but here’s hoping.

Updating Submissions in ProgressPosted by John Woodington on May 28th, 2010

So we’ll try a little experiment here.  In my last post I mentioned that I had updated my short story “Memorial” into a much better story, and was subsequently bummed out that I had already submitted the non-updated version to many of my top tier locations.  13 of 17 of those submissions have been rejected, but 4 are still out there in review.  So I thought I might query those four places and see if they would let me send them the updated version of the story, since they had not yet reviewed the initial non-updated version I had sent them in March.  Those venues are:

• American Literary Review
• American Short Fiction
• Black Warrior Review
• The Carolina Quarterly

I emailed these four fine literary magazines asking if I could send them the new version of the story.  I’ve never tried this before, so I really don’t know what to expect.  They could all shoot me down, or they could say, “ah, what the heck, send us the new draft.”  I’m hoping for the latter, obviously.

edit 6-1-2010: Black Warrior Review allowed me to submit the updated version of the story, and so now I like them more.  Updated story sent.

edit 6-3-2010: American Literary Review said I could resubmit, but I’d have to wait until October to do so, since their reading period is currently closed, and anything I sent to them now, even a submission update, would automatically be sent back by their interns.  That’s cool.  I had them withdraw the original submission I’d sent them and will send them the updated one in October, as long as it has not already published by then.

Resubmissions and ParentheticalsPosted by John Woodington on May 27th, 2010

I think I won’t write about not watching TV anymore.  It is boring stuff, and I can only say so many times, “Hey, I’m still not watching TV.”  It’s starting to sound like bragging, which means that’s the end of it.  I’m not watching TV, and I’m not writing about not watching TV.  The first rule of not watching TV is you don’t talk about not watching TV.  Ditto on the second rule.

I think I’ve completed my best short story yet.  It’s called “Memorial.”  I’ve had free time to work on it in the evenings, and I finally got a printer up and running in our house, so I printed it off, edited it through a couple times, made two moderately major changes (set it in the present instead of the future, and removed clipped coloquial verbiage, both upon recommendations of trusted readers) and now I think it’s quite publishable.  The problem?  I’ve already submitted it to 17 places in its “set-in-the-future-with-clipped-coloquial-verbiage” form.  So that sucks, because those 17 place were some of my top-tier places that I submit to, and since 13 of them have already rejected it, I can’t submit it to them again.  So now it’s off to other markets, hopefully ones that pay more than just contributors copies.

I know many authors think that if a story (or poem or essay or poemessay(?)) is rejected, they can significantly revise that story and resubmit it as a new piece of material to the very place that has already rejected them.  I don’t believe in that approach.  I say if you get rejected, you keep a stiff upper lip and move on to the next venue, whether you revise the story or not.  Were I an editor of a literary journal (or publishing house) I wouldn’t want to see the same story three times in three different draft forms.  That’d be a waste of time.  I’d say if an editor asks for a revision specifically, then go for it, but otherwise, don’t resubmit it even after significant editing.

(Also, I love parentheticals (and double-parentheticals) because they are so easy to drop in wherever you’d like.)