L. Lambert Lawson
Writer. Reader. Friend.Rejection 65: Nightblade
Dear L. Lambert Lawson,
Thank you for sending us “The Last Girl Alive”. We appreciate the chance to read it. Unfortunately, the piece is not for us but we wish you the best of luck placing it with another market.
Thanks again. Best of luck with this.
Sincerely,
Niteblade
Brief Wallowing
I’m feeling very beat down lately. I know all writers experience these low points, and the survival of them separates the writers from the would-be writers. Hopefully, I’ll get back on the horse. For now, I’m content to let it saunter away. I’m sure I’ll buck up soon, but until then, I’ll refocus on the non-writing parts of my life.
Comments off
Rejection 64: Jabberwocky
Thank you very much for your submission to Jabberwocky. I have decided not to accept your work for publication. This is not necessarily a reflection on the work itself, it simply isn’t quite right for the magazine. I wish you all the best in finding your work a home.
Sincerely,
Editor
Please forgive this form letter. The number of emails I receive makes it impossible to respond to each submission individually.
My Clarion West 2012 Personal Statement
As y’all already know, I was rejected by the Clarion West Writer’s Conference. Disappointing but not wounding. I like the stories I submitted, and I know I’ll sell them. (One’s in second round consideration currently at an online SFF magazine.) Eighteen spots and hundreds (if not thousands) of applicants–not as poor of odds as if I played the Mega Millions, but close enough for caring. I’ll sally forth from this rejection. It’s one of hundreds I intend to get.
Anywho.
Because such was so useful in my application process, I’m posting my application essay/personal statement thingee. It’s probably not the determining factor in why I didn’t get in–it’s the stories, duh!–but I do believe I could have done a better job with this. It was hard to write, and I ended up paring 3,000 words into the ~800 you’ll find here. I hope it’s useful to anyone reading this blog; others’ statements were definitely useful to me. In the interest of paying that help forward, and continuing my transparency so other writers can learn from my mistakes, here’s my statement.
First of all, I’d like you to know that I’m a Returned Peace Corps Volunteer (Ukraine 05-07) and that I ran away from home when I was 15. I begin here because I want you to know that I persist despite ruthless challenge, upset, and disappointment. These experiences alone do not guarantee I can handle the challenge, upset, and disappointment of a writing career, but they show that I have a fighting chance.
I also want you to know that during my Peace Corps service, I wrote a fantasy novel. After two years of writing, two years of editing, and many rejections, I eventually trunked the novel, but the lessons were many. The biggest: I should cut my teeth on short stories.
I’m applying to Clarion West because I want to be a better writer of short stories. I want to be part of a larger community where writing SFF short stories is crucial business, where the act of honing a piece of literature is as important as the themes expressed therein. I want the best of me to be extracted and inked across a page, and I want to help others find the best in themselves as well.
To meet these goals, I read, write, and critique.
I read one short story daily. I subscribe to or read many of the markets I submit to: Asimov’s, Lightspeed, and Daily Science Fiction to name a few. As well, I read a chapter in a novel most nights. I also read blogs from SFF writers several years ahead of me in the career arc–former Clarion graduates like Cat Rambo, Kat Howard, and Daniel Abraham. Tracking their past moves helps me figure out what I should be doing.
I write everyday: a 10-minute freewrite when I wake up, 500 words on a short story during the day, and 300 words on a new novel before bed. I’ve chosen small goals because they’re realistic, given my teaching load (I’m an Assistant Professor of ESL) and my professional writing load (I write textbooks and other materials for Oxford University Press), and they keep me on track. Writers write, and I’m a writer.
And I’ve found some success with my writing. Perigee Art nominated my non-fiction for a Pushcart Prize and bought an SFF story of mine. An essay of mine placed third in a Pyr Books’ competition. And I recently placed a non-fiction piece in the anthology A Small Key Opens Big Doors: 50 Years of Amazing Peace Corps Stories from Travelers’ Tales.
I beta-read and critique. I recently took a workshop with Cat Rambo, and from LitReactor.com, where I critiqued others’ stories. I run Kazka Press, an SFF publisher, and I try to give feedback on stories we reject. Last, I beta-read for writer friends. Critiquing and being critiqued are essential parts of my writing process.
I’ve made SFF short fiction my literary life. Each aspect of my work moves me toward a successful writing career. My most recent writing successes, though, have not involved publication, money, or winning. They’ve involved persistence, submitting and resubmitting to venues that reject me, learning from each rejection and improving. Recently, my persistence paid off. Readers at both 10Flash Quarterly and Daily Science Fiction advanced my stories to second-round consideration. While neither venue ultimately elected to publish my work, moving into the second round, after so many rejections, hinted that I was on the right track.
Clarion West will push me farther down this track. I’m a good writer. I believe I have talent. But, as with learning Spanish, I’ve hit a plateau, and I know I can be much better. The critique, instruction, deconstruction, reconstruction, and reflection I receive at Clarion West can get me there.
When Cat Rambo illuminated the workings of a writing career, and she and her students peeled apart my stories, they confirmed my conviction that being a “whole writer”–writing, reading, workshopping, critiquing, writing, attending conventions, networking, blurbing, marketing, betaing, editing, and writing–is what I want in life. Again, the crucible of Clarion West can get me there. Working on my own, I’m in a slingshot crafted of rubber bands. I can fly by myself but only so far. Clarion West is a catapult, and I want to be shot out of it.
To escape a difficult childhood, I folded myself into reading and writing. One thing my parents did right was give a 10-year-old kid a library card. That gift changed the trajectory of my life. Now, Clarion West can change my trajectory again. George R. R. Martin inscribed a book to me thusly: “Read voraciously. Write every day. Keep your quill sharp.” I do the first two; I’m looking to Clarion West to help me with the last one.
A few people have asked if I applied to Clarion San Diego as well. I did not, mainly for a reason that will seem silly to anyone but me: I live in San Diego.
As for applying to CW again next year? Ask me now, and I’d say no.
Rejection 63: Beneath Ceaseless Skies
Thanks very much for sending this story to _Beneath Ceaseless Skies_. Unfortunately, it’s not quite right for us. I enjoyed a grittiness or urgency I felt in the narrative voice, but Sameh’s goals and stakes didn’t feel as vivid or weighty to me as I was hoping. I knew what they were–to avoid al-Saladan’s vengeance–but I didn’t feel them acutely enough to empathize with Sameh’s fear as much as I needed. I think it may have been because I learned about most of those goals via exposition about them rather than by dramatic interaction; characters interacting about the things at stake or finding specific signs of for example al-Saladan’s wrath that would make me feel Sameh’s fear about potentially incurring that wrath later in the story.
We appreciate your interest in our magazine. Please feel free to submit other work in the future.
As always, great rejection letters from BCS. Onward!
Rejection 62: Daily Science Fiction
Lawrence,
Thank you for submitting your story, “Luck of the Blue Brass”, to Daily Science Fiction. Unfortunately, we have decided not to publish it. To date, we have reviewed many strong stories that we did not take. Either the fit was wrong or we’d just taken tales with a similar theme or any of a half dozen other reasons.
Best success selling this story elsewhere.
- Jonathan & Michele, Daily Science Fiction
Rejection 61: #ClarionWest
Dear L. Lambert Lawson:
Thank you for applying to the Clarion West Writers Workshop for 2012. We are sorry to let you know that you were not selected for this year’s class. We had a record number of applicants, and because the workshop is limited to eighteen students we could only find room for a few of the many promising writers who applied.
We realize this is a disappointment, but hope you will apply to Clarion West in the future as our readers ranked your work highly.
We wish you the best with your writing, and hope you have a productive summer. Thank you again for your interest in Clarion West.
I knew this was coming, and I’m very okay with it. Disappointing, of course, but not heartbreaking. Only a few get in each year; I’m bound not to be one of them. As for the ‘readers ranked your writing highly’: meh. Clearly not. That’s alright, though. Everyone has different tastes. It doesn’t mean I think worse of myself as a writer. It’s just like any other rejection.
Oh well. Now I get to use my 4-Day Comic-Con tickets (with Preview Night).
Oh yeah…and write some more.
Onward!
Paying it Forward: Free Copy of City of Bohane by Kevin Barry (Plz Share)
Hi there. I just read an awesome book: City of Bohane, by Kevin Barry. [Clicking the link will give you a good description of it.] It’s one of the many quality books put out by Graywolf Press. You want to read it.
If you’d like a free copy of this book, from me, do the following:
Mention my twitter handle (@llambertlawson) in a tweet where you tell me why redheads are the scions of the gods.
That’s it: my twitter handle and your answer.
Most amusing answer (according to me) by Friday gets the book–and there’s only one available.
Rejection 60: Writers of the Future
.
The silent rejection. No rejection letter. No note. Perhaps they never received my story?
Rejection 59: Asimov’s
Dear L., Thank you very much for letting us see “Where the Lights Go.” We appreciate your taking the time to send it in for our consideration.
Although it does not suit the needs of the magazine at this time, we wish you luck with placing it elsewhere. Please excuse this form letter. The volume of work has unfortunately made it impossible for us to respond to each submission individually, much as we’d like to do so.
Sincerely,
Editor
Asimov’s Science Fiction
I love Asimov’s. I subscribe, and I think they publish first-rate fiction. This is the story I sent to Asimov’s I sent a few months ago. It’s my best story so far, and the story that forms the backbone of my Clarion West application (No…I didn’t apply to Clarion SD). [I'll tell you why if you ask.] I think it’s a good story, and I know it’ll find a home somewhere. I knew it probably wouldn’t find a home with Asimov’s, but it didn’t hurt to try.
