Okay, so I thought I'd let you know how I'm doing, Bertha. I'm not yet important or interesting enough for it to matter to anyone how I'm doing, but it's like purging all the goo from inside me and besides I think I'm supposed to do this, okay?
So sent off Sexy Little Numbers submission to BL. Semi-happy about it. Very gender switch, though, and still can't seem to get it as dirty as I think might be wanted. I just think I find it hard to get it really dirty in such a short amount of time. It's like cramming a million cocks into a lunchbox. I like build-up too much, so that the million cocks have time to breathe and frolic and get themselves into a right old state.
Anyhoo, also sent off a submission to Xcite books. Everything fine. Send the email to hubby to check it looks okay. Everything good. Sorted. Send it to them and it still comes out wrong! Big giant spaces between each paragraph! Am internet div, will be blacklisted from publishing industry for huge spaces. V. bad. Black mood. Etc.
Also massive panic has descended about Misbehaviour submission, as per usual. I always like it when I send it off, and then as it gets closer and closer to the time when I might hear about it, panic stings me like a thousand tiny bees, inside my clothes. Am rubbish. Am buffoon. I know it wasn't good enough. I should be buffeted by four (FOUR!) acceptances, but am not.
Bees, bees, bees.
In further news, have now completed four stories for my own anthology, and almost completed a further three. Another two are half done in long hand. I am reasonably happy about this progress, but since I want to submit for The Affair (half done) and possibly to Scarlet magazine by Feb. 11th, have got to get my finger out. Am aiming for 4000-6000 words a day on the days when I'm not full-time working, and sometimes meet it. Mostly it's more like 3000, though.
Does this all sound like a complaint? It isn't. Oh mah gaw I'm loving it. Even the massive spaces in emails. THIS is LIVING!
Even if it's kind of...not. I'm living in a dream world, yeah!
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Cocks in a lunchbox. That image will live with me forever... I've got that 'Misbehaviour' panic going on too. Way back whenever, I pressed 'Send' thinking 'Ha! Take that!' and now I'm worried he's going to report me to the police for crimes against smut. And that paragraph thing happens to me ALL THE TIME. Why can't we submit handfuls of tear&blood-stained parchment any more?
ReplyDeleteHee hee- ha, take that! But he'll never report you for crimes against smut. Unless they've got a so hot it's illegal department. Your smut is smokin'. Mine is a vanilla blancmange made by a ninety year old great aunt. Covered in a doily.
ReplyDeleteThank God it's not just me with the mad email paragraphing. How does that happen? Help us, techie people, help us! I actually sent an email to Adam and it came out all bloo-blin-blong, so I redid it and sent him another one titled "With Less Mad Formatting".
It seemed like a good idea at the time, but now I'm "Charlotte Stein: Internet Moron" on his list of authors and what's right/wrong with them. At the top of the list are all the fabbo ones, and at the bottom there's us grebulons, who do divvy things like send him emails that are all just one five mile long line.
Not that he has a list like that, I'm sure. He's far too nice and bothered by important things. Curse you, neuroti-brain!
The silver lining is that all those extra spaces between paragraphs can be recycled: just plug them into your next story, and you don't have to take the trouble to write any new inter-paragraph spaces. Think of it as a head start on your next story!
ReplyDeleteIs inter-paragraph spaces a techie thing, Jeremy? Justine, Justine! He has fire! He do fings with fire fings in magic word box! Grab him!
ReplyDeleteMore sanely: thanks for the comforting. I will take that silver lining, and run with it. You have freed my extra paragraphs from their chains, and now they shall frolic in other things. Wherever a page long block of text lurks, those paragraphs shall swing to the rescue.
A daily target of 3-6000 words leaves me gobsmacked, Charlotte. I aim for 1000 and usually write about 1300. I mean, how else would I fit in all those games of Spider solitaire?
ReplyDeleteBad, lazy Janine: you will have no biscuit today!
Aw no- you can has biscuit! I think I'm just a quick writer of crap, that then has to be re-edited eight million times. And I only really get about three days a week where I'm hitting 3-6000. My record's 8345, and then I died. Not advisable. The next day my hand was twitching weirdly.
ReplyDeleteI play Solitaire in between, too. I've got that 42 games for my DS, and I play Solitaire, checkers, chess, mahjonng and darts. It's brill! Plus you can just put the DS in another room if it's distracting you too much.
Alas, I cannot fathom the secrets of spontaneously generated paragraph spaces, either. (You can still grab me, though.)
ReplyDeleteI am not a proper author or owt but think CS should not get herself in a tizz. She probably doin' just fine. And your smut is both classy and dirty - the way many of us like it. Fear not, sweet one.
ReplyDelete6000 words is more than one of my essays and then some. You set your bar high, lady. Not to criticise - as you know. But that is a tall order but if you can do it - fair enough.
Maurice Bendix thought he did brill with 500 words a day. But he was fucked-up ..
*grabs Jeremy*
ReplyDeleteAnd Sefi! You're here again! And you never criticise. You gently ruffle. You soothe with a soft brillo pad. My smut is both classy and dirty- yeah!
And I know I set my bar high and am hard on myself, etc. But I have to, because me is soft and needs to be kicked into shape. Look at me now, distracting myself with thoughts of that slasher novel I always wanted to write, instead of getting down to business!