Things I would like to be better at.

Before I get into that, guess what?

You can go buy the new issue of Thuglit with a story by yours truly inside, for kindle (which you can read on your phone or your pc or your actual kindle..fuck yeah technology) for just 99 cents dudes. You can get it in print too. Go check it out here and here’s a bite from my story:

Kiki the Killer was the kind of girl you saw in videos. Dark brown skin, a few scattered tattoos, long braids and a big, high, round, proud ass that she knew what to do with.

The four of them were as rapt as the rest of the crowd.
“Aw shit man, I’d hit that raw dog.”

Also let me mention that Todd did an amazing edit on that story. Another example of why I need a very good editor with a sharp eye.

Oh also if you visit my official author website, you can see all my new work. 

Okay.

While I will say that yes, my editing skills have improved by huge bounds over the years. I wish I was a better editor.  one of my problems is that (no I don’t want to talk about it in depth kthnks) I have a bit of a learning disability and at some point editing just gets too hard for me to do. Being that I did not have the opportunity to deal with it when I was a kid, I have learned to deal with it as best I can but sometimes y’all, some times I just can’t and it’s really frustrating.

Along with that, I do have very bad vision issues and occasionally when I’m overworking myself I plain just can’t see to properly edit.

Also something I can’t really do a lot about.

When I was teaching myself to edit, somehow I got the idea that I should slash and burn. No actually let me put it this way. I did not edit my work so much as I raped, pillaged and burnt it like some kind of conquering mother fucker with emotional problems.

Part of that habit came about because (as you have probably noticed) I am a wordy windbag. I always have been. I recall very vividly having adults tell me as a child that I had a bulky vocabulary and I was not afraid to flex it.  Then along came teachers who were very strict about word counts on things thus, the hack and slash was born.

I have since developed a system for editing. I write a thing, I put said thing away from 1 week to a month. I print out thing, read it on my commute home and make some minor adjustments. Do the best I can with my comma overuse and whatnot. Rinse repeat a few times until I feel like I’m ruining it then I put it away again and do another pass to fix editing burns and then with that done as best I can, I send it out.

So far I am actually pretty pleased with how far I’ve come in terms of dealing with my editorial issues. As they say, practice makes perfect.

Second thing.

I wish I could write on theme when I see one.

I’ve never functioned that way as an author and when I force myself to try, it sucks. However, that issue did birth my habit of having a stash of varied finished things. Occasionally, I see a theme and voila right there in my little folder(s) is just the thing.

Third.

I am working on this but I am still so fucking uncomfortable self promoting. See also my ridiculously terrible at crowd funding/asking for donations. I am so uncomfortable doing it.  Granted I am far better now. Once upon a time (maybe four years ago) I might have put up a link in my personal blog and sent a link to a few friends but that was it.  I am miles beyond where I was. This is one of those things that honestly I have to work really hard on. I have to brute force my way through feeling proud/embarrassed/like I’m being annoying to promote my work.

The point here is that sometimes I have to remind myself that I have come a long way from the days of my secret scribblings on paper that I often later burned or flushed. I have come a long way from crying into precious pint lit journals that I bought with saved up lunch money.

I wish I could go back and tell baby Shannon writer that she would get better. Some people would read her work and that it was okay to struggle and cry through it. It was okay. It felt terrible and was so fucking hard but, baby self it was worth it.

Now if y’all will excuse me.

OH wait no one more thing.

So if you tumblr you can follow this thing I made where I reblog/post visuals that I find inspiring. I honestly suggest doing something like this if you are a visually oriented type like I am. Right here. Enjoy!

Good News everyone.

Good news and some links to stuff I like.

First the news. I got my second hood noir piece into one of my favorite magazines. I’ll be appearing in the next issue of Thuglit. Out um..? I dunno, at any rate head on over to the facebooks and check them out.  If you like modern noir it is the shit.  I’m very excited about that one.

Next up you can still read my first spec. fic story over at Expanded Horizons.  I am honestly so pleased with the pieces I’ve had published so far this year and the ones coming up this summer. I like where I am driving this bus.

What else?

Okay ready for some stuff I like?

First up I picked up a copy of Mike Arnzen’s INSTIGATION: CREATIVE PROMPTS ON THE DARK SIDE.  I have been a fan of Arnzen’s work and his instigations for years now. I actually had a piece instigated by one of his prompts published quite a while ago now. The book is very entertaining. If you are someone who likes prompts that don’t involve fluffy bunnies and rainbows, pick it up.  I’ve found that for me, using prompts in a not necessarily literal fashion can really help me out if I’m feeling uninspired or just want to let myself write. This comes highly suggested. I love having this sort of thing at hand.

One of my favorite new erotic presses has a call for submissions up. Go read about it here. My personal favorite piece of information is this:

We believe that well written sexuality has no boundaries; we are looking for stories with any sexual orientation and all genders. Similarly, we are an equal opportunity publisher; we accept submissions from authors of any genders. The two limitations we have for this anthology are as follows: no underage characters who engage sexually with adults and no snuff.

I just picked up Raziel Moore‘s newest book from there.  If you like your erotica on the darker side and very well written you should check out his work. I’ve been a fan for a long time thanks to the ERWA lists.  I promise a review when I’m done reading it.

Ah, if you haven’t paid for Duotrope and are unsure about doing so, in the current issue of Poets and Writers there is a coupon code for a free month of service. Head to your local news stand, library or other place with writing mags and check it out. I forgot my print copy of the magazine at home or I’d just put it here. If you don’t have the money for a full membership here’s what I suggest. Get together some finished work, stuff you are ready to send out. Use the coupon code, submit like crazy. Also during your free month make copious notes/bookmarks for places you’re interested in submitting work to. At the end of your month you can have submissions out AND have some market research ready to go without shelling out money you might not have.

I saw this linked on facebook (Tony DuShane? I dunno, I can’t recall) and it made me chuckle. I love articles like this. 

As much as HTMLGIANT can get on my nerves, I really enjoy a lot of the book related posts. In particular this one 25 Points: American Psycho.  Just go read it I promise it’s not annoying.

This post over at the Rumpus along with some of the things linked in it (scroll down) and the whole stupid debate about whether or not confessional writing/non fiction is okay, is on my mind right now. I don’t have my thoughts together yet but I’ll probably make one of my thinky I’ve been chewing on a thing for a while posts about it soon.

If you like non fiction and you’re not reading the Brevity blog, what are you doing with y our life? You should read it, I love it. This post in particular.

Last link is this piece over at Smokelong by Venita Blackburn. It is fucking lovely. I mean it.

I think that’s all for today y’all. I am an allergy ridden mess. So let’s wrap up with my current working stats.

Duotrope says:

	OVERALL	FICTION	POETRY	NON-FIC
Pending Submissions:	10	7	2	1
Sent Past 12 Months:	47	33	8	6
Sent This Month:	1	1	0	0
Acceptance Ratio:	40%*	37.5%*	57.1%*	25%*

Not bad.

Other issues.

I am out of ready to submit work so I’m taking a couple of weeks to polish up finished items and finish up a few things. I am trying to tweak my routine a bit so I have a bit more (for my taste) flexibility and stash of items to submit as I feel fit. I am still really hoping to hit 100 rejections by mid-late summer. But as we all know one must submit like a mother fucker in order to be rejected like a mother fucker.

SO I’m getting on that.

For right now I have a pot of strong tea brewed at my left, a phone on my right and dayjob duties to attend to.

If you have links to stuff you want to share, your own work or whatever you think is interesting feel free to leave them in comments. Just don’t be spammy.

Later taters.

My first Spec Fic publication.

I am so excited.

The little story that could, Calling Oshun is up at Expanded horizons now. Read it here.

I am extraordinarily pleased and excited about this particular publication for several reasons.

I wrote Calling Oshun a few years ago and workshopped it in a fairly casual manner.

The only real criticisms of the story weren’t really of the story or the structure, it was the use of an “esoteric” (read not White) deity.

Several writers and editors have at one point or another recommended I change it to a more known (Green or Roman) goddess to make the story “accessible”.

That was one of the first instances where I was told that in order to get a story published I would have to basically Whitewash it.

I was so frustrated and upset and hurt.

So I put the story away for a while.

I did do a version with a Greek Goddess and the story was ruined. I went back to the original and submitted it about 8 times before it got accepted. Some editors who sent personal rejections thought it was beautiful but not something their readers would “get”.

That is what I’m talking about when I talk about some of the frustrations of being a writer of color who writes about people of color.

This story was one of the first times I was angry enough to work to get it published without the Whitewashing and I must say I am very proud of myself. The editors over there got my point exactly and I was honestly almost in tears when I talked about it with one of the editors.

It is the first time I have felt that kind of deep gratification of my first instincts.  Being welcomed by other people of color and having that feeling of acceptance and understanding that is so rare in the literary world.

Once upon a time someone I really admire gave me the best writing advice I have ever gotten. He told me that my strength and success would be in writing the stories only I can tell in ways that only I can tell them.

So here is a tidbit.

“He is beautiful as fine polished ebony, his eyes closed his wide mouth stretched and magnificent, his voice transcends all. In his voice is the rumble of thunder from my long ago homeland:”

Head here to read the whole thing.

In other news I updated my website a bit. I still have to pull some out of print links off of it. I’ll probably reprint those stories here for free. I’ll be back next week to talk about some of the really good shit I’ve been reading lately, my erotic chapbook project and some other stuff.

 

 

Stuff happened.

I have a migraine hangover, if you don’t get migraines it is the rebound headache one gets after a bad migraine.

However I have good news.

First, go read my newest non fiction piece called She Didn’t Make it.  This is my first publication of the year.

The next one should be up next month if I recall right.

I am really proud of that piece. It is my second explicitly rly queer piece .

Other good news.

It looks like I will be able to buy the little Chromebook I’ve had my eye on sooner rather than later and I’m really excited about that. My decade old PC (with some newer parts) has been fucking up really badly, the other night I lost three (hard won) pages of work and a few of my other working files have gotten corrupted because my computer hates autosave.

In the meantime I’ve been using my Amazon cloud storage for some documents along with google drive. I’m more than a little paranoid about losing work at this point and I want to finish about five more stories before I get back to regular submitting.

What else?

I still have ten pieces out. I am going to withdraw/consider lost two next week I think.

One of the things I love about Duotrope is that you can see if work that came in after yours has been looked at.

Um…I think that’s all for now I actually can’t really think clearly anymore.

Enjoy the essay.

Come back next week and I’ll review J. Bradley.

Oh the things you’ll see.

I am feeling some kind of way about a lot of things right now.

So because I can’t actually use words for my feelings let’s talk about my newest piece that got published.

The Female of the Species over at Linguistic Erosion.

This story was renamed, rewritten, I took out some of the more sexual bits and it got rejected about seven times all told.

I was so happy this got picked up. I feel like a lot of female protagonists are not talking about their own awfulness and not repenting for that awfulness. It’s one of those holes in the female* narrative that is missing all too often for me.  Thus I write it and sometimes people who are not me like it.

Recently there have been some things I’ve been linked to and honestly I just can’t with a lot of what I’m reading. While rationally I do realize that a tale of woe that starts with the Fat Miserable Girl trope who then does something that involves not being fat anymore and suddenly she’s a better more wonderful person- sells it bores me and doesn’t speak to me. Probably because I am a fat person for whom epic weightloss did nothing but make me miserable.

Also I don’t personally ascribe to the notion of weightloss as the ultimate female redemption.

There has to be more.

I know that at least superficially I am supposed to feel all sisterly/rah rah about other female writers but sometimes I honestly just can’t. I just get so frustrated with so many Ladylike narratives, so many Thin Pretty White Lady Narratives, so much of what I read around at places just feels like it has nothing to do with me ever at all I get tired reading it.

So is the woe of the picky Black lady.

This happens to me sometimes.

So what am I reading?

I’ve actually been reading some really kick ass stuff.

I was alerted about the return of ThugLit by Court Merrigan. I’d read a previous incarnation of ThugLit and frankly this revamped issue one is hot fucking shit. The stories have a really beautiful range in tone, language, setting etc that often genre magazines miss. This is as I said hot shit. You should read it. Also go read Mr. Merrigan there, I am into what he does.

Also go read this piece at The Rumpus by Roxane Gay. If you’re new here, you should know I have the kind of worst crush on Roxane ever. Also she was really nice to me when I sent her a nerdy ass note.  Actually while you’re there, you should just read all of her things.

Another feature I’m enamored of on the Rumpus lately is Nick Cave Monday as penned by another author of whom I’m very fond Tony DuShane.  Go, read it.

If it weren’t for the lovely Anna March, I would have missed this piece in Salon because I’m not a fan of Salon but go read it. It’s really beautiful. I will actually be going back to Salon to check out for more of Laura’s work.

ALSO shit go read this piece by Antonia Crane whom I also have a terrible terrible crush on.

What else?

Oh tomorrow to celebrate Samhain/my anniversary with my partner I will be offering for free both my first humorous horror story I ever had published AND some flash sized horror themed erotica.

WIN right?

I think I will upload them to smashwords for free.

What else?

OH I want to start/confirm an internet rumor. Ready?

Milcah Orbacedo is not only super gorgeous in person but she also smells like a delicious little dessert.  She also touched my butt so there.

I have work to do.

I will return tomorrow with links and some talk about Nanowrimo because I think I’m diving back into my flavor of horror without the nerd spirals of doom or shyness. I think I am ready.

 

Dreaming Sherman Alexie

If you don’t know who Sherman Alexie is first what have you been doing with your life and second he is an author I like a lot.

I have read his work, heard him speak and admired him for years and the past let’s say two months Mr. Alexie has been very present in my life. Recently I read his story in The Speed Chronicles. There is a line in the story about one of the characters War Dancing on speed.

The image has been haunting me since I read the book. I had a dream I was at one of those huge All Nations type Powwows and saw that kind of dancer. It wasn’t just an All Nations event but, all peoples. There were peoples and dancers from places and tribes beyond any understanding I have and it was so beautiful. The visceral pull of ancestors and blood and energy made me want to dance like I was on meth and full of joy.

The day or day after that dream I listened to him read someone else’s story on the New Yorker Fiction Podcast. I had forgotten what his voice sounds like and when I reread his story in The Speed Chronicles I could hear it in my ear in his voice and it was a beautiful thing.

Aside from fangirl yammerings, my point here is how much I admire the skill to create a small line in a great story that is haunting and so beautiful. It moves me.

Now how about some news?

I have new flash fiction up at Used Furniture Review. My tiny story No Habla can be found here.

Can I tell you how excited I was to finally have that story accepted? Looking over the stats on it, it was rejected five times before it was accepted. Three of those were those painful we love the story, we love how you write but not for us type.

What else?

Oh I posted this on tumblr last night and I’ll share it here too.  I’m going to brag and flap my chicken wings for a minute.

Click to make it bigger.

Essentially my current acceptance rate is 25%.

I’ve made 44 total submissions in the last calendar 12 months.

A few other stats that I am pretty proud of.

Since 9/10/2011 I have gotten rejected 54 times.  Unfortunately I didn’t think to keep track outside of Duotrope about my actual submissions numbers beyond what they keep track of.

The past couple of years have been pretty huge for me. I am doing things I am shit scared of.

Monday night, I take another off of my list.

Now if y’all will excuse me I’ve got shit to write.

 

My New Book is DONE!

I have written a self care guide in the style of my personal blog with the support and encouragement of my regular readers. Basically I am giving my readers and whomever else buys it the tools I use and ways to learn to self care and whatnot. I’m very happy with it and very excited about it.

So here it is.

I worked very hard on it and am very proud of what I’ve done. It is really important of me to be of service to my fellow humans who are like me and ill served by mainstream shit.

Now I have other work to do today so I’ll just leave this here.

If you’re a regular reader I am going to do a long form review of Roxane Gay’s book Ayti and I’ll probably do some more talking about things. Please if you buy my little book enjoy it.

More good news and things to read.

First up holy crap, LOOK. My story is live at SmokeLong.

Holy shit. It is so awesome.

I can’t even right now. Even the art is something I would actually have. It’s similar to some small pieces I got randomly in a trade a long while back.

What else?

I have things for you to read.

First this was posted on the ERWA writers list and it’s an excellent article about writing flash fiction.

My dear friend Anthony has a new erotic novel out which you can buy here.  I love his writing. I’m about a third of the way through this and per usual it’s beautifully written and hot. It’s lush. HE is lush. If you enjoy well written gorgeous erotica he is your man. Seriously.

Also watch this. It is the “controversial” new video by Erykah Badu and the Flaming Lips. There is nudity and blood and fucking gorgeousness. I love the redo of this song, I love the video. I am in love with all of it.

Over at the Rumpus Roxane wrote about the publishing industry as it is right now. It’s a fine read.  If you’ve read me for a hot minute you know how I feel about it.

Over at Other People with Brad Listi one of my favorite people got interviewed. Yes, Jerry Stahl.  If you don’t listen to the show regularly listen to this episode. Understand why I love Mr. Stahl that much.  Seriously.

I think that’s all for right now. I’m exhausted and feel hung over because I took some sleep aids last night. Go forth, read, frolic.

I forgot to mention.

Actually I didn’t but forget I just didn’t.

I have new work up at Foliate Oak.  Read my tiny story ‘Dog and Girl’.  A note about that story. It is one of the things I scribbled in one of my paper notebooks I don’t know when. I reworked it a tad bit and it sat in a might be closing lit mags limbo for a few months before I pulled it and sent it to Foliate Oak. I’m very glad they took it. I like it when my experiments get published.

What else?

I believe I’m going to do another edition of Wayward Words. The feedback has been amusing. Some of my author friends totally get where I was going, some have been horrified. My non writing friends thought it was lovely for the most part.

What else?

Uh some things are going on that I’m having a hard time with. Other writers, writers who’s work I admire and enjoy have been super super kind to me.

To be frank, this scares the shit fuck out of me.

I am not used to being in this position and while I am unutterably thankful I’m also nervous. It’s scary.

I don’t know what I’m trying to say exactly.

I’m still exhausted but sort of feeling better. Today I’m going to eat some fruit, write some things and try to remain calm and somewhat alert.

Here is a tidbit from one of the things I’m working on.

I learned that there are a few minutes just before sunrise happens that the air is made out of light and silence.

 

I have done things.

You might recall I mentioned that I pitched my first article. It has gone live.

Over on FB presence of People of Color Organize, you’ll find the piece I wrote. This article is about surviving as an author of color in the literary world.

I am very proud of that.

What else?

I got an acceptance yesterday but none of the emails for the magazine are working right now so I don’t really know what to do.

Coming up I’ll be in the next issue of Milk Sugar. So I do still write fiction and stuff.

I have other news but I’m kind of keeping it to myself for right now until I can get some shit done.

So go read things by people I like.

First go read this piece by the lovely (She gives me the vapors) Antonia Crane.

Via Dennis, I found a link to this piece by Kyler James. It is really lovely.

Go read Blake Butler in Tin House. I really like his work a lot.

Per usual Junk is bringing it and this piece is great. I really like it.

I’m kind of no okay really obsessed with Dogzplot and I really love this piece.
In other lit news.

I really want Fuckscapes by Sean Kilpatrick. I’d actually buy it based on the name alone but from what I’ve seen it’s really up my alley.

I’ve been reading this blog Literary Rejections on Display and I kind of really love it. Sometimes when all you get are rejections you just have to laugh a little.

In case you haven’t noticed HTMLGIANT, the comments have died. RIP..

I think that’s all for now. I will return with more news and things soon.