Writer, poet, editor, student, teacher, tired.
| Marcie;
I've been off line for a while a took a peek at my author thread and realized I never adequately responded to your sincere and apt post. I must admit your characterization of my posts directed to Kent were fair and do not wish to speak out of both sides of my mouth on the matter which is old by now. I would like to share with you a similar event in my real life that you might use to understand how my anger became directed at our leader.
Like flys on a wall my co-workers and I were frantically bu....
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| Hang in there, name-mate! And congrats on all the pubs! Well on your way to taking over the specfic poetry world. ;)
Marcy (too lazy to sign in) |
| Hey, Marcie. Sorry to hear that things haven't been rosy for you lately. But that's a nice list of recent publications, and I am on my way to Goblin Fruit now! Thanks for the info!
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| Life has been a bit dark and insane lately, and I've not been posting as much as I should.
I've had a number of sales lately, many of which I can't remember right now, but I have recent poetry publications up on the web that might be worth checking out: "Ice-cream and Absent Lovers" is up on Abyss and Apex, at http://www.abyssandapex.com/200607-ice-cream.html "The Ballad of Stagg'rin' Bill (Scourge of the Spaceways)" is up on The Sword Review at http://theswordreview.com/item.php?sub_id=472 "Star Pilot's Grave" is up on Ray Gun Revival at http://www.raygunrevival.com/index.html Finally, a sonnet of mine, as well as a recording of me reading the thing, is up on Goblin Fruit, at http://www.goblinfruit.net/mainwtable.htm I do hope people check them out. |
| My poem "Just Another Work Day in Fairy Land" is up at The Sword Review http://theswordreview.com/contents.php
An older poem of mine, "Terror at the Cross Dimensional Tavern," is in the latest issue of Beyond Centauri. |
| Well, a few things going on in this, the start of the new year.
I have a dark traditional poem, "Moving On," up at Aberrant Dreams. http://www.hd-image.com/aberrant_dreams/current_issue.htm Various other poems have sold to various markets, and will be appearing bit by bit in the next few months. I'll try to stop by and post when they show up. I've started editing again, as a poetry editor over at The Sword Review http://theswordreview.com/contents.php I'm also writing a poetry column for them, around every other week or so. Finally, with the new year come award nomination periods. Some kind if misguided souls have nominated me over at the Preditors & Editors Readers' Poll, in the best poet category, as well as nominating my poem, "After the Change," published on the Raven Electrick site, as best poem. There are also a lot of Sword Review nominations, as well as some stories, poems and artwork by folk who would be well recognized by Rumor Millers. Anyone who wants to check it out should go to: http://www.critters.org/predpoll/ |
| I have VCON in Vancouver this weekend. In case anyone will be there, my sched is as follows:
Friday: 3pm Anthologies from beginning to end 6pm Getting Published Without Getting Ripped off 8pm Poetry Readings Saturday: 1pm Do Dragons Cry? Good and bad dragns & what we can learn from them. 4pm SF Poetry: What sets it apart? 5pm Running an On-line Writer's Group Sunday 12 pm Writers Workshop C |
| A bunch of new stuff up and out...
My poem, "Stardust," is out in Mythic Delirium issue 12. Another poem, "Lust Sulks: A Sin-Quain," is in the most recent Dreams and Nightmares. I have a poem, "Plastic Surgery," and an article, "Speculative Poetic Foci," in the latest issue of Illumen. My poem "The Traveller's Tale," is up at The Sword Review http://theswordreview.com/item.php?sub_id=182 My poem, "Displaced," is in the October Between Kisses http://www.samsdotpublishing.com/betweenkisses/cover.htm And yet another poem, "After the Change," is up at Raven Electrick http://www.ravenelectrick.com/ravenpoetrick/afterthechange.html |
| "Eighth Pricess" is now running in The Sword Review:
http://theswordreview.com/contents.php Thanks for letting us publish it! |
| I have three new pieces up on the net right now.
The Sword Review has posted my poem, "We'll Not Sail Out on Fridays" at http://theswordreview.com/contents.php Deep Magic has my story, "Places Underground" in their current issue at http://www.deep-magic.net/ Ideomancer's most recent issue includes my poem, "The Water Sprite's Lament" at http://www.ideomancer.com/main/ideoMain.htm |
| Hi, Bill! You have no idea what your kind response to my work has done to my ego!
I should mention, for anyone reading, that the wonderful people at The Sword Review, as well as publishing my story, "Why Gionino the Baker has no Wife," and buying my poem, "We'll Not Sail Out on Fridays," have also recently accepted my fairy tale "The Eighth Princess," originally published in Spellbound. I'm trying to give them a breather (otherwise known as some Marcie-free sanity time) before I send them anything else. Oh, and in related news, another ezine, Deep Magic, will be reprinting a different Spellbound Story, "Places Underground," sometime in the nearish future. Wow...I guess that makes this another good month! Now I just have to get the time together to write more. |
| Marc, I did listen to the broadcast...twice in fact, both on Friday night, when it was paired with a story of Nalo Hopkinson's, and on Monday in the Roundup. I was very pleased with the job the actress did on the reading. Okay, let me be honest...I was jumping up and down. It's really funny...that story was rejected around...hrmm...17 times? before it finally sold, and since then it's attracted more attention and reprint requests thanany of my work that sold more easily.
At any rate, I've emailed you a copy, so I hope you enjoy reading it. |
| Message 460558 was posted by Marcie Tentchoff on 2005-04-25 11:06:29.
Another poem of mine, "We'll Not Sail Out on Fridays," will be up on The Sword Review sometime in the next few weeks or so, and my rather silly story, "Why Gionino the Baker has no Wife," is currently up on the same ezine, at http://theswordreview.com/contents.php April's been a pretty good month so far! ****** We are finding ourselves very fond of your work! :-) I am STILL not sure when "We'll Not Sail Out on Fridays" will appear, but the preview looks pretty good and it is just a matter of time -- must rotate out one of the other poems, first. It is a good thing for Fantasy that you decided to start subbing again! A great thing for The Sword Review! |
| Hi Marcie, I'm glad that made your day. Were you able to hear it yourself? I would imagine it would be exciting to hear your own work being read by a professional actor over national radio! :)
My email address is marctytus@gmail.com (I'm not sure if I can privately send that to you but it's no big deal.) I really appreciate it. I was at work at the time but made sure to get the title and your name so I could try to find a hard copy. Thanks a lot! |
| Hi, M. I'm so glad you liked "Quite Contrary." That really makes my day! The story was first published in a UK magazine called Adhoc, back in 1999, so I don't think trying to get hold of it that way will work. It's supposed to be reprinted at some point in an anthology that, unfortunately has yet to find a publisher. I'll gladly email you a copy of the story, though, if you just want a chance to read the thing, and give me your email address. |
| Marcie, I just heard your "Quite Contrary" piece this afternoon. It was really great :) It actually got me more interested in flash fiction. Any idea where I can get a copy of it?
-M. Tytus |
| It'll be on Friday May 20th somewhere around 10:55. You're paired with one of Nalo's stories, "Precious." |
| Ooooh. I'm truly looking forward to hearing it. I've never heard anyone read my stuff before. Well, except for me. Do we know yet when it will be on? What day, I mean? |
| Your father's right, Marcie... thanks for that! By the way, I recorded Quite Contrary yesterday morning and edited it today, I think Stephanie Morgenstern did a great job reading it. Hope you like our version of it. |
| Lawrence, there are still a few markets for evil childrens poetry, but there are more for evil poetry for adults (as oposed to evil adult poetry, which is something else) and you certainly shouldn't give up on writing it! |
| Joe, my father has a saying that applies, I think: "A prick is a prick is a prick." No one informed would insult you. Therefore... :) |
| Thanks for the feedback, Marcie. |
| Nope. I've been working on novelettes and novels mostly.
No market for evil, children's poetry. :P |
| Ahh... thanks for the info! |
| Thanks, Hel. The Ideomancer sale took 9 days, from March 30th to April 8th. I gather that poetry subs have to pass a few seperate editors before being accepted. |
| Congrats on the sales Marcie! If you don't mind my asking, how many days was the response from Ideomancer? |
| A few more recent sales to report. My poem "The Water Sprite's Lament" will be in a forthcoming issue of Ideomancer, probably June from what the editor said. Surreal just bought my poem, "Overdressed," though I've no idea what issue it will be in. Another poem of mine, "We'll Not Sail Out on Fridays," will be up on The Sword Review sometime in the next few weeks or so, and my rather silly story, "Why Gionino the Baker has no Wife," is currently up on the same ezine, at http://theswordreview.com/contents.php
April's been a pretty good month so far! |
| Hi, Lawrence! Writing any evilly humorous poetry these days? |
| Yes, yes it is...
It's starting to get a little cocky, too. |
| MARCIE!!!!!!!! |
| Oooh. Mikal, you evil, evil, evil person you. I'll get you back if it's the last thing I do. Well, after we take over the world, that is.
By the way, is you know what still you know where? Marcie |
| To be 'back', you'd have to have been somewhere in the first place...
;p |
| It's been ages since I've posted anything here, mainly because for a long while I was scarcely writing, and not subbing at all. I did (mostly) keep up my poetry writing since I've been part of an online spec poetry for a few years.
But, strangely enough, there seemed to be a correlation between not subbing and not selling. A few months ago the poetry group started doing group subs (as in every week we each send stuff off to a specific market) as well as writing poems to a weekly deadline. And, low and behold I've started selling things again. I have poems in the current issues of Aoife's Kiss, Neverary, Lone Star Stories, and Night to Dawn. I have more poems due out in upcoming issues of Raven Electrick, Mythic Delirium, Star*line and Dreams & Nightmares. And I just found out that CBC Radio will be running my 500 word flash piece, "Quite Contrary," on their Between the Covers show. Y'know what? I think I'm back. |
| Marcie, send me your address and I'll happily send you a copy of the chapbook. It includes one poem you didn't buy for Spellbound and two others that I wrote just for the chapbook.
Actually, it never occurred to me to seek out a publisher for the chapbook. It's just something I did on my own. Though several people at Torcon kept suggesting I send it out to agents and such. Another thing to put on my To Do list. |
| Well, the bound copy of my thesis/novel arrived in today's mail. It's big. It's black, with gold lettering. If not for the "M.A., WRITING POPULAR FICTION 2003" on the front and spine it would look like a published book. Maybe, someday, it really will be one. |
| Lawrence -
Eek! I wish I'd been at the con, but life has played a few nasty tricks in the past year, and I just couldn't swing it. I'd truly love to read your collection. Not seeing any more of your school beastie stories is one of the things I miss most about Spellbound. I'm very glad you found a publisher for them. |
| Ted - The package is on its way to the agent now.
It's funny, though... I have no fear of writing. I have next to no fear of critiquing and being critiqued. I have been sending poetry and short stories out to pro markets for years, and have never feared any portion of the process. Urm...actually that's not quite true. I remember being a bit frazzled over writing my second piece for the Green Knight anthos after the first did so well...I just wasn't sure I could match it. But, at any rate, somehow this selling myself to an agent rather than to an editor is far more terrifying. or maybe it's that, in selling short fiction, we're taught _not_ to try to explain our story, but to let it sell itself. This has a totally different feel. But, for good or bad, the synopsis is written, and now I just have to sit, wait and work on the sequel :) Actually,I should take a moment to thank Brian Blalock for taking a look at the thing, and letting me know which bits confused him. It was good getting the opinion of someone who hadn't read the book. |
| Marcie, If your're gonna be a writer you gotta toughen up! You got a reccomendation, (big break) the agent requested your stuff, (first 50 pages & synopsis), you already wrote a 7 page "condensation". Sounds like a synopsis to me! SEND IT!!! You've already kept the agent waiting for two months! Write a cover letter reminding them of their request, apologize for the delay. Put your 50 pages on top of your synopsis. The agent will get(or not get)the feel and soul of your novel from your pages, not your synopsis. Send the damn thing out, think positively, wait for a reply. If it should garner a rejection, so what! Join the club, there are 100's of other agents, send it out again. And again, and again, but KEEP writing! Best of luck. Ted Z. |
| Marcie,
I'm so disappointed. I so wanted to see you at Torcon and to give you a copy of Creature Academy: Cautionary Poems of Public Education. Sigh. I hope you are well. Lawrence |
| This is utterly weird. Now the two replies I made before number 11 are back, one on each side of it, and my reply to 13 has gone missing!
Anyway, I said (and will probably show up again...weird) in response to 13: If you want me to read anything, shoot it on over and I'll be happy to look. I'm not sure of the value of my input for a novel synopsis, but I can provide a second set of eyeballs to spot anything obvious, check for clarity and consistncy, and that sort of thing. Best of luck! Brian L. Blalock |
| What's going on with the RM today? I keep getting errors, and now two messages I know were here are not. Dang.
Ok, here I go again, and I hope it sticks this time. Hi Marcie! Congrats on the novel! I'm apprehensive myself about doing a synopsis, should I ever finish a novel. So, all I can do is mention a couple of books. The first one, I have. If your library doesn't have it, I'll be happy to lend you mine, just tell me where to send it. My current e-mail is blblalock AT comcast.net. The book is The How to Sell Your Novel Toolkit. I haven't looked at it in a while, but IIRC, it does have some decent advice. The second one is the Wildside press book with sample outlines in it from genre novels that sold: I Have This Nifty Idea ... Now What Do I Do with It? Hope this helps. Hope its sticks this time! Brian L. Blalock |
| Joe,
Unfortunately, I won'tbe at WorldCon. I'll contact you by email. |
| Mikal and Brian,
Many thanks for the suggestions. Mikal, I would love to just give the bare bones of my novel as, say, a shakespearian sonnet, but I have a strange feeling that something might be lost in the translation. Brian, I'm tempted to ask to borrow that book, but I really have to get my ass in gear and finish the synopsis right now, without putting it off further. As in, if I don't announce by this time next week that the thing is out in the mail, please, please, please yell at me. It's too easy to let fear inspire procrastination. I just have to take what I have writen of the synopsis, lose a few seens that aren't needed and spice/tighten the rest. Actually, what i really need are a few people to nag me and let me bounce the thing off of them. Oh, and Mikal? I miss the secret society too. I've just been feeling so guilty about not keeping up with my poetry quota that I've been hiding from the emails. |
| This might be the book I was thinking of. It states "outlines" in the description, and with the title, I've Got This Nifty Idea, Now What Do I Do With It?, I'm thinking it might not be what I thought it was, if this is the book I was thinking of.
http://www.wildsidepress.com/cgi-bin/miva?Merchant2/merchant.mv+Screen=PROD&Store;_Code=WP1∏_Code=1587154811&Category;_Code=writing Brian L. Blalock |
| Hi Marcie!
Just sticking my head in your virtual door. Re: Synopsis writing...well, first, I wish I had that problem! Second, the idea scares the bejesus out of me, too. So, I'm not that much of a help, really. I know there was a book collecting a bunch of genre novel proposals out there a while back, but I can't remember the title or publisher. =/ I have a book called The How to Sell Your Novel Toolkit, which offers some advice. IIRC, it's not too bad. You might say I bought it a bit, uh, prematurely. :^) If you can't find it at your library, I can send you my copy if you drop me a note with an addy to send it to at blblalock AT comcast.net. Brian L. Blalock |
| Marcie--
Just write the synopsis in poetic form--THAT should impress the hell out of 'em! (heh-heh) And we miss you at the Secret Society... |
| Hi Marcie,
I'm wondering if you're going to WorldCon... I'm looking to interview former winners of the Aurora Award for a piece I'm doing for CBC Radio. I know you won last year, or the year before. If you are going and/or are interested, could you let me know so we can work something out? Sorry for contacting you publicly, but I seem to have misplaced your e-mail address. Thanks! I'm at mahoneyj@toronto.cbc.ca |
| Guys, I need some help. A few months ago finished writing and revising my first novel. It was written as the thesis of the Writing Popular Fiction program at Seton Hill University, and I think it turned out rather well. My mentor, Nalo Hopkinson, thought so too, and wrote recomending the manuscript to her agent. The agent wrote back that he was very interested, and that I should send him the first 50 pages and a synopsis, and should stress in the cover letter that it was recomended and asked for. This is a big plus, in that it skips two steps that the agent usually requires.
So, two months ago i sat down to write the synopsis. The agent wants it to be somewhere between 5 and 10 pages. And I'm so scared I can't write. This is not a joke. I'm so far gone I've stopped answering emails, stopped writing entirely. I haven't even kept up with my poetry group. At all. And all because this synopsis thing has me terrified. I wrote a 7 page condensation of the 110,000 word novel manuscript, but I have no idea how to make that condensed version into a working synopsis. Is anyone out there skilled at synopsis writing? Can anyone help me? |
| Hi, Deirdre!
You want to read all of the Ways? Uhm... were're you the one who called one chapter nausea inducing? And no, that's not a comment I'm ever likely to forget ;) My own fault, I guess, in that I started you with probably the bloodiest (grin) chapter in the book. I have the first draft complete and am busy doing large revisions to the first 4 chapters, the ones that were originally published as a novella in Horizons SF back in 91, then republished in Exodus ezine about 5 years ago. They don't quite match the rest of the book now, so they are getting the most work. My real problem is that I've hit a point where I wonder if I'm working on a good book that just needs revision and polishing, or if, over all, it's a piece of crap. My crit group tends to look at all the little pieces, tell me when my spelling is wrong, or a paragraph doesn't work. Cool, ok, I can understand that. But those are all cosmetic details. My real question is whether I'm just trying to put makeup on a corpse. And it's all due, suposedly perfect, April 10. |
| Yes, finish the darn novel Marcie. I wanna read the whole thing. :)
OK, so I'm vacuuming the cat myself. Enough research about the boatbuilding practices of Polynesian atolls, just write! Deirdre Saoirse Moen |
| 'I don't have too many stories circulating right now'
(Yeah, 'cause you SOLD them all, you horse-hiney!!!) Not that I'm jealous or anything... |
| I don't have too many stories circulating right now, mainly because I too have been working on a novel instead of the short stuff. I'm heading into the last 3 or so chapters of my first draft, and hoping I can have the thing done and polished enough by my April 10th Masters thesis deadline to actually get the degree this summer. A lot of work.
Yours is looking like two novels? Does that mean it's going long? I almost wish i had that problem. I tend to write too short. Writing to novel length has been a tough ajustment for me. |
| Poor Snigli, he coulda been a contender. =) Well, I guess he was a contender. I was pulling for him, though.
My life is going OK, I suppose. Have stories circulating and attempting to write a novel or two. Looks like two at the moment. |
| Hi, Brian!
I think I'm just not a very interesting person ;) "The Deed of Snigli" made the final ballot for the Aurora Award this past year, but lost out in the end. Poor, sweet Snigli. Maybe it was the stench of raw fish? In better news, an old, favorite story of mine, "Eye of the Storm," just sold to the Open Space anthology, after a bit of a rewrite. I'm still grinning. How goes your life? |
| Marcie! I can't believe nobody's talking about you!
How did our old pal Snigli do? |