A Maniac’s Lament

Posted on by Mitchell Toews

Stardate 94613.57

A FEW DAYS AGO, I GOT ALL REVVED UP and tweeted what I had accomplished recently:

ExPLoDing! 10 stories 10 days, a poem(!), flashes, editing in my sleep, writing in my dreams…subbing like drunk typewriter monkey   

I know a lot of writers have problems with inspiration and right now, that’s not my problem and so I gushed a little. Like the Hulk is a little green. But, hell’s bells, as my dad (and Brian Johnson) used to say, who reads my tweets anyhow?

My cousin Doug does. He’s a great guy and a gifted writer. He tweeted back that I was, “a maniac!” By this, I am sure he meant that he agreed with me.

Anyway (there’s my fav segue blog word again)…anyway, I titled this post, “A Maniac’s Lament,” and here’s why:

Having written plenty lately, I was inclined to submit my new stories to journals. (That’s not the lament — that’s the narrative lead-in to the lament. I will put the laments proper in bold font so that they are easy to spot.)

Lament Alpha: Editing. All those outpourings, from snow-melt, to trickle, to creek, to river, to estuary create a daunting volume of raw, unedited materials. I cringe, thinking about all those “ly” words to send to the phantom zone, not to mention the onerous task of shrug/sigh/smile removal. Also: the re-structuring, sentences that is, of. Plus the need to heed all that, “let it simmer,” advice that I really should take (courtesy of one of my two smart sisters).

I’ll put that in the “exhaustive but good problem” pile and carry on.

Lament Beta: Once I am through the editing and am ready to submit I reach the second hurdle – loyalty. Am I true to the journals of my recent literary past or do I court new ones? I want to repay my supporters for their kindness — and recognize their exemplary discernment — but I also want to boldly go where no crusty old bugger has gone before.

star-trek-sm

In what I hope is my best judgement, a blend of old and new seems wise.

Lament Gamma: The third lament does not have anything to do with grammar. Too bad, ‘cuz that would have had been kinda cute. In fact, Gamma is the lamentation of abundance.

Let me ‘splain you… Duotrope lists over SIX THOUSAND distinct literary journals, e-zines, reviews, etc. Having passed Alpha and Beta and therefore being open to submitting some of my freshly created, exploding, maniacal work to new galaxies and such, I am faced with the infamous “Paradox of Choice” (Schwartz).

I read the news today oh boy
Four thousand holes in Blackburn, Lancashire
And though the holes were rather small
They had to count them all
Now they know how many holes it takes to fill the Albert Hall.
I’d love to turn you on.

Songwriters: LENNON, JOHN / MCCARTNEY, PAUL

ANYWAY… unequivocal smart people have often declared — on twitter, LinkedIn, Posterior Analytics, etc. — to make lists stop at THREE, so that’s what I’ll do.

If YOU have a good way to sort through the multitude and successfully identify story-topic-genre-publication-audience concordance, I am all afti.

allfornow – Mitch

P.S. – If you are not already aware, poet Trish Hopkinson does a great job of unearthing calls and journals that are open to submissions. See her twitter feed and also check out Calls for Submissions (Poetry, Fiction, Art) on Facebook.

Am I a Writer?

Posted on by Mitchell Toews

FRIENDS, THAT IS NOT my butt in the image above. It is one more famous than mine will ever be. It belongs to a writer who, like me, prefers to write standing up.

He is a writer – no dispute there.

In my case – it is more fudgy. See…when people ask what I do, I SOMETIMES say *it*. That is, I reply, “I’m a writer.” But I tend to say it quietly. With dissonant caveats – “Not making a damn cent doin’ it tho’, har-har…”. You know. Kinda sneakin’ up on it. Like when someone says, “Are you quitting smoking?” and you answer, “Trying to!” It’s a yes, with built-in wiggle room.

So, let’s go to the Tale of the Tape as Cossell used to say before a big fight:

Writing for how long?  

Well, now. Let’s define that a bit more: writing to a deadline + writing for public consumption. In those bounds, since 1997. Mostly damnable propaganda for my Mennonite employers along the way:

“Why close your jacket with BUTTONS when HOOKS are so much better? See us today for Hiebert’s Handy Hooks!”

I have been writing FICTION on the other hand – for about the last four years. Early in 2016, I achieved a kind of orbital altitude — since that time I have managed to write every day, several hours a day — between two and six hours. Mostly in the morning.

Training? 

The weak link for me. Besides a relentless English prof at the University of Victoria – complete with a proper, tweedy London accent – I have little formal training. My BA in Sociology and a certificate in Marketing from Schulich do not qualify me. I live at the far end of the wild woods and so I have neither a nearby course to take or a group to join. Otters and pine grosbeaks do what they can for me, but I am a Googling fool, on the shores of Jessica Lake, where modifiers dangle and MCs are MCs.

How much have you produced?

Again, some definition – like Papa’s shapely calf muscle. Without adding bulge via photoshop or any other form of exaggeration, I have written 100,000 words in 2016.

Blog: Core page content plus around 50 posts. The posts run from 200 to 1000 words apiece. Maybe 10,000 words in total.

Short Fiction: 30,700 words unpublished…36,000 published. Many – oh so many – rewrites and editing scans.

Novella: 16,000 words.

Paid Content: Propaganda and “the truth with attitude” for employers – 5000 words or so.

Milestones?

Using Duotrope and Submittable, I reckon I have submitted about 120 times or so. I have had 16 stories accepted and have had two other stories find success in contests.

I submit to big, well-known print journals – mostly Canadian. They have so far (almost) uniformly rejected my work. I also send stories to smaller print/online reviews; to online-only literary ezines and literary sites; and to writers’ groups and publishers that produce journals or contests. I have 18 unpublished short stories that I am sending out as slush pile fodder as well as my sci-fi thriller novella, “Tafelberg”, which will receive a rigorous adverb-ectomy this winter. Three new stories near completion.

I am actively seeking chapbook and anthology collections for my published works.

A few of the bigger journals to whom I have submitted my shabby shorts have offered sympathetic replies of the, “don’t give up” variety. Sometimes these are genuine. Other times they are intended to cajole me into shelling out another $15 for their next “opportunity for new Canadian voices”. Yeah, right. More like, “so I can buy another jar of beard wax, you hopeless bottom-feeder!”

Either way, I usually do shell out, so next time see you see a youngish MFA with a fine, shiny beard or a new plaid shirt — think of me, brethren. (To be accurate, my observation is that there seems to be far more female readers and editors, than male. Furthermore, literary journals do not appear to be a get rich quick scheme. So, respect; I’m happy to shell out a little, here and there.)

Anyway, to answer the question, after adding it all up, I`m gonna say yes. I`m a writer.

Now who wants to fight me?

allfornow – Mitch

IMAGE — Hemingway: “Damn fine legs for a dead guy.”