Skip to main content

O Tannenbaum


Sometime back in the Nixon administration, I began writing my first fiction.  Although I had vague thoughts of publishing it, I had no idea what would be involved or that it would take me nearly forty years to accomplish it.  Writing is for those who have a very long view.

I began by writing short stories.  A few were published in my high school newspaper, but since I was the editor that probably doesn’t count.  Teachers encouraged me to get published for real, although they didn’t really know how either.  Living in a small town you can still dream big.  It’s just a bit more difficult to pull it off.

Danse Macabre is a great online magazine.  I submitted a macabre Christmas tale, “O Tannenbaum,” that won the 2009 prix d’écriture de Noël in Fiction.  The story was subsequently removed from the web when Danse Macabre changed servers, but it has a special place in my heart as the first piece someone other than myself considered worthy of publication.



Don’t get me wrong.  I generally have a dim view of my abilities, and it takes all the courage I can muster to submit a piece of writing for potential rejection.  For a total of six short stories published, I’ve had at least 35 rejections to date.  Each one cuts like Sweeney Todd on a bad day.  So “O Tannenbaum” is a bit of salve for a sliced soul.

The trick to writing is to trust your inner voice, not the predilections and idiosyncrasies of editors.  I wonder if it gets any easier, the longer you wield the editorial misericord?

Every word I write contains a piece of me.  “O Tannenbaum” isn’t my best work, but it was a story that packed a punch more potent than met the eye.  Danse Macabre went on to publish three more of my stories, but that is a tale for another time. 
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Working Through It

  The thing about being a working writer is you don’t have time.   Between working nine-to-five and trying to eat and sleep, and write, of course, the week is shot.   Weekends are spent doing the errands that you can’t do during the week. I should probably have known better than to join a local writers’ group.   Their meetings, although only once a month, are all-day affairs on a Saturday.   I generally don’t have all day Saturday to spare.   I work all week and I need groceries and the occasional Target run.   And I haven’t yet learned to go a week without eating. This is actually the third writers’ group I’ve joined.   One was not too far from home, but not terribly helpful.   They met on Saturdays, but in the morning only.   Nobody seemed interested in what I was writing, so I stopped going. The second one was about an hour away.   They also met on Saturdays.   Their big thing was having lunch together after the meeting. ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Patterns

  There’s a pattern I’m noticing.   For fiction publishers.   Even if you aim low you’ll find it a struggle.   Part of the reason is the pattern. Lots of websites list publishers.   The smaller, hungrier presses either eventually close or get to a place where they require an agent to get in.   That’s the kiss of death. Although my stories have won prizes, and been nominated for prizes, I can’t get an agent interested.   I’ve queried well over a hundred, so the agent route is one of diminishing returns.   This too is a pattern. Back to the smaller presses.   I check many lists.   What I write, you see, is highly idiosyncratic.   It’s literary but it’s weird.   Publishers don’t know what to do with it.   If a smaller press published stuff like this, I’d find it. The pattern includes writers who never get discovered.   Ironically, a number of editors of fiction literary magazines (mostly online) tell me they enjoy my wor...
Post a Comment
Read more

Creative Righting

  Rejection of my writing is a rejection of my imaginative world.   That’s why I was cheered by the acceptance of one of my stories this week.   That makes number 31. I’ve been working on a lot of fiction lately, even as nonfiction book number 6 is going to press.   The ideas are still there, and bizarre as ever, but publishing venues just aren’t welcoming. The other day I had lunch with a professor whose wife is also a professor.   She just had her first novel published, and so he pointed me to her indie publisher.   I went to their website to learn that they’re closed to submissions.   I have to admit that my latest accepted story, “Creative Writing Club,” was probably given the green light because I know the editor.   That seems like a pretty dicey way to get any notice, doesn’t it?   You have to know the right people even in the low circulation world. My fiction is difficult to classify.   It’s got speculative elements to it.   ...
Post a Comment
Read more