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Fiction Dreams

 I haven’t submitted anything for publication for several months.  Once the courage wears off, after having had some success, it seems that I’ve become thin-skinned again.  Part of the reason, I suppose, is that I’ve had pretty good success with non-fiction.


But I really want to write fiction.


One idea, and it’s not something I figured out, is that submitting to contests is a good idea.  Somehow knowing that hundreds of others are also trying makes it seem less like rejection if I lose.  I can say, “there were hundreds of others—chances were small to begin with.”


I really have no idea how many submissions your typical magazine (print or electronic) gets.  I do know that a number of editors don’t get my style, or what I’m trying to do.  It’s not really horror.  It’s more weird fiction.  But literary.


What’s wrong with the literary weird?  To me, the unusual or uncanny is what I’m looking for when I read a story.  I’ve read too many where nothing interesting happens (and yet they get published).  I’ve even thought about starting my own literary mag.





A friend of mine who writes used to say, “We write what we wish other people would write.” There’s a great deal of truth in that.  I write what I’d like to read.  There must be other weirdos out there!


Some of the weirdness goes into uncharted territory.  Many people, editors especially, prefer writing that stays on the map.  Here be monsters!  And what’s wrong with monsters anyway?  Or fairies?  Or even people who think about sex differently than other people do?


I would never try one of those stories in a contest, of course.  It has to be something respectable.  Like everyone else submits.  That’s the trick to being an original.  Staying unpublished.  And hoping, perhaps against hope, that some day someone will discover something I’ve produced.

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