One of the purposes of this blog is to get my writing “out there”. Hey, it’s pretty “out there” alrea Unfortunately, publishing my stories on a blog such as this disqualifies them from being picked up by the majority of literary journals and e-zines. This limits, for the moment at least, what I can put up. However, one story that I can put up on this blog right this minute is the one that started it all: BEND AGAIN A SECOND BEND (we fed our baby bacon fat), which won the 2010 College Green Literary Prize and stands now as a real watershed moment. This story helped me realise that not only was writing what I wanted to do, but hey, I wasn’t too bad at it either! From this story sprang the idea to do forty of these linked stories (subsequently forty-five, constituting the sequence that I call Hot Nonsense Weeping– more on that later).

So, pull up your mother’s tumour or wriggle into a cosy bleach-basin; fill your hands with cool, cool bacon fat; bleat mercilessly at a squinting priest and, most of all, enjoy.

BEND AGAIN

A SECOND BEND

(WE FED OUR BABY BACON FAT)

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Hello!

On the 7th of April this year I began to send out short story submissions to as many journals as possible– if they were open to submissions by email, if they had a semi-functional website with a smattering of quasi-literate paragraphs and a blurred black and white photo of something Poignant, well chances are they got a submission from me. I used two databases to find ‘markets’ (that is what they’re called, apparently) Poets & Writers and Duotrope’s Digest. Though the former is not as extensive as the latter, I found it easier to use. I recommend using it first to get used to the whole submission protocol thing.  My first Submission Binge lasted until 25th April. When the dust cleared I had sent submissions to 294 outlets. Six short of a round 300. Why didn’t I go for the triple century? Everyone would have thought I was so cool. I don’t know.

Anyways, as of 27 May my submission stats are as follows:

135 active submissions (still under consideration as far as I know, or at least they haven’t said no just yet!)

50 NO!

9 YES! (11 stories in total) Hurrah!

48 Resubmits (journals who recieved a story that subsequently sold elsewhere and are eagerly awaiting a new submission.)

And there are 30 stories currently doin’ the rounds. Too early to say which one has been refused the most, but chances are it will be one of the blasphemous ones. The cowards!

So that is how it stands at the end of May. Lookin’ pretty good. June will see the beginning of Submission Binge 2, starting with those Resubmits above– as soon as I get to 20 stories accepted I will begin Looking for an Agent Binge (No. 1 of infinity.)

Onwards!

G.