Seeking Prose Editor for Literary Magazine

Hey, Stars! My literary magazine, The Corner Club Press, is looking for a new Prose Fiction editor. Basically, your responsibilities will include vetting submissions, rejecting ones you don’t approve of, doing final proofreads of pieces I’ve already looked over, and doing final proofreads of the actual magazine after Mariah and I have gone over it. This is not a time-consuming job. We publish every 3-5 months, depending on how many submissions are in the box. At most, you’ll dedicate an hour a week to the job.

If you are interested in an application, e-mail me at thedancingwriter@gmail.com.

My Acceptance as Sand Hill Magazine’s Webmaster

About two weeks ago my university’s literary magazine put out a call for a new staff, and because my best friend had done it, I decided to apply for it on a whim–I am very much about doing things on a whim. Before, I never would have imagined joining Sand Hills because the previous advisor of the magazine only allowed creative writing majors, which I thought was stupid because it barred non-creative writing majors who wanted experience with a literary magazine from ever getting that experience. Not all of us who want to work in publishing or do some kind of publishing want to be creative writing majors.

In any case, I wanted to be a fiction editor because I love to edit, obviously, but I was awarded with the title of Webmaster instead. At first, I was incredibly confused because I probably have more editorial experience than the average creative writing major–or average student wanting to get involved in publishing in some way. Also, being a webmaster was my last choice. I’m simply assuming, really, that I have more experience than the average person who applied because I’ve had my own literary magazine for about three years. But I was also probably the only one who had some experience–or extensive experience–in creating websites and making them unique through some sort of logo, even if I’ve only ever done templates.

I get to create a new website though, which is exciting, and I don’t have to create one from scratch. I can just choose some template and go from there. I know I’m going to use Weebly because it has some great templates, and I already have one I’d like to use for the Sand Hill’s literary magazine. Even though I am a Webmaster, I still get to help with deciding which fiction pieces should be chosen, which is exciting in itself. I also still have to put together issue ten of The Corner Club Press. For that, I really just need to add in the bios and contents, go through and check for formatting errors, and send it off to Mariah to check for other errors, and it’ll be done. Then there is a paranormal issue that I want to put together in honor of When Stars Die. 

In other news…

This Thursday I am doing a cover reveal of AEC Stellar’s anthology that is coming out next month, featuring a short story done by me called “I Am the Bell Jar.” There will be other exciting stories two, two of which I had a part in editing. It involves two mentally ill teens and what happens to a relationship when both of them are unstable.

Also, don’t forget about the Rafflectoper giving away volumes 1-4 of Game of Thrones.

The cover art contest is still going on and will be ending on the 25th of this month. So hurry up and vote for your favorite cover art. You will be supporting that author.

And mark your calendars for October 22nd, because that is when When Stars Die will be coming out–first in paperback, which I hope you will buy because the entire cover wrap is gorgeous; next in e-book.

What Is This Nonsense Called Free Time?

I’ll probably be blogging about ballet a lot simply because it is a regular part of my summer and it has gotten to the point where it has become quite challenging for me. Ballet has always been hard. In fact, the basics seem to become more difficult the better I get. But it is more challenging because it really requires more of the use of my mind. No longer can I depend on just flat out muscle memory to do the work for me.

But the difficulty of this week’s class was finally explained when the director mentioned he had been using the Russian method, which is supposedly the hardest method there is because they really use their arms and heads. Of course, because I had only received some Cechetti and I guess French, Russian is an entirely different language for me. But it explained why I’ve been having such difficulties this week–mostly at the barre today. Since I’m not used to Russian, of course I’m going to flail around, and because I haven’t been doing ballet for years, it’s going to be hard for me to immediately incorporate it, not like the other advanced dancers who can. So I eased up on self-criticism when it came to barre work. Even so, center was much better today. I was more coordinated and so was able to flow more with the moves. Now I’ve just got to work on getting springier jumps.  And pointe work went okay. I’ve just got to work on getting the minute details in combinations, those transition steps that help you flow from one move to the next.

As for my writing life, I have four chapters of Stolentime edited so far and plan to do a fifth today. The revisions are going along fairly smoothly and I don’t really see myself stumbling across any mental blocks. I am also editing a client manuscript, so I really can’t take on any other clients right now because there are never enough hours in the day. It’s either work or ballet, and so with the time outside of those two activities, I’ve got to squeeze in writing somehow–and editing.

I also may hold off on doing part 3 of Sister Evelyn until next week simply because I want to get in at least ten chapters of Stolentime before taking a break one day to work on Sister Evelyn. And I can’t forget When Stars Die, but it’s in line edits currently.

Also, I’ll probably start editorial work for a magazine my writer’s group wants to start. This one will likely be biannual though, whereas The Corner Club Press is every 2 to 3 months.

As you can see, I have a lot going on. I shudder to think about how things are going to pick up when I start class in the fall.

The Madness of Rejection

I’ve seen this done a lot all over the internet. A person gets a rejection, one single rejection, and suddenly feels the need to post the rejected story online. This person treats this rejection as a big deal, an earth-shattering thing, and then suddenly feels like it’s absolutely okay to post said story for people to read it because clearly there aren’t hundreds of other magazines out there said story can be subbed to.

When I subbed short stories back in my short story day, I expected rejection so much that receiving a rejection never even stung. I was so informed about the industry that I knew I was supposed to expect a lot of rejections before finally receiving an acceptance. Sometimes you get lucky and may not need to suffer through a lot of rejections, and sometimes you just haven’t found the right place yet that will fall in love with what you’ve written. Sometimes you’re not rejected because of how bad your writing is but because the editor doesn’t have a taste for what you’ve written. And sometimes you are rejected because of how bad your writing is, but you shouldn’t give up after one rejection and suddenly think it’s okay to post that story online. That’s admitting defeat.

Now I know some magazines are afraid to take on pieces that have been published on blogs because those pieces could potentially have been stolen from the time the author pressed ‘Publish’ to the time the author decided to delete it. As someone who has a literary magazine, I’m not so nervous about that because it’s rare. I’ve done it only once, where I read an amazing story on someone’s blog and really wanted it in my magazine, but, for the most part, I only accept stories that haven’t been published anywhere else, blogs included. It’s the principle of having original work that no one else has seen yet that makes it thrilling to publish it.

Expect rejection, especially with novels. I know someone who was discouraged after receiving ten rejections and I had to be the one to give her a reality check by telling her that authors can expect to receive 50-100 rejections on average before landing an acceptance with either an agent or editor. The market is flooded, and agents and editors have to be really choosy about which authors they take on–not to mention that they have to make money, and choosing an author who doesn’t sell can make them lose money. It’s not easy. Sometimes you get lucky, sometimes you don’t. But it’s the nature of the industry. If you don’t want to suffer through the rejections, self-publishing is always an option; keep in mind though that this route isn’t any easier–you just bypass the rejection route and the ironclad gates of agents and editors.

I don’t really have any solid advice on how to make rejection easier. Rejection was easy for me because it’s what I expected. I loved my stories enough to give them a chance, even if that meant suffering through tons of rejection letters to find homes for them. Most of them were impersonal letters anyway, though I did receive one that was very personal. But I rolled my eyes at that one because it was an unprofessional personal letter, and the letter said more about the editor than it did about my story.

Published First Chapters!

For those allowed, sub your first chapters to thecornerclubpress@gmail.com

The Corner Club Press Issue 8!

After five months of hiatus, I’ve finally released issue 8. The Corner Club Press started out with just three people on board and gradually expanded to five, then it condensed back down to two, and soon I was the only one left. I knew The Corner Club Press wasn’t going to sink because it’s easy to find people willing to read submissions and vet them. Putting together the issue is not that difficult, especially if there is already a template in place, so that was all I needed was just someone to vet them.

I think it’s pretty great that no matter the state the magazine is in, people still want to be in it, even though it doesn’t pay anymore. So people’s desire to be in it was part of the reason I suddenly decided to throw myself at issue 8. Another reason is that I’ve been away from the literary community so long that starting over is a pain. So what better way to jump back into it than releasing issue 8? The Corner Club Press is already an established literary magazine that didn’t need to start over and it’s a pretty strong platform to me. But I also love to read stories and to give people a chance to showcase their writing. As writers, we are hopefully in it for the readers. A little of the money, but mostly the readers.

So here is the link to issue 8: http://thecornerclubpress.weebly.com/uploads/6/0/5/3/6053731/the_corner_club_press_issue_8.pdf