Sweet and Sour Things

After six weeks of starving - according to reports on the high street, local sweet and cake shops are in danger of closing down due to CateDeflation - I've dropped a dress size. Go me! And how do I celebrate, I go out and buy the prettiest cupcake baking book in the world. Fail. Deciding I need to hide the offending book, I've secreted it somewhere I visit daily. Double Fail.

Though it does help that I can't bake, cook, have even been known to fail at sandwiches. Goddess I may be, domestic never. Erm... Okay, I kind of fail at goddess too, but I'm certain the rejection gods worship me.

Received a partial rejection for Grim Glass Vein today - form, no hints. For about half an hour I went through the wailing phase: Oh, I'll never be good enough; I stink (sniffs armpits); My novel stinks (sniffs paper); I should give up, it's never going to happen; If you haven't cracked it in twenty years; Blah; Blah; Blah. And then I picked myself up (yay, for not being as heavy), continued working on Theatre and got over it. As I said on twitter:

Goodness, I've just bounced back from a rejection so fast, I met myself in the down lane and pinged right on past.

I want this, so I guess I'll keep fighting. Cue Rocky theme tune.

Catching Flies

Poor Frog... He's back again after a journey out into the world that lasted forty-seven days. Maybe it's his odd socks or his dandruff. After an initial hold request at a fabulous, published-long ago, anthology, poor Frog has been yo yoing around the world visiting the best-possible places. Maybe he needs to spend some time at Tokenville. He's too young to retire.

I'm going to let him put his feet up for a day or two while I search Duotrope for a market that will welcome his morbid sense of humour.

Another Noooo

Frog & The Mail Order Bride didn't make it into the Voices anthology.

I quote: "Our decision was based on the fact that the story felt more suited to a macabre comedy rather than a horror anthology. The story had merit, but simply didn’t suit our theme." Poor Frog.

I'm worrying my submission to 'Ghosts in the Machine' will get a similar rejection.

Bummer!

Four rejections in thirty-six hours. OUCH! Serves me right for obsessively pressing send & receive every five minutes and begging the universe to give me some news, any news...

The Moth Brigade didn't make it into the Robots Beyond anthology. It got right to the wire but didn't quite make it under. Despite the rejection, I am stoked the story made it so far - I mean PERMUTED PRESS (Wow!). Now of course I'm itching for them to release news of another anthology.

Multiple Personality Syndrome

Introducing PHOENIX RENDELL, no need for applause. Okay, there wasn't any, oh well, more of a blip than a bang. After all this is not American Idol, more about that in a few paragraphs.

Lost amid the deep bog that is the second draft of my children's novel, The Evil Emporium, I've decided to use a pseudonym, a la Lemony Snicket. Phoenix is taken from the title of my horror novel 'The Maiden Phoenix', and Rendell is a family name.

Catherine J Gardner, talking about herself in the third person and feeling quite disconcerted, will continue to write short stories and plug away at her very dusty novels and may even attempt to write another horror novel, after all she does have three notebooks full of ideas.

And now onto the above mentioned, American Idol.

Today I read a thread on an online writing forum that suggested that many unpublished writers were like the disillusioned throngs who enter American Idol. Or The X-Factor for fellow Brits. Talentless and adding to the already swelling slush piles. No doubt. I'm not here to defend them or my own writing, heck until one of my novels is published, who am I to say whether I'm awful, mediocre, okay, or a genius. Ahem! And yes I do intend to clog up the slush piles for some time.

My point re American Idol/X-Factor is the difference in rejection. While theirs is loud and sometimes brutal and accompanied by a bucket load of tears and other emotions; rejection for the writer is much quieter. Not necessarily kinder, but without doubt quieter and often goes unnoticed. For me rejection is an A5 brown envelope, written in my own handwriting, with a form letter or compliment slip inside, followed by a weight sinking in my stomach. Then the compliment slip is filed away.

And nobody takes any notice at all. I can't decide if that's better than, or worse than, the outpouring of emotions that accompanies the slayings on television.