Publishing things

[osprey_archer]

I've been reading with some interest the recent hullaballoo on the internet about the rates magazines pay for short stories, because I've decided - now that I've reached the venerable age of twenty-one - that it's time to stop mentally murmuring, "Oh, I'd like to be a writer when I grow up...", admit to myself that despite my best efforts I am grown up, and start submitting things.

I do think the authors linked have missed one possible use for markets that pay pin money: they can act as a psychological boost for writers who still sort of think no one would want to read their work without a bribe. Hey look! This time the reader gave me cookies instead of the other way around!

(I suspect this is one of the reasons that vanity presses do such big business. The idea that I might theoretically be paid for writing feels like so much fairy dust. I'm sure to the unwary, paying publishers seems like the way the money ought to flow.)

(Incidentally, I am planning to send my stories to the places with higher pay rates first time round, but when they get rejected I'll send them lower. Eventually someone will want them. Probably.)

***

Anyway, to this end I've been looking through magazines, and I found this story that I quite like: Brass Canaries. Steampunk canaries! It's quite short and it's got a bit of a punch at the ending; I hope you give it a spin.

ETA: asakiyume reminded me of this story from the same magazine: Suddenly Speaking. It's - well, it's hard to describe, because it's so bizarre, but utterly satisfying. It starts with the main character suddenly discovering that he has the ability to speak Japanese, and it goes all over the place from there.

Comments

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

Your writing is already hugely entertaining and polished. I should think you'll have success sooner rather than later.

I will take a look at Brass Canaries--in that same issue was one I really liked, "Notes from the Future" (http://www.flashfictiononline.com/f20091202-note-from-the-future-ray-vukcevich.html). I had read another thing by the same author (in the same zine, actually, called "Suddenly Speaking" (http://www.flashfictiononline.com/f20090901-suddenly-speaking-ray-vukcevich.html), which I also really liked.

[osprey-archer.livejournal.com]

Did you link "Suddenly Speaking" way back? I've read it before, and I really liked it then too. I'm not quite as fond of "Notes from the Future," but then it's hard to top a Japanese schoolgirl climbing out a laundry bag.

*crosses fingers* Here's hoping my adventures in PublishingLand go well.

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

I did! I didn't know if you were reading my journal back then. (Or maybe it wasn't even that long ago; I have no sense of time.

I liked this line in the "Brass Canaries" tale:

if people wind our springs, then who winds their hearts?

But what do you make of the last line?

ETA: And absolutely, fingers crossed!

[osprey-archer.livejournal.com]

It can't have been that long ago, the story was only published in September. Perhaps someone linked to an entry near the one where you recommended it and I was riffling through your other entries? I don't remember.

I think the last line really makes the story, in part because I don't quite get it. Why would their Maker build them for the express purpose of dying? But why should any of us be built to die? - and yet we all do die in the end - and the religious imagery in the story (especially calling the man who made them their Maker) makes this seem like an organic ending instead of tacked-on, as short story endings that attempt to make a philosophical point often seem. Its hard to get enough build-up in a short story for that to work, yet here it does, at least in my opinion.

the ending

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

It definitely made me think--I'll have to think some more about it. I think I felt just puzzled at first, though the things you say make good sense to me, and make me want to reconsider the story in their light.

I liked the different natures of all the birds very much (especially the mocking birds, in the back of the shop).