Danielmedley.com

Friday, January 05, 2007

Here Is What Happened

I sent in a piece to an editor. He stated that he wouldn’t be able to read anything for the upcoming zine for several weeks. That’s ok. On an online forum, a discussion was taking place in which said editor made a goofy statement. I corrected him because, after all, I am the type that I just can’t let nonsense go unabated. It was akin to stating that 2+2=6 and being corrected. Keep in mind that I wasn’t rude about it. In fact, I was downright civil. He replied with a snide, childish remark fueled by ego rather than common sense, and within three minutes, yes three minutes I got an e-mail rejection for the piece I had sent in.

Coincidence? Perhaps. In fact, I’m going to go on the record with it was coincidence.

But, if I had a crystal ball that told me that had I not replied on the forum my story would be accepted, I’d still do it all exactly the same.

Therein is the beauty of doing this simply because you love it.

Genre Identity Crisis

It’s been some time since I last posted here. You know, the Holidays and such. Although I’ve not posted here, I have still been writing my guts out. I finished two short stories and I’ve also been opening up some old screenplays as well.

Looking over some of the stories I have been working on, I have attempted to find some kind of pattern concerning genre. I simply cannot find it. I’m jumping all over the place. One story is a western (try finding a market for that), one is a contemporary—for lack of a better word—literary piece, and another idea I have been kicking around is a small murder-mystery.

As far as screenplays are concerned, I have a post apocalyptic/plague (plawg for some of us) story, a 1920’s era western, and a contemporary small town drama.

The only consistent factor in all of these stories is that they all contain strong women. For some reason, strong women always find themselves in my stories, even if they are not the main protagonist. I suppose I would have to dig somewhere deep into my personal psyche to figure that one out. I’d rather not.

I started writing this one piece as a sort of screenwriting exercise in pacing and character development and I found myself really getting to like this character. She’s a gun-toting, scrappy, loan survivor in a world decimated by a plague—plawg? (inside joke) that has wiped out most of humanity. Hardly an original idea, but she’s just a cool character. I’m going to dabble with it and see if I can come up with a decent story.

I guess the gist of this is that I apparently have a genre identity crisis going on.