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Rejection Pull Quotes

Chris Kammerud1 Comment

Hello, readers.

From time to time one gets, if one writes, rejections. Sometimes in the form of forms. Sometimes in the form of a comment or two from an editor. Occasionally, one might receive a whole letter. Chuck Wendig has a post concerning 25 Things Writers Should Know About Rejection, which includes such delightful phrases as “tentacles of woe” and “the secret gnostic gospels of Doctor Huxtable.” You should read it. It’s delightful.

Of late, I’ve received several letters of rejection. These letters included several encouraging words. It’s an odd thing being both buoyed and deflated in a rejection, but it’s far better than being simply deflated. It occurred to me, upon the 5th or 6th of these letters, that it might be fun to pull certain quotes from my recent rejections, freeing them of their otherwise rejectionatory context and arranging them in such a way as to be not so much happy sad as happy happy. Here is what such a list would look like.

“…really cool…and very memorable…”

“emotional and well-written…”

“enchanting…”

“Lush, mythic…”

“…a strange, beautiful story. The prose uses words in ways I’ve never seen them used before…”

Happy weekend, readers. If you’ve any happy sad pull quotes to share, feel free.

p.s. To the editors who sent me such quotable quotes, thank you. It is wonderful to receive such considered responses. Also, if you recognize your words and would like me to remove them, drop me a note and *poof* go the words.

On Lists, Shoes, and Souls

Chris KammerudLeave a comment

Hello, readers.

It’s a sunny Saturday in Saigon, and I didn’t really mean to alliterate so early in this post, but there you go. Around me, the mise-en-scene includes: a vase of flowers, a boy in an orange shirt, a tiny hat, yellow sunglasses, hipster lightbulbs, a circulatory system of streets pulsing with motorcycles, scooters, bicycles, and cyclos.

This morning, I wrote a bit about a girl who keeps mermaids in jars. At school, I’ve started running a creative writing club. It’s fun. The members are all 6th and 7th graders who are in love with imagination and words and dragons. Well. They probably don’t all love dragons. That would be expecting too much, I think.

Here are some things I’ve come across of late.

1. “The Essence of the Japanese Mind: Haruki Murakami and the Nobel Prize” by Amanda Lewis.  It concerns, among other things, individualism, banality, and the souls of history.

2. Ray Bradbury on the way lists empower creativity and reveal ourselves.

3. “The Witches of Athens” by Lara Donnelly, friend of the blog and dancer with fire.

4. IU, K-pop idol and frequent releaser of videos whimsical, precise, occasionally TARDIS-y, and terrifically nostalgic, released a new album a week or so ago. This is a song called “Red Shoes”, live or in a glorious, weird, Chaplin-esque, MV. There’s also this and this, which is a lot of the same songs and people dancing with umbrellas, bowler hats, and black-and-white striped shirts.

That is all.

For now.

Happy Saturday, readers.

Time and its Discontents

Chris KammerudLeave a comment

Hello, readers.

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It’s Sunday and, so, as it sometimes seems to happen, I’m writing to you. Outside, there is Saigon, and there is rain. My dad was here many decades ago. That’s strange to think about.

I’ve been putting together short reading lists to share and discuss with my crit group in Saigon. The first list featured three stories about space and aliens: “Surface Tension” by James Blish, “Semley’s Necklace” by Ursula K. Le Guin, and “The Story of Your Life” by Ted Chiang.

The second list featured stories about space and time: “The Men Who Murdered Mohammed” by Alfred Bester, “The Fire Watch” by Connie Willis, and “The Remeberer” by Aimee Bender. This second list I titled, ‘Time and its Discontents.’

Earlier today, I had sad thoughtful thoughts about my sister and our mom and the house where my mom lived, and where her parents lived, and where her brother lived, where, for different and sometimes overlapping periods of time, I and my sister lived. Mom died earlier this year. The house is still there. At some point the house will not be there. At some other point, it may or may not belong to other people. This got me to thinking about how a long time ago maybe people stayed in one place for a very long time because it was hard to move. It’s still hard to move, but people do it a lot now. I’ve gotten quite good at it. I wonder sometimes if I will ever be some place for more than a couple years. I imagine if I stayed in one place I would want a house with secret passages and a bookshelf or twenty. It seems silly to stay in one place and not make it worth it.

A lot of my favorite stories focus on memory and time. Solaris. Eternal Sunshine. The Rememberer. Prisoner of Azkaban. Etc. So on. My head is full of time and space. So is yours. I wonder what my cats think when I’m not there, or when they move houses. Do they remember? Science probably knows the answer to this.

I finished Alif the Unseen. It was magnificent. Here are some articles about it. The book had me thinking again about myth and time and gods and spirits and how very much I love to exist in a place of uncertainty and how much it scares me, too. Roger Ebert said of belief that he’s much more interested in questions than in answers. I don’t know if I agree with that. But, I do know that I love asking questions.

How are you today, readers? Well, I hope, or if not well, then gainly occupied with the business of traveling through time and adding some joy to the goings on.

love.