Well hello there peeps and all old China’s!!
Here we are at the exciting Week 489.
…Well, that may be a bit of an exaggeration, so I’ll start again.
Here we are at week 489.
This week a comment between us made me consider this.
What is worse, sending in, let’s say thirty submissions and they all being refused due to the same problems (I try not to say ‘issues’ in respect of Mr Hawley!! He asked me once why folks use ‘issues’ when we mean ‘problems’!!) or sending thirty submissions in and they all have individual problems??
If the problems are the same, they are ingrained and they are harder to change. Hopefully, it could be that the writer just doesn’t see or worryingly, it could be arrogance.
When you think on it, the person who has something different in each, at least they aren’t making the same mistakes. But again, this brings me to my initial question.
With my own writing, there is something Diane commented on that *I am very aware of, even though I still miss. *I am inclined not to use contractions. When she pointed this out I wondered why. She was bang on because if you don’t use them, it can make the writing stiff. I thought on this for a while and I reckon it was years of writing reports…Where I worked, they preferred the stiffer report writing!! I hate that stuck with me!!
But here’s the thing, that is now the last thing I do after I’m happy with something, I read through and look where I can put those apostrophes!!
Do we need someone to point out the continual mistakes? Probably. Do we need someone to point out different mistakes? Probably…Especially if we can’t see them ourselves!!
(*There’s fucking twice right there!!!!!)
Before we move onto the reviews, I’d just like to pass on all our thanks to those who have visited the site. You see, this we week, we have exceeded the 900 000 hits mark!!! We are proud, excited and humbled all at the same time!!!
…I don’t know what happens when we reach a million, maybe ‘Brigadoon’ appears or Mr Tumnus comes out the closet. (Aye, I know it should have been wardrobe but we all knew what was going on!) Maybe the world will end and wee Greta will cry, so all good there. Satan may take over the world but that might be a bit quicker around November time.
…No matter what happens, it’s a wonderful thought that we are heading towards a very impressive number!!
THANKS AGAIN!!!
Okay onto this week’s stories.
We only had one old hand and that shaky liver-spotted old hand was mine! All our other writers were first timers.
We welcome them all, hope they have fun on the site and more importantly, we want to see much more of their work!
As always, our initial comments follow.
We started off on Monday with ‘Roar’ by Streya Smith.
‘Payback for share.’
‘Very well done.’
‘Excellent ending.’
‘The Ghosts Of Their Daughters’ was next up on Tuesday.
‘This story really does rope you in.’
‘Lyrical writing.’
‘This won me over.’
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It was my turn on Thursday with ‘Sign Of The Times Too (The Mile-Stone Inspector)
This was a follow up to ‘Sign Of The Times’. The reason I wrote it was we still have and always will have these problems but I decided to have a look at this ironically. What with the election and sod all changing for those of us in certain situations / incomes, I wanted to have a go with this with my tongue in my cheek and not my usual in your face sarcasm!
Thanks as always to Diane and Leila for accepting it!
Talking about the election, I will be so happy not to see that wee fuck’s troosers at half mast anymore. He has been replaced by a guy that should be in a Supermarket photo frame!
And we finished off with Lava’s Bar by Marisa Mangani. (The title reminds me of ‘The Liars Bar’ by ‘The Beautiful South’ – A song worth seeking!!)
‘This moves along so well.’
‘Authentic.’
‘Bars are the same no matter where you go.’
That’s the usual completion of last week’s stories and now the usual reminders.
You can all get bored all you want but until everyone does what they are supposed to, the repetition in this section will be a hair up all our arses!!!
Please comment!
And if you’ve been commented on, really, is it difficult to say a simple thanks??
Please check out the other features that we run on a Sunday, jesus fuck guys, you have a shoe-in which is brilliant for your author CV!!!
As per Leila’s post last week: We have tweaked the ‘Auld Author’ feature to include newer books but please don’t take this as a chance to promote your own or friends books, that’s not what it’s about. If you have found something that interests you, we’d love to hear about it.
Just before we finish, I’ve had one of those months where I bump into people I’ve not seen for ages and the first thing they say to me is, ‘Ken who’s deid…(Insert name here)?’
That has made me consider the answers / comments that we respond with:
1. You’re joking!
2. What happened?
3. I just saw them (Insert day / date here)
I think this is pretty universal and the thing is:
1. That’s not a funny joke.
2. Does it matter, they’re deid.
3. Good for you but you’ll no see them again!
If anyone has this sad news, let’s mix it up a bit with:
1. Good, he was a prick.
2. Was he found in a, you know, a compromising position?
3. The last time I saw that bastard he tapped me for a twenty. Are you paying off his debts.
I think if we start this, not many will share the bad news!!
The music choice was very simple this week. Due to us having a bunch of wankers overtaken by another bunch of wankers, this came to mind.
‘Election’ sounds very close to ‘Erection’ and they are all a bunch of cocks!!
Never let any of those fuckers kiss your babies as they will consider that foreplay!
The song’s number should have been around 650 but those fuckwits can exaggerate so, so can I!!
I give you the restrained Mr Zombie!!
Image: Writing pad with pieces of screwed up paper scattered around – from Pixabay.com
literally stories 
Hello Hugh
We all have our little writing oddities that we do not notice but others do. I would not compare it to being inured to wearing clothes that smell like a combination of Cat pee and cigarettes, but the concept of our obliviousness to such things does come close.
Someone told me I write “so and so said” to redundancy. I SAID I do that for that purpose, to render it invisible. I hate writing stuff like “he squealed” to avoid too many saids. I say said away and do not call attention to the automatic stuff.
I recall contractions not being used when the teacher assigned an essay of however many words. And there is a benefit of not using them because when misused they can cause tense slippage.
I recall House if 1000 Corpses fondly. Especially the opening with the hopeless hold up guys and plight of the plastic Dr. Zed!
Well done as always!
Leila
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Cheers Leila.
I can’t remember if our English Teachers bombed out contractions. I am still proud though that I was censored due to a poem that was, shall we say perceptive about s few of the staff. I nearly wet myself when my English Teacher told me he put it where it deserved to be, in the bin!!
I don’t think it was anything to do with the writing, more the content…I’ve not changed much!!!!!
Thanks as always.
Hugh
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Hugh, thanks for the conversion to “problems”. If you would be so kind, now think about the correct and accurate “I hope” for “hopefully”. Fewer syllables too.
But seriously folks.
Have the rest of the weekend LS peeps. It will be hot but less than a 100F here in the lesser Portland Oregon USA area.
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Hi Doug,
That is a tad too warm for me.
I’m like a puddle with feet in the winter!!!
I will do my best to use ‘I hope’ and bomb out ‘hopefully’…Not sure if I use it much as it’s an adverb…HAH! I know we may look at those a wee bit differently!!!!
Thanks as always my individual and interesting friend!!!
Hugh
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900,000; Great accomplishment! Repeated mistakes or a variety of them? I think I’ve done both too often. To paraphrase that old adage…Rejections suck, and then you try again. Good post.
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Hi Dave,
We all try to encourage and we are of the mind-set that a rejection CAN be simply a difference of opinion.
Any souls who have sent in their work, should be completely happy with what they have written. But they need to look at it from angles that they haven’t considered. If that is all fine, then that is truly a difference of opinion.
All my very best to yours and yours!!
Hugh
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Happy Saturday, Hugh, LS editors and readers!
Today’s essay raised a number of issues (Sorry, Doug: problems), including repeated mistakes in subs and oft repeated expressions, words and other literary oddments that are employed by writers.
Most editors don’t provide feedback, but to those blessed few who do, thank you! One editor makes rather odd assessments of my work (which is itself rather odd, I grant you). Probably the strangest thing he ever said was that my MC was apt to vellication. I admit I had to look that one up. Another editor said my work held nothing “that I felt I could live without.” And a third remarked that perhaps fiction was not my forte and I should “write some non fiction.” Actually, Leila was much more diplomatic than that and I appreciated her input! (Hi, Leila!).
Insofar as being repetitious with my word, verb, etc. selection, I am abjectly guilty of inserting “Yikes!” as a sort of catch all to indicate surprise. Others include “Community,” as in the Black Community, the LGBTQ Community, the Magpie Community, etc. However, I use these two in particular only to vex the estimable Duke Hanley, who is the Ambrose Bierce of his generation, and who publishes under the sobriquet Doug Hawley.
I thoroughly enjoyed LS’s Saturday featured essay, Hugh. Thank you!
bill
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Hi Bill.
Thanks so much for your thoughtful comments.
Hugh
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Oh yes, those blasted repeated words. I used to have to do a ‘that’ run before every submission. Once I had ‘that’ sorted in came another and another after that. Thank heavens for Word seek and destroy. Unless of course you make the rookie error of just clicking ‘replace all’ and then you end up with some very strange words. Mind I think most of us only do that once. I used to be harangued repeatedly by my publisher for my lack of speech tags. I always believed that the dialogue should be able to hold up without too many of them but he has beaten me down but only ‘said’ it’s very rarely an improvement to add ‘stage business’ around it. A thought provoking post, Hugh. I enjoyed it. Thank you.
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Hi Diane,
Thanks so much for the comments.
And I also have a problem with the ‘that, that’ that (HeeHee) invades the writing!!
All the very best my lovely friend!!
Hugh
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Hallo Hugh,
Great post, thanks. The Viennese have a love of dark humour and many sayings about Dearly Departed Dead Bastards (DDDBs). Here are two of my favourites.
De Holzpyjama auziagn — To wear the wooden pajamas.
Der 71-er nehemen — Literally, to ride the #71 streetcar, which runs to the central cemetery.
Apologies if you get a second version of this comment. WordPress is being bitchy at my end.
Marco
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Hi Marco,
The wearing of the wooden pyjamas made me spit out my Tennants!!!!!!!!!!
I will use that, I promise!!!
My dad’s old pal (Both dead now) once said, ‘When I wake up and stretch out my elbows and don’t feel pine, I’m fine!’
Brilliant my man, just brilliant!!!!!!
Hugh
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LS Editor/Writers; Readers, and Writers,
900,000 is an impressive milestone that deserves thanks and congratulations. If Charles Bukowski, Jack Kerouac, William S. Burroughs or Flannery O’Connor were around these days, I believe this is the type of “magazine” they would be seeking out and publishing in. I admire the sense of a “new” publication in the creative ways LS uses the internet/resources. And I admire how LS is “old” in the many ways it carries on a tradition of literary publishing in a world where this seems to be becoming more and more rare, as more and more people seem to believe good writing can and will be produced by robots (“AI”), etc.
There are some other admirable places for prose fiction out there. But few are as original, or consistent, as LS. Two other things I admire about the site are the wide variety of genres/types of stories published; and the word count of 500-3,000. The first item creates an unpredictability that establishes interest; the second item makes for more focused, and thus more interesting, writing.
Edgar Allan Poe, the famous editor/writer, believed in writing in (or creating) more than one genre. He also believed in the importance of the “single effect,” or limited word count. Poe did more than any other American to help create what we now know as the modern short story. Genres like the parable and the fable pre-date the modern world, so a “short story” is not at all modern in and of itself. But a focus on the extended subjectivity of an individual protagonist in the short form definitely seems modern in many ways, an integral part of the modern short story. In this particular angle of vision that was perfected by James Joyce and others, LS is consistently impressive on many different levels. Character-based short fiction has an excellent home here. This is a MUCH more important issue than many people in the contemporary world seem to believe it is. At the same time, 900,000 is an impressive number!
Thanks again for all your good and hard work.
Sincerely,
Dale
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Hi Dale,
We have had many an amazing comment.
This is one of the best. I don’t need to say much more.
We are humbled my fine friend.
On behalf of us all!!!!!!
Hugh
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Feedback is an interesting one and I’d always welcome it, and I’m always surprised by writers who don’t like it or don’t listen to it – I mean if you can’t do that, then maybe it’s not the right game for those. Anyway, thanks for another great post and great week.
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Hi Paul,
You are a hundred percent right!!!
Whether or not you agree with feedback, at least it shows how an individual ? independent reader looks at your work and you surely should, learn from that????
But some folks are so arrogant, they can’t accept a difference of opinion.
All the very best my fine friend.
Hugh
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