Rebecca K. McDowell's Writer Site. Horror and Puppies and Bitching, Oh My.
I finally got my anticipated rejection from Apex Magazine earlier this week. Now I need to figure out A) what's wrong with the story, and B) where to send it to next. Unfortunately, that's not going to happen until this weekend, because you know what, turds, I have a job. I also need to write …
Continue reading “It’s an Honor Just to be Nominated” Part 2: REJECTED. Plus, Hallucinogens.
So I've written previously about how I have a couple of stories being held for consideration, one by Apex Magazine (which is fucking crazy) and one by Pseudopod (which is only a little less crazy). Since learning this information, I've been obsessed with finding out whether I will be rejected at the next stage. Pseudopod …
Continue reading Many and Varied Obsession #472: Checking Statuses of Things
So a month or two ago, I made submissions to Apex Magazine and Pseudopod (that one is a reprint; you can find it linked here). Since then, I've been advised that the initial readers liked the stories, and so they're moving up the chain. I almost didn't post about it here, because I didn't want …
So a few new but uninteresting-to-anyone-but-me things happened this week. I got rejected by The Dark. Not THE DARK, as in the breathing black space that haunts closets everywhere, but the horror magazine. Rejection Game Strong thus far. Still waiting for DarkFuse, Pseudopod and Apex to tell me to fuck off. I have two weeks' …
Continue reading I Didn’t Want You Anyway. Also, Bullet Journals (Mullet Journals?).
A dubiously smart person once said, "Write drunk; edit sober" (that person was not Ernest Hemingway, despite what you've heard). In that vein, I am now at The Yachtsman with Ashley so I can work on my novel. No, I am not drunk (yet), because it's Sunday, but we were running out of places to …
So Ashley and I went and saw The Void this evening at PhilaMOCA, and it was pretty dope. I made a rambling video discussing my feelings, in which I looked at the camera as seldom as possible, and wouldn't stop turning my chair and engaging in all the tics that make me so annoying. But …
Continue reading I Saw the Void! (The Movie, not the Actual Void)
So I polished some things up and sent them out. I look forward to either 1) boilerplate rejections, 2) personalized rejections, or 3) acceptances. #1 would surprise me the least; #2 would probably make me feel the worst; and #3 is unlikely. All the same. I kind of wish personalized rejections were less professional. They …
Continue reading Rejectathon, Commence. Also, Submission Grinder.
I have three things to report. I'm in Pittsburgh right now for work, at a hotel. I've been to Pittsburgh on this case twice in the past month. It's a nice town. I decided to try to drink coffee this morning. I hate coffee. I normally drink tea. I finished a short story last night, …
Continue reading Coffee is Gross, but I Wrote Something in P-Burgh.
My husband is out of town, which means I'm alone a lot, which means I'm buying white bread and watching movies over and over and tromping around the house singing songs. I also get pretty introspective when I'm alone for long stretches, so I've been contemplating my life in various ways when I should be working …
I haven't written anything in about a week as far as my fiction goes. "But Beck," you say. "I thought you said you were going to write more." I did say that. "Yeah, and you also said you were going to write here." Yeah, I said that, too. "But you haven't posted anything here since--" …
