Please give a warm welcome to this week's guest blogger SS Hampton, Sr.!
This will be our final guest post for a while. Thanks so much to all who participated over the past few months!
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Well, So...My Story Was Rejected
The sales of my writings have not set the world on fire, but one can always hope. After all it has only been a little more than two years since I shifted my focus from e-magazines to e-publishers.
In 2011 there was a Call for Submissions for an anthology about lesbian shapeshifters. I debated about making a submission. After all, I am a man—what did I know about lesbians, let alone shapeshifters or werewolves? But the idea would not go away. I was intrigued by the challenge. Once, while researching a different story about werewolves I came across a reference to the Greek historian Herodotus and his mention of a tribe who were said to turn into wolves once a year.
After more thought, research, and outlining,
“Second Saturday” was created on 24 June 2011 at 1,948 words. On 16 July 2011 I submitted the 4,500 word short story to the anthology.
It was rejected. No problem—rejection is a way of life for a writer. Get used to it or go run an acorn farm.
However,
“Second Saturday” would not go away. I let it rest awhile as I do with many of my writings after rejection. I continued my research because there was a host of questions to be answered. I felt this had the potential to become a series. I needed a framework to write within. Everything had to make sense, and when there was a deviation from history it had to be a plausible deviation.
On 6 November 2011 I assembled all of my research into a background document.
The world of the Neuri, a prehistoric tribe of werewolves, was alive with possibilities. I had a good idea of where their homeland was located thanks to Herodotus, but I also knew that their “creation myth” told of their origin far to the north, in a world of snow and ice and where colorful spirits danced in the night sky. I knew the Neuri’s strengths and weaknesses, their social hierarchy, and how they lived in the surrounding world of mankind.
But still, what foods did prehistoric peoples eat? What clothing did they wear? How did weapons evolve from stone to bronze to iron? What was going on in the world around the Neuri as the human race emerged from the Stone Age and began building with mud bricks and learned to write on clay tablets? Were people aware of the Neuri or did they whisper superstitious stories about them around campfires? Did the Neuri avoid contact with humankind, or did they venture into the human world? Why? To learn, to hunt, or to conquer their two-legged cousins? How did they venture into the world? As wolves or in hairy albeit human form? If they change into wolves, then what the hell happened to their clothing and weaponry? Do they appear as wandering families or clans? Perhaps the Neuri sent out small packs of men, women, and children who traded with people far and near, and thereby learned about the human world.
Finally, all tribes begin somewhere. What if some of the Neuri families grew in importance and became clans? Over the span of thousands of years, what if these clans developed into migrating tribes and, identified by a corruption of their original names, they someday burst onto the Greek and Roman stage as tribes written of by Caesar and Herodotus?
And, do the usual conventions of a silver bullet (arrow or sword) killing a werewolf apply? How do wolves act individually and in packs, and how do they hunt? How do wolves establish their hunting territory? And how does this wolf behavior translate into human behavior and vice versa?
By the time I finished my final edit of the story, I understood the world of the Neuri as well as I could understand a still-evolving tribal history. I did not reveal everything in my first story as I wanted everything to gradually come to light through a variety of stories.
I submitted the 6,700 word short story,
“Second Saturday” to Musa Publishing on 27 November 2011. It was accepted!
And I began working with a wonderful editor who helped the story become better than ever. Of course, the editor and I did not always see eye to eye; however, as she is the editor and brings fresh eyes and experience to bear on the manuscript I usually accepted her recommendations. Sometimes I even learned a few things, such as when she commented (paraphrasing here), “Women don’t get turned on that way.” Oh. Okay. I am learning. After all, I am a man writing lesbian werewolf erotica.
So, after much difficult labor “Second Saturday” was born in July 2012.
I am glad the story was not accepted by the anthology. If it had been the odds are that I would not have created the world of the Neuri in detail and planned additional stories about them. You know—additional stories like my WIP, “The Lady of the Evergreens,” that begins in the present and takes a deeper look at the Neuri emerging from the shadows of prehistory.
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About the author:
SS Hampton, Sr. is a full-blood Choctaw of the Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma, a divorced grandfather to 13 wonderful grandchildren, a published photographer and photojournalist, and a member of the Military Writers Society of America. He is a serving member of the Army National Guard with the rank of staff sergeant.
His writings have appeared as stand-alone stories and in anthologies from Dark Opus Press, Edge Science Fiction & Fantasy, Melange Books, Musa Publishing, MuseItUp Publishing, Ravenous Romance, and as stand-alone stories in Horror Bound Magazine, Ruthie's Club, Lucrezia Magazine, The Harrow, and River Walk Journal, among others.
Where to Find "Second Saturday":
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Thank you so much for being with us today--and congrats on your success!
~Lydia
