It's almost been a week without a rejection. Hopefully, I'm not speaking too soon. But I just sent out another submission. Year to date, I now have sent out 100 submissions. Lifetime submissions is just about up to 500. It's crazy to think I have written so many stories (not 500, but it's up there) and attempted to sell them so many times. What's a good way to celebrate when I hit 500? Or is that not something to be proud of since shortly after I reach the 500 mark for submissions sent, having received 500 rejections will shortly follow.
Was rejected by a publication where I had withdrawn the story months ago after it was accepted elsewhere. Since then the story has been published and my five minutes of fame was way too short lived. Have any of you gotten a rejection from a place after you have withdrawn your work? I'm did let this place know right away like you're supposed to. I'm not sure what went wrong. I did make it a full week without a rejection whether this one counts or not.
You can hit a happy medium here. By all means, write as fast as you want, and love what you're doing and the stories you produce. BUT WAIT a while, before submitting them! The proud flush of just 'having written' isn't always the best mindset to be in, when you edit and polish your work. If you can look at a story 6 months after you wrote it and still think it's perfect, then fine. If you can see all sorts of flaws and potential corrections in your older work, however, that should tell you something. The only deadlines you're working with here are the ones you set yourself. So maybe continue the fast production (and quick edit) of your stories, if that's the way you like to work, but pull back on submitting them until you can cast a truly openminded and critical eye over what you wrote. Try not to do a final edit of your story from the viewpoint of a proud parent who has just given birth. Instead, try to judge your writing the way other people will judge it. Or the way you would judge it, if somebody else had written it. Something I heard once, regarding the editing process, made sense to me. "Wait until you forget that you wrote it." Of course that's not literal advice—or if it is, you've probably waited TOO long. However, it does mean to wait until you have forgotten the process of writing it. I chose this word over that word because... Wait till that word-choice/sentence construction process has been forgotten. Just look at what you actually have in front of you now, and judge that. Forget what you were thinking about AS you wrote it. I certainly don't speak for everybody, but I think it's a mistake to start marketing work too soon. If you can recognise flaws in your writing later on, know that the people you submit to will see these flaws right away. It would be a shame for a potentially excellent story to get rejected simply because it was put out there before it was ready. It's my understanding—and I may be wrong here—that publishers don't want the same story they rejected earlier getting corrected and resubmitted, unless they specifically ask for it. You might get away with resubmitting once in a while, but I wouldn't make a habit of it. Do your correcting and rewriting beforehand instead—after giving yourself plenty of distance so your judgement is clear. Knock their socks off first time around!
I don't think so. The same crowd live-streamed their 'launch party.' ...And here am I...thinking I am submitting to cathedrals, and these guys are fourteen years old with beanie hats and beards... ... Mcsweeney told me The narrative-driven style here isn’t a good fit. We’re mainly interested in humor that’s more conceptual in its execution. Thanks for thinking of us, nonetheless. Which is one of several stock answers, though not on the Wikireject. [so, just for me then]. Their guy always gets annoyed with my writing and tells me to read his mag. But I try and try but...ggrrr. I sent that story on to a bot/webmag that specialises in Mcsweeney rejects. The story is pretty dreadful, to be fair - written during my sci-fi venture that you copied @DR. My hero has to be chemically castrated after he finds a department store catalogue from '83. I wrote it at the height of #metoo - and it makes me look like the wackjob, gun-swinging woodsman spilling his hate-bile on society [pages]. Paris Review might receive a package from me - prose, btw. Their free reads are all ethereal and dainty, I begin gnashing by the second paragraph after I stumbled on the author's my, a, the dilemma in the second sentence. I'm sure they will like me. Don't think I have won the big prize I gambled my entire life upon, [maybe tomorrow/e-mail] ...and after 'Big Dog' was rejected by the German Fellowship Monks I looked at it again, and as @jannert says, I just had to re-visit and remove about eighty commas and the 'jokes for one man' set on the menu, the pointless contortions. When I finally reach that stage of fully shaved & smooth and when somebody's eye can drift over the page easily, then the write is almost palatable. My only concern then is that the 'story' itself is kind of an afterthought. You can't have the meaning of life as an afterthought, can you? I think maybe 1000 words published every three years? That gets me to the slim volume at sixty, and you could still put 'writer' on my tombstone. Kids will come and graffiti 'self-published' underneath my word. I'll turn in the grave.
You could probably get the posts you write here published ...some humour mag would love them. They always make me laugh, except when they don't. But the percentage is in your favour.
Have to agree with Jannert, you do write some hilarious posts, and some I don't understand at all. You could call it flash humour. Or flash crazy
Yes, but there's a lot of prestige involved. It's second only to Science Fiction and Fantasy. People who get published can have their work nominated for the Hugo and Nebula Awards. They also pay on a professional basis.
Um, what? Are you ok? Actually scratch that comment...... Yeah, heard of the other two. I visited a few magazines way back, just to look see, but it's been a while. So you have to get published in certain magazines in order to get nominated?
Only the magazine's available in WHSmiths can be read or nominated. I await results on my horror sci-fic submission to Home & Interiors, and my erotica languishes at the Geographical. Private Eye have my eyes. Their non-return policy is most vexing to my future and vision, by god, mm.
Well, WHSmiths are a power to be reckoned with. Never read Private Eye, and I don't particularly want to.
Sorry @Krispee, I was talking crap before my swim, and applied for a job today, so... ... Actually, aren't WHSmiths everybody's tip to topple on the High St - something & nothing kind of thing? Submitted 'Big Dog' to 3PP
Hey, no worries, it takes a lot to upset me. Good luck on the job. You mean WHSmith are in trouble? News to me (no pun intended).
Well, I think any magazine is able to nominate any writing, it's just that generally speaking the "top magazines" get the most nominations accepted. It's logical if you think about it - best authors write the best stories, send them to the best magazines, and then those magazines get a bigger share in the prize giving at the end of the year. Of course, the cynic might just say that a lot of these "submissions" are solicited, and prizes are awarded to big names because that will increase sales of whatever annual anthology is released...
I think a lot of work is solicited. I would guess more comes from solicitations than the slush pile. I'm sure that's not the case at all places, but for a lot of them I think it's true.
It makes the most sense for the vast majority of work published to have been solicited in my opinion. Bigger names = bigger sales. It's a commercial enterprise after all. I'm not cynical enough to think that the slush pile only exists on paper, but certainly only accounts for a very small margin of published pieces. These is towards the higher end of the market, of course.
Forgot to include reprint info on a submission today, so now I've got to withdraw that and resubmit. Talk about embarrassing. Certainly gets under my skin more than rejections.
