Everywhere else I've sent that story I've gotten a form rejection. I think I really need to get to know this publication better. I got lucky or did something right. I just wasn't lucky or right enough. And it still didn't take all that long to be rejected so I don't know how close this really was. A rejection is still a rejection, but it's nice to know someone read my story and thought about my story.
I have the best idea for you to get into McSweeney's. I'm totally messaging you right now. Think about it.
Yeah? Well I've been waiting all night. Certainly, I think I am the champion of the 'pointless submissions.' When we lived down South - during a particular harsh bout of my rigid limb melancholia I sent an e-post to the local writers' group. This subversive mob of pensioners - and one renowned drizzle cake addict - they gather in seemingly ordinary beach bungalows and swap couplets for the night. They disgust me, but I was never brave enough to 'kick down the door' even for their Christmas party. I told that woman Arkela thirty times in my correspondence 'I DON'T LIVE THERE ANYMORE,' so stop sending me your round robin. Then, last night she bothered me again with an opportunity for the Parish Pump Magazine. I googled my world famous blog, found my own review of the Eastbourne Air Show and laugh-farted at my desk it was so funny. I sent it straight to her. Though when I read it to my wife in bed, it wasn't funny anymore. Why is this?
To be fair your wife might not get your humour, that's not to say someone else wouldn't. You should totally do the parish pump thing, I'm sure you could come up with something amusing.
I just sent you a direct message. Sorry it took so long. I was reading your earlier post and it gave me an idea for you, and as soon as I typed that I had a situation at home and couldn't get back to my computer last night. It's probably a stupid idea. But sometimes writers really pull things off and I think this one could be for you. Don't worry if it doesn't interest you. It's just something to think about and something I think you could totally pull off and it would be super.
The Bennington Review just sent me a form rejection after 101 days. Man, this is just rejection after rejection with what feels live long periods of silence in between. How long are these periods of silence? Well, I did just get rejected on Wednesday by another place. But hopefully this is it for the weekend. I've found that good news never comes on the weekend. I think a lot of people who work at these pubs use the weekend to get through backlogs of submissions. So, no more weekend rejections. This is the time for the first line of readers to pass my work up or editors to give my work more thought. Come on little stories. One of you has to make it to a Monday meeting.
hey hey - pep talk time. But I’m away from my computer, my baby. My computer is my baby. You are not my baby. I hate telephones. But baby, don’t be a baby. You are THE heroic pen, remember? There’s advice to give, but recall a moment where you got yourself to this point. Leading world literary periodicals? C’mon.
They still have them. I get them all the time. There are a few places that still take hard copy submissions. And with those comes hard copy rejections. For a while, I had a bunch of them tacked up in my workstation, but I don't really find rejection motivating or inspiring. It did feel good to rip them all down and throw them away. I had duplicates of many of them before I realized that collecting rejection slips just wasn't my thing.
You've got better stats than me. It takes me about a hundred or two rejections to get an acceptance. This is not an exaggeration.
How often do you submit? I used to submit to at least 4 lit mags every weekend but now that I have this new job, I've been submitting a few things here and there so I don't get much rejections or acceptances. I've gotten twenty publications last year (including poems) but this year is a bit more rocky.
Alright, after an extended period of intense stress, then exhaustion, and then almost perpetual inebriation, I'm back in the game. Just finished off the first fantasy flash fiction piece I've ever written - the first instalment in a worldbuilding project I'm piloting - and sent it off to five different journals so we'll see what happens. Beyond that I have a very narrow period of time in which I need to finish four very high-concept pieces for various writing competitions I've been eyeing for quite some time, so it's time to get to work. I have almost finished one of them as of today, spent a good few hours on it this morning and was reasonably happy with the end result. Now that I'm able to give this 100%, I'd be more than happy to have a look at any work you guys might be seeking some proofing of before you send them out. Usual caveat accompanies, mainly the fact that I haven't studied creative writing at an academic level so my feedback may be somewhat iconoclastic and also brutally honest. Send me a private message anyway if you feel it could be beneficial, this thread exists for a reason.
Congrats. About how much time is that, over what time period? If you don't mind me asking. Hope your flash fiction does well. Deadrats just finished reading one piece I had, but I'll keep your offer in mind as I have other pieces, just a bit longer.
I try to submit at least once a week. Sometimes that can turn into making ten submissions and sometimes I will skip a week, but I am pretty good at staying on top of things. Congratulations on last year's twenty pubs. I don't think I will ever pull something like that off. Last year I had zero.
Yay! You're in the game now. Also, I'll do a story trade with you. I'm finishing up another genre piece now, and I think it's better than my last one. I'm still very new to genre and have only tried a handful (at most) of science fiction stories. The one I'm working on is science fiction so I can try that editor who wrote me a personal rejection again when it's done and ready. But an extra set of eyes is always a good thing. In this one I've got humans, but they're not on earth and have lost all communication with NASA. And I've got some sick aliens in there and a planet like no other. I would love you to take a look. I will either finish it by Friday and we can swap over the weekend or (more likely) my piece will be ready by the end of the weekend and I'll send it on Sunday. Would either of these scenarios work for you? Offer stands for anyone I've done a swap with before, especially if you write and/or read science fiction. And I'm open for trading with more than one of you. Also, I believe I'm caught up on reading and giving feedback on stuff for everyone I recently traded with or sent who sent me something, but if I've forgotten anyone or let anything slip through the cracks, please message me. But I think we're all good. Message or comment if you want to get in on this latest story trade with me and @Funerary.
I've been trying to send out something every week for years so it's kind of a habit I've stuck with. I read this essay about a writer aiming for 100 rejections a year and selling stuff to literary journals along the way (including the essay I read) with that approach. Then I read another essay which was a spin off of that essay where the writer claimed to get something like 350 rejections a year. That's a little crazy for me. But I do try to keep that 100 in mind. I believe I'm closer to sending out 100 submissions per year than getting 100 rejections. But reading the first essay (I believe you can find it online in either Agni or The Kenyon Review. It was one of those two, but I can't remember which.) made me up my submission game. As far as my success/failure ratio, I honestly haven't been having success long enough to really know. It's only been a few months since my first fiction stories were published. I had years of nothing but rejection, and then I got a few takers around the same time for different stories. That all being the case, the places that have bought fiction from me were some of my dream publications. For me, it was worth all the wait and rejection I had to go through to get there. Since then, my rejection streak seems to have returned. Boo! At the end of the year, I can let you guys know my stats if you want, but I don't imagine I will end up having anywhere near 20 publications. I would love another one, but already this year is better than last year and the year before that and the year before that. Get in on this @Krispee. I know I'm willing to read a longer piece from you. Can we keep it under 10k words?
350 rejections is nearly one every day, is that serious? A hundred is a lot, given that you have to keep writing and then editing. A story every 4 days? I have a couple of longer pieces, around 9 and 8 thousand words. I've been too busy lately to have another go at the story you read for me. Some really good ideas there and will try and find the time to re-write, but I've been thinking about it. I think it's only fair to read others stories if mine are read as well, balances the whole thing.
Okay, so I looked up my stats. Right now, I currently have 35 submissions out. In the last 12 months I've sent out 108 submissions, and my acceptance ratio is 2.4 percent. Last year I received 75 rejections. So far this year I have received 51 rejections. Well all that is lower than I thought except for my acceptances. Just glad that's not zero anymore. But for everything else, I feel like I've sent a million submissions out and been rejected a million times.
I was thinking that you must literally be writing all the time, but then I'm forgetting that this is your job. It's hard for me to put it into perspective because I have only ever written as an interest. Anyway, I'm quite happy to read others stories if you have something that is bothering you, and I will try and keep my comments a bit more of an overview and not go too deeply into it. I have a tendency to do that, I'm a bit detail orientated. You will just have to message me if you want a read through.
Your last critique was great so however you want to do it. Okay, it's a writing day for me. Back to work.
Well as long as I'm not suggesting too much, I know it's easy to overstep in that regard. And yes, get back to work, none of this dawdling in writing forums.