I've waited over two years for a rejection from another place. Just when you think they've forgotten all about you, bam! a fresh rejection to add to the growing list of my failed attempts. I'm not giving up on this story, though. It's still out at some more places. I do have to admit I'm slipping a little when it comes to sending out more submissions. It's just when a good chunk of time passes I think maybe I should wait it out a little. This has never proven to be a good idea for me. It's time to get these suckers out to some more markets.
Very well done Woodstock. I know someone who published a whole book full of flash fiction, it's an interesting genre.
349 day acceptance from Armarolla Journal!!! My story will be in the print journal which will be on sale in Cyprus, Athens (Greece) and Zurich (Switzerland)! Very surprised by this haha
Hello! I joined WritingForums specifically for this amazing thread. Thank you @deadrats for starting it. Your persistence and dedication to writing at a high level is inspiring and honest. I wanted to wait to post here until I had read the entire thread. As I have been reading I have been “liking” some of the comments. So if you are noticing reactions to posts from 2017 . . . that is probably me. I read a lot of short fiction and recently have started writing short fiction as well. I have mostly written some genre (light fantasy) but will likely also write literary short fiction. I notice “The Lottery” was mentioned on this thread but as a child I also loved “Summer People” (same author). I do tend to read all the award winning short fiction in my genre and “Cartographer Wasps and Anarchist Bees” is a fairly recent short story in my genre that I think is basically perfect. I also enjoyed “Court Magician.” I do subscribe to The New Yorker, but there are so many journals that I usually only keep on hand a couple fairly recent issues for each market. I use Duotrope (paid) and Submission Grinder (free) to track submissions. In my genre simultaneous submissions and multiple submissions are typically not allowed so you wait for rejections one at a time. Additionally, places like Clarkesworld require you to have a brief rest period of seven days before resubmitting. I have a pretty good grasp of the markets for my genre but less so for literary fiction markets. I did see that @deadrats provided a helpful list and most of those markets were at least known to me. I have not looked at Contests or Anthologies. I have been thinking of researching those for my genre. I usually sit on a story for a while, editing it a bit, getting feedback from my three beta readers and then sending to my copy editor for a final clean up. I never just rush to market. I recently had coffee with a friend, a writer, who has been working on a novel and other projects for almost four years. She had never had a close reading, had never sent it to a copy editor. But she has been shopping it around to find an agent. I was really surprised. I was the first human being to look at her work word by word line by line in four years. That may be what most people do, but I like to send things in as clean as possible. I am here because most people On these sites seem to be focused on fan fiction or novels and I am not doing either. The process of short story submission is just completely different than publishing novels. I am also not interested in self-publishing or publishing on come one come all websites. If my work is not good enough, I would rather retire it than self-publish. This is not a commentary on self-publishing generally . . . it is just my own preference. There have been some truly great books that started as self-published! I am here because I am trying to publish short fiction and want to find a positive place that supports and pushes me. And let me add to the pile a 2 day form rejection from Clarkesworld. Glad to find all of you and happy writing.
Hi AnnGG, welcome to this thread. Hope you have a had a good read. Not all of us have been published, me for instance, although I think most of the others here have been published in one form or another, so plenty of experience to help. I also love the genre field, especially the area of Science Fiction. I think your process is about right, letting a story settle and letting your emotions about it find some kind of equilibrium, is the best idea. That's the way I do it and most others here too probably. Some of us here have swapped stories for beta, although that hasn't happened for some time now, but that is still an option, although it seems you already have that covered, which is a blessing. Matwoolf is no longer with us here but has moved on to fresh pastures (at least for the time being), and haven't seen Deadrats around here in a while, but regardless of personnel everyone's happy to help any way they can. So, happy writing.
@Krispee Thank you for the welcome. It looks like you and @Funerary and @Woodstock Writer have been here recently and @deadrats was here as recently as January 12. I can’t promise that I will be posting even as frequently as once a week . . . But I will be here in spirit.
I just heard from my copy editor. She said I used currant instead of current. I had not noticed. HAHAHAHAHA. This is why we have copy editors.
Easy enough to miss, that one. I just keep going over my stuff until I get every word, I get round to them eventually.
1 week rejection from 101 Words. Submitted admittedly in a manner err.. frenetic, rushed see, as things about me were hectic. Reason given it wasn’t ‘story-like’. No prose but poetic. They said. Submit in haste I guess I should fess. I don’t know what they’re on about.
