Entered Bridport with my oldest write, dusted and retrieved from submittable. £12...sucker... ... My acceptance is turning into a horror. Brief e-mail from the mag 'will be published later in the week...' a couple of weeks ago...so I'm checking every 5 minutes like a boreface...and...whilst the title has readership...they just plunder from the slush...and that's it, no kisses, totally worthless endeavour...see previous 'North & South.'
Umm, and Raymond Carver. Well, it's a day off. What else am I going to do? 17 dollars is like 3 quid.
So, my final hope for my 12-year labour of love Shadow War has extinguished. I'd stopped querying for this novel for almost a year now, since I received 10+ form rejections previously, but I was still holding onto hope because one publisher did ask for the full. Having waited around 10 months in silence, I wrote them to see what was going on, and was informed they'd made a mistake in not informing me, but it'd been rejected. However, I was told it was well-written, enjoyable, with no glaring flaws because when I asked why it was rejected, she wrote back it was simply a case of not connecting with an editor. Basically I was left with the impression that any flaws were flaws that would have accompanied an agented submission, which an editor who believed in the book would have worked on with the author. Then I was encouraged to submit again and welcomed to address my new book directly to her. So, what do you think? Was my novel so bad? I mean, I'm not going to query that one anymore regardless (the book. I'm totally intending on submitting to the publisher again) - I think I know the flaws but after 12 years I'm not even willing to work on it anymore. It's a finished book. I can be happy with that.
Sorry to hear that, I guess the only thing you have at the end of the day, is your own opinion of your work. If you are happy with it then you are happy. It's a bit strange what they told you. So, it didn't connect with any editor? Aren't editors people who work on what they have, whether they like it or not; it's their job, isn't it? Anyway, keep at it, I'm sure you'll find a home. It's hard letting go of stuff you worked on for so long. I wrote a novel once, few years back, got read by someone decent and it wasn't what I thought it was, not good enough. Took me years of work to reach not very far. At that point I started writing shorts. Writing a full novel takes so much work.
@Krispee - oh I'm pretty much stopping that novel out of sheer exhaustion. Yeah the publisher's explanation was any submission goes through a heavy editing process, so they needed an editor who really believes in it and knows how to shape the book and take it in a certain direction. I think that does make sense - you can't help edit something for which you have no vision and no interest. So you don't write novels anymore? Yeah novels are a tonne of work. I haven't really tried anything shorter. @Medazza - well, 11 rejections that actually emailed me back. I got another 10 or so that never even formally rejected me - just no response at all. I'm aware of some structural flaws by now, but sheer exhaustion and too many darlings combined, I'm just not willing to do much about it right now anymore - if ever. Maybe I'll rewrite it one day, when the darlings are less dear and the flaws clearer because I'll have improved on subsequent books. When I start missing those characters again, which is very likely never lol.
I guess when you know, you know. But that’s still a tiny number. I’d suggest sending off another 10-20 subs and then move onto something else while you wait
I just got my 'rejection' from the Alice Munro Festival of the short story Actually, failing at a competition comes out as 'completed' on my submittable account. I find 'completed' less of an eye sore than 'declined.' Even though it means the same thing. I am also thinking about submitting to the Carver one. Since 2013, I have made 39 submissions using submittable - all declined. I know this isn't really all that many. I have also sent a novel I wrote to over 100 agents - about 35 of the declined. The others did not answer. I've probably submitted a lot of other things over email that were also rejected.
Hey, I have a simple question so I didn't want to make a new thread. I submitted a story via mail recently and I noticed later that I messed up formatting (text adjusted on both sides, everything else is okay). I was wondering if I should send another message in the same email thread, basically to apologize and send the document with correct format? I think/hope I have good chances with this magazine because the story really matches their guidelines, so I don't want to screw up. I submitted the story 4 days ago. And a more topic-related commentary: I think I'm currently around my 15th rejection, but I'm still hopeful.
@Poziga -- Don't worry about it, and do not send an email drawing attention to it. Just let it go. It's unlikely for this to be the sole reason a piece is rejected. Though it's important to follow directions for submitting, I'm sure this publication has come across similar issues from submitters, formatting is an easy enough fix if they want to buy your story. A lot of publications have a first round of readers to handle the slush pile. I've been a slush reader and, honestly, I couldn't tell you if I ever came across a submission with a formatting issue other than the writer not including their name and contact info in the document. But that was never a deal breaker for me, at least. When I started sending out submissions, you had to go to the post office and actually mail them out to some places. Then someone told me that you never staple pages together. It seemed to be the easy reason I was getting rejected so much. It wasn't, but I still stopped with the staples.
Thanks Krispee! Onwards and upwards, keep moving forward, etc. Not sure why the other posts didn't work on multi-quote either but thanks to @deadrats and whoever else responded to my original post pertaining to The Fiddlehead a while ago. Sorry to hear that! I don't think it's the place of an editorial team to be trying to tell the story as they would want it to be told by making it their own and restructuring it, so it sounds like the story just wasn't what they were looking for. This is my take on the situation also. It's like telling an abstract artist to repaint their artwork without providing any further instructions. I'd let this one go, to be honest with you. I did not submit to this but I have been submitting short fiction and poetry to various national competitions over the last few weeks, hoping something gets across the line! Even making a shortlist would be nice.
I can't say I'm numb to rejections. Those ones that make it close still have a sting to them. And those publications I love that continuously reject my best work with form rejections just suck. I tend to average about two rejections per week. So, I think it does affect me to try so hard and fail so much. Of course, it hurts. I push through. I try to let it fuel me, but sometimes it does get to me, but it doesn't stop me.
I read that as "tried to average" at first, which would have been the funniest thing I read all week.
