Wow. I don't think I've ever submit to them again after waiting that long--at least not without submitting elsewhere at the same time.
They do allow simultaneous submissions. And they don't usually take so long to respond. I'm guessing my piece was held and/or passed up the editorial food chain. But in the end I just got a form so who knows what the deal was. I've got one at a story at another place over 450 days. That place in the only one with that story right now. And my fingers are crossed so tight it hurts. This journal is the one I want most out of every submission I have out right now. I'm hoping they really see something they like in that story rather than they've forgotten about me. Seriously, if all I get is a form rejection, I'll probably have a bit of a breakdown. If they end up buying my story, life will probably feel better than it has in awhile. Aiming for 100 rejections in a year does have me writing, polishing and submitting more work than I would have otherwise. I told my friend, "What if I really get 100 rejections?" And she said, "You will, but they're not all going to reject you." I hope she's right. One good publication could make this whole experiment worth it. I think it's also helping me to make me at least a tad more patient since I've got a good amount of things out there right now. And each rejection is bringing me closer to this goal of sorts. It takes making a lot of submissions to reach 100 rejections in a year.
This is really strange. Got another agent rejection last night and early this morning. One is from 29 days ago, and the other, 116 days ago (the exact same number as the ECW press one. The publisher one I sent Oct. 29, the agent one Oct. 30). I didn't expect to get any more from my fall submissions, but they are trickling in now. It was nice to see that these weren't more "quick" rejections. I like to imagine they're at least thinking about it, or might have even read some of it, when it takes much longer to say No. Total for the year is now 31.
There's a literary agents/editors forum somewhere where they have a Laid Off, Laid Off, Laid Off thread. Inside they keep count of how many jobs they've cycled through each year. And how many Starbucks shifts they have to work each week to afford efficiency apartment rent on the outskirts of Queens. Schadenfreude, bi-otch!
Thanks (I will say that a lot of the rejections came from queries i sent last year..... But i DID do a ton of submissions these past 2 months)
Short story rejection: 3 (2 more rejections and ill be able to query the "no simultaneous submissions" journal on my list)
In the life of every problem there is a time when it's big enough to see but still small enough to fix. Like most writers, one of my problems is to find a wider audience for my stories than just family, friends and forums. That problem led me to another problem => motivating an agent to represent my stories. And that problem became five years of sending queries and receiving rejections -- a problem that towers over me like a giant looking down at me with a menacing look on its face. So that's it. Ain't gonna feed that giant any more queries. Am I sorry that he'll die of starvation? NO! P.S. Well, that's how I feel this morning after getting another "Keep your day job, Bill." Some days are a stone. Maybe tomorrow will be a diamond. Hey, it's only a day away...
i thought about putting it in the "That Moment" thread, but feel like its more relevant here: TMW you accidently query an agent with a "166k" manuscript instead of a "116k" one (she emailed me 2 hours after the submission like "...166k?". I'm embarrassed by the typo but happy it wasn't an automatic rejection because of it)