Rejectomancy

Marzioli

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I must defer to your opinion, Defcon. I had no intention of insulting that site or any of its fans, merely to express my disinterest in subbing there because of my disagreement with their aesthetic choices.

In other news, Brevity, that non-Duotrope pro-paying creative "flash" non-fiction market, slapped me with a 36 day form R. I had a little hope because they opened it about two weeks ago, which should have given them plenty of time to reject it. But no go. I don't have any place in mind for this piece now, but it's "creative" enough where I might try to sell it as fiction. Maybe DSF? I noticed they published a story composed of three lists, with additional information implied by what was crossed off...

I suspect Nameless Magazine will be sending out their rejections shortly, mostly because they said they're going to reveal their TOC, and inform the authors of their decision. While I love the quality of the anthology the editors released recently, I'm not too fond of their holding stories for three months, many of which I can't help believing they had no intention of publishing. I could understand holding some maybes, but flat out no-thankses too?
 

goldmund

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Personal higher tier from Brevity ("This one came very close, up to the final round of decision making")... I was so, so disappointed.

Edit: Oh, Marzioli, just read you got R from there, too. As for another market, I'm thinking Threepenny? Table talk?
 

Marzioli

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Goldmund, a previous draft was rejected by Threepenny. I'll check out Table Talk though! Thanks.

Edit: Where do I find Table Talk? :D
 

sussura

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So, 79-day personal R from Dagan, with a 'thanks for the fantastic story' on the end. That was fun.

To echo Marzoli, "nuts."

My queue is cleared of subs for the first time in a year. I'm frustrated with my inability to ignore pending subs that have been out for a long time, and the time checking Duotrope and elsewhere sucks from my writing... and I think, once I'm finished with this round of novel revisions, I'm going to start fresh with new stories and let the ones that have been making the rounds sit for a while.

Grumble.
 

goldmund

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Pleasant & encouraging R from Phantom Drift.

Robotic & automatic R from Lightspeed. They are quite speedy indeed.

Once I received R from Lightspeed before I finished typing my cover letter. True story.
 

alimay

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So, 79-day personal R from Dagan, with a 'thanks for the fantastic story' on the end. That was fun.

To echo Marzoli, "nuts."

My queue is cleared of subs for the first time in a year. I'm frustrated with my inability to ignore pending subs that have been out for a long time, and the time checking Duotrope and elsewhere sucks from my writing... and I think, once I'm finished with this round of novel revisions, I'm going to start fresh with new stories and let the ones that have been making the rounds sit for a while.

Grumble.

I'm new here, and hope I'm not speaking out of turn, but I think that would be a real shame. If you think the stories are good enough and you still have potential markets they haven't been submitted to yet, why not have them out there?

Although I'll admit the Duotrope-checking can get to be a problem. If you don't need to use the site for a while, what if you changed your password to something really obscure and easy to forget, like a long string of numbers and letters, and keep yourself logged out? And you ban yourself from using copy & paste.

Ali
 

goldmund

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Checking Duotrope can lead only to disappointment.

"Ah, 4 days after the usual response time! I'm on fire!"

1 day later: Form Rejection.

"Despair!"

compare with:

"Ah, I'm not checking Duotrope, just writing other stuff, and I'm cool like a razor blade."

1 day later: Form Rejection

"Ah, okay. Totally forgot about this one."
 

alimay

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Checking Duotrope can lead only to disappointment.

"Ah, 4 days after the usual response time! I'm on fire!"

1 day later: Form Rejection.

"Despair!"

compare with:

"Ah, I'm not checking Duotrope, just writing other stuff, and I'm cool like a razor blade."

1 day later: Form Rejection

"Ah, okay. Totally forgot about this one."

God help me, I've only just found out about the RSS feed. I should have known joining this site would be a mistake. :tongue

And damn it, I'm supposed getting a first draft written before the baby wakes up, not buggering about on the internet. Mmph. Back. To. Word. Do. Not. Check. Forum. Or. Hotmail.

Ali
 

sussura

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I'm new here, and hope I'm not speaking out of turn, but I think that would be a real shame. If you think the stories are good enough and you still have potential markets they haven't been submitted to yet, why not have them out there?

Thanks, Ali - If I can figure out a way to do it without falling into game-the-sub mode, I will probably send them around some more. I game everything, though. It's a hard habit to break. Part of the problem too is that I'm finishing revisions on a novel - so all new words are being poured into that. I want some new shiny stories to love, I admit it. Soon.

Checking Duotrope can lead only to disappointment.
"Ah, 4 days after the usual response time! I'm on fire!"
1 day later: Form Rejection.
"Despair!"
compare with:
"Ah, I'm not checking Duotrope, just writing other stuff, and I'm cool like a razor blade."
1 day later: Form Rejection
"Ah, okay. Totally forgot about this one."

Goldmund, I would totally subscribe to a service that would sub my stories for me. We need a rejectomancer. One that only lets me have my Duotrope password on alternate Fridays.
 

kd1984

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Although I'll admit the Duotrope-checking can get to be a problem. If you don't need to use the site for a while, what if you changed your password to something really obscure and easy to forget, like a long string of numbers and letters, and keep yourself logged out? And you ban yourself from using copy & paste.

Ali

I would LOVE to be able to ignore Duotrope sometimes, but ALAS! I must find places to sub. And that submissions tracker button is oh so tempting. Maybe the solution would be a way to hide that damn button. :)
 

GreenRoom

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R from ASIM yesterday. Sent it back out to Lightspeed last night, so I should have another R later today.
 

Taylor V

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72-day R from LORE. Not too upset though, it was the first place I sent this piece so I'm pretty ready to try sending it to some other markets. Hopefully some with a little shorter of a response time.
 

Sai

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2-day rejection from Clarkesworld. I'm not too miffed: I consider Clarkesworld the baptism by fire that my stories must go through before they get sent out to other markets.
 

alexshvartsman

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R from ASIM yesterday. Sent it back out to Lightspeed last night, so I should have another R later today.

I'm curious as to how you prioritize your submissions? ASIM is a good market and I submit to them a lot, but if a story is appropriate for Lightspeed you better believe they'll get to see it before ASIM does :)
 

Marzioli

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I'm curious as to how you prioritize your submissions? ASIM is a good market and I submit to them a lot, but if a story is appropriate for Lightspeed you better believe they'll get to see it before ASIM does :)
I know this isn't directed to me, but since I've done things like that before, I thought I'd answer too. Usually Clarkesworld and Lightspeed see everything I have first. Then I work my way down the pro market list. If I get enough rejections for a story, and every pro market is filled with a sub, I may send it to a semi-pro I like instead of waiting for a vacancy. In that case, an ASIM might get a story before Lightspeed. It happens very rarely, but it does happen. :D
 

GreenRoom

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I'm curious as to how you prioritize your submissions? ASIM is a good market and I submit to them a lot, but if a story is appropriate for Lightspeed you better believe they'll get to see it before ASIM does :)

I normally would have sent it to Lightspeed before ASIM, but I thought I'd already sent it to them. When I rechecked my list after ASIM rejected it, I realized somehow I'd missed subbing to it. Hence, off to Lightspeed it went.
 

Aggy B.

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118 day rejection from Tin House for "Mother". It's my only short story (not micro-fic or flash) that has no trace of speculative thought in it. Not sure where to send it next.
 

Aggy B.

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Bad news Aggy. :( I don't know whether TH ever accepts anything from slush, but yours was with them for ages. Where else have you tried? One Story?

Pedestal and The New Yorker. (Which took 149 days to get back to me. Between them and Tin House, the story's been sitting in slush a lot since I wrote it.) I'm very vague about non-spec-fic markets so now I'm kind of all "Huh. Where next?" :p