The W1S1 Check-in and Chill Lounge and Bar

FF tonight. Some really good stories/snippets (as always).

Izz said:

Now i'm not so bad, but i still spend more time than i think i should checking duotrope responses. Hopefully by the end of the year i'll be cured

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Oh, yeah, I'm already a *lot* less anxious now that I've joined Write1Sub1. But I still spend more time than I should checking things. It's my intention, as well, to cure myself by the end of 2011.

Then it's time to start obsessing over novel queries.

Not to say that these things should never be checked. I've had a story or two go missing somewhere in the ethers between me and the editor, and in one case querying got me a sale.

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That's VERY cool!

Izz said:

In this case, Aggy, i'd just hang tight.

One of the things i really think W1S1 will help us with is getting over the hurdle of story-attachment. When i subbed my first story, i was all checking my email every hour and checking duotrope to see if any responses had come in and generally fretting about my baby. Now i'm not so bad, but i still spend more time than i think i should checking duotrope responses. Hopefully by the end of the year i'll be cured

Not to say that these things should never be checked. I've had a story or two go missing somewhere in the ethers between me and the editor, and in one case querying got me a sale.

See how i talked around in a circle there?

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Yeah. I'm just stuck at that point where I want to be hopeful because they have said they are "seriously considering it" for an upcoming issue. But at the same time I keep thinking about how I might have to look for another market if they don't wind up taking it. >_<

It's not so much attachment to my stories, I'm just impatient. I like what I write, I want other people to be able to read my stories someplace other than my blog. (Not that I put them on my blog, that would be publishing them. Just saying. I have a blog, that's an option. But not one I want to pursue right now.)

And, I finally went over to Tor.com and posted on their submissions thread and pointed out that if they don't take sim-subs they might actually want to say that in the submission guidelines. I'd sim-subbed to them (stated that it was a sim-sub in the cover email and if that was a problem just to let me know since I couldn't find a yea or nay in their submission guidelines). Didn't hear anything back from them. Eventually sent them an email to tell them the other publication had short-listed my story and did they still want to consider it. And they sent back an email to say "oh, we don't take sim-subs." (This, after it had been sitting in the slush pile for five months.)

Ugh. I should stop getting online when I haven't had enough sleep.

Tor still terrifies me. I think W1S1, even for the short time I've been doing it, has helped me stop fretting over what I've sent out. I can take a two month Weird Tales decision now. But waiting six to eight months for a form rejection is not a cool thought.

Some one on the W1S1 site said she had 20 stories in submission. I'm taking that as a challenge!

I'm at seventeen, and I shall accept this challenge. Three more short stories shouldn't be hard with a one a week schedule, and I'm damn sure I can manage to not get another acceptance in that time. Victory shall be mine!

I've got ten out, and two ready to go, but no good markets. Strange Horizons, how can I deluge you if you won't open your submissions portal?

Which leaves 8... Hmmm....

Nathaniel Katz said:

I'm at seventeen, and I shall accept this challenge. Three more short stories shouldn't be hard with a one a week schedule, and I'm damn sure I can manage to not get another acceptance in that time. Victory shall be mine!

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Don't know what a drabble is...

And SH being down is dire. I like subbing to them.

My story's been at Strange Horizons for 69 days (reading this thread reminded me). Now I'm really nervous... Ah well, I guess it lasted this long, which is something.

It looks like longer is better for some of the markets. I would think most rejection would be fairly quick, but if you put in stock in Duotrope, it depends on the market.

SH seems to take longer with acceptances. Good luck!

Nathaniel Katz said:

My story's been at Strange Horizons for 69 days (reading this thread reminded me). Now I'm really nervous... Ah well, I guess it lasted this long, which is something.

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Personally I'm at 17 stories out, but I've picked out markets for 3 more (a w1s1 reject, a new w1s1, and an old story I re-edited) so I should be up to 20 this week.

I have mixed feelings about that - it's hard, for me at least, to read and research enough markets in depth, but I am excited about getting things out there. Does everyone else like, read a journal or magazine a day? I read a few stories out of each market before I sub.

I'll read some stories. You get a pretty good idea that way.

Whether they accept me or not, I discovered I like ChiZine, Strange Horizons, and Beneath Ceaseless Skies. I'm always looking for short story anthologies to read and it never occurred to me that I could read them for free online.

AlwaysJuly said:

Personally I'm at 17 stories out, but I've picked out markets for 3 more (a w1s1 reject, a new w1s1, and an old story I re-edited) so I should be up to 20 this week.

I have mixed feelings about that - it's hard, for me at least, to read and research enough markets in depth, but I am excited about getting things out there. Does everyone else like, read a journal or magazine a day? I read a few stories out of each market before I sub.

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I like to read at least a few stories from a market before submitting to them, see what kind of stories the editors like. It's gotten a lot harder to keep up with reading on all of the markets with submitting something every week especially as rejections start to come in and I am looking for places for resubs and new subs.

Just as a side note, I may not be around much over the next few days. Moving over 1,000 miles this week. Gotta finish packing today, load the truck tomorrow, drive Thursday and Friday and unload the truck and unpack over the weekend. I'm still gonna try to keep up with writing and submitting this week though. Looks like it's time for another flash piece.

It's a shame, so many of the pro markets keep temp closing. Are we bombarding them? Or they suffering midwinter blues?

But I'm back at it again, and this subforum is cool. Glad to see you guys are still hitting it hard.

Write happy,
Dawn

Hmm. I don't read much in the markets I submit to. (That could be part of my non-pubbed problem.) But I find if I read what else they've pubbed I tend to assume they won't want what I send in. I just look at the basics (They want SF, I have SF.)

Exceptions are made for magazines that want "hard SF" or a specific kind of fantasy since I usually genre mash. But reading markets just frustrates me. Not only do I start thinking "No one will publish what I write" but I fall into the trap of "I don't like what they have published which means it's not as good as what I write therefore the editors here are stupid."

Aggy, already meets the "cantankerous" and "owns cats" requirements for being a crabby, old cat lady

Aggy, I have the same problem and feel the same way sometimes when I read what's published in the publication I'm considering, but I think it is important to get a feel for what cuts muster at their pub and what they like. Just going by genre alone isn't enough sometimes, I don't think.

I look around at a few stories they've published with my eye on a few things:
what sorts of POV and tense do they lean toward or away from
do they seem to like dialogue heavy or description heavy stories
is their preference clean, sparse writing or heavy literary (not genre literary, but purple-prose literary)

If I land on one (or hopefully more than one) story that resembles (voice, style, plot, characters) one I've written--I mark them as a possible market for that story. And I look through archived issues if they have them, not just the current issue.

It's a fair amount of work, but I enjoy researching markets. There's nothing more fun to me than finding that *perfect* one for a particular story. Though, when they reject me it's less fun. But I often times come back again and knock on their door saying "Excuse me, you must have made a mistake, you meant to publish me. Here's another story. Try this one out."
I'm sure The Pedestal hates me now.

I always read publications I want to submit to, unless it's a matter of having to buy a paper copy and have it mailed to my house, unless I'm in the market to buy a few samples. I'm not, always. It's just not within my budget right now to subscribe to or buy individual copies of dozens of publications. I think the last one I bought was pdf of Andromeda Spaceways

When the content is online, reading what's been published is one of the best ways to get a feel for a publication and decide if it's worth subbing to. Because there are so many different styles and ways that magazines present themselves, reading them is a great way to make sure you're sending your story to the best possible places and not wasting your time. I read fiction online every day, so it's no real issue for me to draw some of that from places I want to submit. Guidelines really aren't good enough to judge what should go where. Maybe in the broadest sense, but I would never rely on them.

A trick to get around having to buy samples when you can't or don't want to: search for the terms "previously published in Whatever Publication" and "first appeared in Whatever Publication."

Reprints will have this note with them, perhaps in a list of credits, so it's possible to find something that has appeared in that magazine. It will also bring you to pages of fiction by an author who has appeared, and by reading a few of their pieces it's possible to get a slightly better idea of the kind of the writing the publication might take (though this is a little more hit and miss).

Shelley