Rejectomancy

Brynn

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Brynn, was your Cricket R for fiction?

I'm chewing my nails at 202 days there, for poetry.

Poetry, actually. So (to rejectomance about it) 202 days is probably a good sign!

6-day form rejection from West Branch and 117-day form rejection from A Public Space. I am a little heartbroken over these. They were my best work.

Aww. My condolences. Some rejections hurt a lot more than others.

28-day form R from Buzzy for me. (Not one of the more painful rejections, thankfully.)
 

Eliza C

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309 day form from The Brooklyn3r. That is my longest ever sub! Nearly made it to a year.

Ugg - sorry to hear about that. Condolences also to the other recent recipients of R's.
 

Marzioli

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Strange Horizon's 9-day Valentine's Day fail. I've gotten them on Christmas and my birthday, so this was nothing.
 

alexshvartsman

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Very complimentary rejection from Queen Tobler at Shimmer. She's personally read at least 6 of my stories now.

Michael,

In your experience, about how much time passes between the round 2 pass-up and the response at Shimmer? I have a story sitting in round 2 now (for only a few days so far) and am wondering when I should begin getting nervous :)
 

O'Dandelo

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Michael,

In your experience, about how much time passes between the round 2 pass-up and the response at Shimmer? I have a story sitting in round 2 now (for only a few days so far) and am wondering when I should begin getting nervous :)

It varies, really. I've had them get back to me in 3 days. The most recent time was 8 days, I think. And once was over two weeks. Best I can figure, there's no strict rhyme or reason to it.
 

alexshvartsman

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It varies, really. I've had them get back to me in 3 days. The most recent time was 8 days, I think. And once was over two weeks. Best I can figure, there's no strict rhyme or reason to it.

Thanks! It's not an exact science but it's a good ballpark (expecting days or maybe weeks rather than months) :)
 

Marzioli

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12-day Waylines personal R. I had such high hopes for this, my semi-finalist WotF piece, but it hasn't done so well since the contest. :p
 

Niccolo

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*facepalm* Well I haven't gotten the rejection yet, but I know it's coming tomorrow. I realized tonight that the latest short story i sent to Nightmare wasn't the finished product. It was the in-progress, under-construction version that I was still working on/experimenting with.

Oh well. Thanks to a couple beta-readers, this story will be one of the strongest I've ever sent out into the cruel world of submitting. Hopefully it will be my first publication :) It just won't be to Nightmare.
 

Marzioli

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I realized tonight that the latest short story i sent to Nightmare wasn't the finished product
Ouch, sorry to hear it! And here I always thought we writers made that excuse up when we wanted to supplant a submission with a newer, better draft. :)
 

Eliza C

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12-day Waylines personal R. I had such high hopes for this, my semi-finalist WotF piece, but it hasn't done so well since the contest. :p

Sorry to hear that. Keep the faith. It just takes finding the right person at the right time. At least you have the validation of that SF behind this one.

Niccolo - sorry to hear about your oops.
 

V1c

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71 "We really enjoyed this but. . ." higher tier from 1 story.
 

MichaelP

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3-day Nightmare R. I'm beginning to think that's one group of slush readers I just can't connect with. Out of 10 submissions I've only been considered by JJA himself once that I know of.

I didn't realize that JJA wasn't responding to every sub (I've only subbed a couple times, but did receive a response from him).

Feeling better about my rejections!
 

O'Dandelo

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I didn't realize that JJA wasn't responding to every sub (I've only subbed a couple times, but did receive a response from him).

Feeling better about my rejections!

Every rejection is "signed" by JJA, but he has a team of readers that only occasionally pass stories up to him. The same goes for Lightspeed, as well.