Third C.C. Finlay F&SF sub period open

V1c

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*sigh* out at 25 and with a form.
 

ACFantasy

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Incidentally--for people who like submitting to markets where they tell you your queue position, Urban Fantasy Magazine does so as well. /FYI.
 

Filigree

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As I suspected, out at #50, with some good feedback: 'interesting world and characters' but pace too slow, and not enough urgency to the story. I've been invited to send more stories.

I have some thoughts on it, since this was originally a 49K section of a bigger novel. I guess I gutted too much from it to get it to 25K. At least, I'm using folktales stripped from this one, in a newer mms!

Onward and upward, folks. The best of luck to those of you still in the game.
 

GingerGunlock

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Incidentally--for people who like submitting to markets where they tell you your queue position, Urban Fantasy Magazine does so as well. /FYI.

Yes! In my (limited, I've only subbed to them once) experience, you also get notes/opinions from the slush readers, even if the letter itself is a form rejection.
 

ACFantasy

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Ginger--That's my experience too. I made two submissions to them, back when they accepted multiple subs at once, and I got the slush notes from both (as well as the editor notes on the one that advanced past the slush round).
(And my latest sub to them has a queue position under 100! Woohoo!)

Back to F&SF, my sub has a queue position under 300 now. It's getting there!
 

Ty Schalter

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15-day waiting period is up, and I'm back in the queue at 518. This one is a near-future sports-based flash piece I think will be right up his alley. It was R'd by F&SF before, but FFO gave it the most gosh-you-came-so-close R I've ever received.

As always, hopes are high.

Peace
Ty
 

ACFantasy

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Position 102.

And, in news that is probably of more general interest, CC Finlay gave an update on Twitter:

1,199 submissions were received in the month of January.
644 have been rejected.
44 have been held pending further consideration.
Finlay will be buying 35,000-40,000 words of story this month. About 2 novellas, 7 short stories, or some mixture thereof.
Finlay noted that he inherited about 3-4 issues worth of purchased short stories from GVG, and is buying stories to complement those.
He hopes to purchase 65-70 stories per year, from 60 or more authors.
 

Ty Schalter

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This one's still in the queue. Position No. 24, been on sub for 35 days. Based on queue movement, Grinder numbers, and C.C. Finlay's anguished tweeting about re-reading and rejecting good stories, it's most definitely made the first cut, and maybe even a second.

I've been in flop-sweat mode for days.

15-day waiting period is up, and I'm back in the queue at 518. This one is a near-future sports-based flash piece I think will be right up his alley.
 

Ty Schalter

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Good luck, Ty!

The wishes, AC, are appreciated—but the luck was not good. Got a lengthy, very helpful, quite personal R. He deemed it "publishable, or very close to it, in its current draft"—but said flash for F&SF will need to resonate more broadly than my piece did.

Onward.

Peace
Ty
 

ACFantasy

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Sorry to hear it, Ty. Hope you can place it elsewhere. And it sounds like you at least got about as good a rejection as one can get. :)
 

Sara K.

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Sorry to hear that, Ty! At least you got a lot to chew over from him. Hope you can find a new home for it!

Just submitted something myself to him, we'll see how it goes. At position 468.
 

Ty Schalter

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Sorry to hear it, Ty. Hope you can place it elsewhere. And it sounds like you at least got about as good a rejection as one can get. :)

Sorry to hear that, Ty! At least you got a lot to chew over from him. Hope you can find a new home for it!

Thanks! Yeah, a lot of good feedback on the story in particular, and some really encouraging stuff on how my writing's progressing—how he's starting to see some of the best qualities of my sportswriting seep into my fiction.

Doing a polish of this right now with Terraform in mind. Near-future, short length, seems to be just what they're looking for.

Good luck on your F&SF sub, Sara!

Peace
Ty
 

ejayo

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...at position 26. Were I to sell it, it would be my third sale to the magazine, but I have to wonder how good my chances really are, given the difficult nature of the story. Still. Oh. It would be so nice.
 

zanzjan

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Right behind you at 30. Haven't sold to them yet, but hopeful I will one of these tries. :)
 

zanzjan

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Yep, I haven't budged from 30 either.

I wonder if this isn't meant to subtly motivate us to improve our queue position via mortal combat, a la Hunger Games.
 

DetectiveFork

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Got booted at 50 with a nice personal rejection, although it didn't give me much hope that the story was enjoyed on any level. Was invited to submit more, although I think everyone is. lol