Rock and a hard place...

[Tburger]

OK, so I've had a story with a pro mag for fifty days and the guidelines say to query if you haven't heard from them -- but only at 70 days. No more, no less. The problem is that I will be on vacation when I hit 70 days, with no email access. Also, I planned on submitting the story to Chizine's contest if the first mag rejects it.

Help!! Should I query them anyway in a day or two and explain why I'm breaking the rules?

[alleycat]

Only on day 70 exactly? Are you sure you read that right?

[Tburger]

Yep

[alleycat]

Well, okay. I have a hard time believing it though.

Most e-mail programs allow you to do a "delayed sent". If your computer is going to be left on while you're away, you could do that.

[Polenth]

If they do have a one day query window, that's very strange. But later seems better than earlier. The Chizine slushpile will still be there, even if the contest has closed.

[drachin8]

I am pretty sure Strange Horizons isn't saying "if you query on day 71+, your query will be ignored and you will be shot on sight". I think what they are saying is to ignore the general submission rule of thumb which involves waiting a month or more extra after a magazine's stated "will respond within" date and actually query them as soon as you can if you pass that date.

I am assuming you received an autoresponse to your submission, so you shouldn't have a problem and will most likely receive a response within the 70 days (I haven't had a non-response from Strange Horizons yet).

Also, I don't know anything about the Chizine contest, but I definitely don't think I would email Strange Horizons to tell them I needed them to respond real quick so I could send my piece elsewhere by a certain deadline if they rejected me. That is sort of like asking to be rejected. If you miss the Chizine deadline, so be it. They always have a regular slushpile to go through if you really feel your piece is perfect for them. And new contests/anthologies/etc come and go constantly.

I know it can be frustrating watching that clock tick by and knowing that other clocks are ticking by just as fast, opportunities passing, but patience is a must in the submission process. An annoying, mind-boggling, head-banging must.


:(

-Michelle

[Tburger]

Also, I don't know anything about the Chizine contest, but I definitely don't think I would email Strange Horizons to tell them I needed them to respond real quick so I could send my piece elsewhere by a certain deadline if they rejected me. That is sort of like asking to be rejected. If you miss the Chizine deadline, so be it. They always have a regular slushpile to go through if you really feel your piece is perfect for them. And new contests/anthologies/etc come and go constantly.

:(

-Michelle


Oops - I re-read my original post and realized that it was a little confusing. I was NOT going to tell anyone that I needed to know because I wanted to enter a contest!!! :) Waiting sucks.

[astonwest]

...the guidelines say to query if you haven't heard from them -- but only at 70 days. No more, no less.My guess would someone is trying to be amusing at the mag...what they really mean to say is "don't bother querying about your submission. We'll get to it when we get to it."

70 days exactly? Bizarre.

I still have a piece under consideration with another mag that's been there since February. Sigh.

[Gray Rose]

Nothing bizarre about Strange Horizons' guidelines. They state,

fter you receive an autoresponse, please wait 70 days to query. After 70 days, if you haven't heard from us, please query immediately; please don't wait more than 70 days before querying.

Which means you can query AFTER 70 days have passed. This seems very reasonable to me, and frankly, a less than three months turnaround is quick in this industry. It is not unusual to wait for 6 months, only to receive a form rejection.

I know how hard it is to be patient (suffer from it myself), but Tburger, if you are going to keep sending your stories out for a while you need to learn to breathe. It's hard to write a winning story, but relatively easy to get yourself blacklisted, or so burned out due to anxiety that you'll experience writers' block.

Breathe. It's going to be all right.

[Shweta]

I'll add: if SH is taking more than 70 days, that's a good sign.

And breathe.

[NicoleMD]

I feel your pain. I submitted a story via form upload, and my firefox browser flashed a script-blocking bar when I did, though the page said that my story was submitted successfully. So now I'm all paranoid that it didn't submit, but I don't want to look like an idiot either.

This one's just a 35 day wait, so maybe I can forget about it and query then. :(

Nicole

[eqb]

Help!! Should I query them anyway in a day or two and explain why I'm breaking the rules?

No, you should not. Unless, of course, you want to annoy the editors.

SH responses *rarely* go beyond the 70-day mark. They tell you to query at that point because if you haven't heard by then, there's a good chance the response went astray. (It happens, even with email.)

And they tell you not to wait beyond that so you don't wait unnecessarily. Common advice tells the writer to wait X days or weeks beyond what the guidelines tell you. SH is just being nice, that's all.

[eqb]

This one's just a 35 day wait, so maybe I can forget about it and query then.

You should have received an email receipt within 24 hours of submitting. If you didn't, then do query to make sure the submission went through. Otherwise, just keep waiting. 35 days is on the early side.

[eqb]

And before there's more wild speculation, you can read the guidelines themselves here (http://www.strangehorizons.com/guidelines/fiction-std.shtml).

[drachin8]

Oops - I re-read my original post and realized that it was a little confusing. I was NOT going to tell anyone that I needed to know because I wanted to enter a contest!!! :) Waiting sucks.

Whew! Cool. You had me worried there for a sec! Hehe.

Waiting does suck. It could be worse, though! I have one story that has been with a market for almost a year and a half now. I sent a query in January and am still waiting on a response to that even. I would have withdrawn it by now except I pretty much plan on retiring the poor thing and putting it out of its misery anyway, so instead I am just seeing exactly how long it will take the market to respond to the story or my January query. There are two other markets holding on to my stories as well whose communications seem to have fizzled into nothing for everyone (both seemed happy enough in December when I subbed!). Very frustrating, so I just try not to think about it and work on other stuff.


:)

-Michelle