Middling It

I haven't had a rejection OR an acceptance since 5/25. The crickets are many and methusela-like.

16 stories on submission. FIVE of them are in the final round of consideration at their respective markets (the oldest at 160 days). Half of my subs are at 2 months or more, and most of those are at markets that normally respond faster than that. My Duotrope submissions page is flashing red.

This is slowly killing me. Of course, now that I posted this, I will probably get 2-3 rejections before the week is out.

Just found out that one of my stories has been pushed up to Lynne Thomas at Apex!

I just got out of surgery yesterday morning, so this made me feel better.

Fingers crossed!

Congrats, W.L.!

Out of curiosity how long did it take you to get passed up? Im at Apex for over 30 days now with no word.

W.L. Marks said:

Just found out that one of my stories has been pushed up to Lynne Thomas at Apex!

I just got out of surgery yesterday morning, so this made me feel better.

Fingers crossed!

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Congrats! Apex seems pretty selective about what makes it past the first readers.

Thanks for the congrats. It was a really nice treat to get the e-mail in my inbox when I was feeling so rotten.

Alex, my piece has been with them for fourteen days.

W.L. Marks said:

Just found out that one of my stories has been pushed up to Lynne Thomas at Apex!

I just got out of surgery yesterday morning, so this made me feel better.

Fingers crossed!

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Congrats and good luck!

A few end-of-slush prone crickets in my submissions list:

The Hardest Kiss (Tor.com) - 255 days
Happy After All (Goldfish Grimm's) - 64 days
Damsel (BCS) - 30 days

A handful of others that are still newish at McSweeney's Quarterly, Asimov's, Apex & Abyss, Tin House, Redstone Science Fiction, Weird Tales and Luna Station Press.

No rejections all weekend. I think I needed a break from those. I should hear from a bunch of places soon, but for now I am okay with waiting.

Very exciting news, WLMarks! And congrats on the rewrite request, Project Deadlight. Love the wording.

Meh. Still no responses from anywhere. It's been forever.

None of the stories I was planning on using for my Viable Paradise application are back, and I'm not sure I want to bother applying with some of my older, weaker stories. Guess I may not be applying at all if nothing comes back in the next 48 hours.

Holding my breath for a few things due in soon.

The kind folks at UFO (eg: Alex) have bumped my submission to the 2nd round. Waiting to see if I get the big R or get short-listed from here.

I'm at 18 days at Plasma Frequency and not sure if I'm starting to edge past the routine rejection period or if their response time is still getting longer.

Lastly, apparently Angry Robot has started replying to the novel queries they got during their open sub call for traditional fantasy novels, both rejections and requests for full ms over the past 2 weeks. I have a lot of hopes pinned on that one as traditional fantasy has been a hard sell the past few years.

I'm starting to get jumpy when I get e-mail alerts.

Eliza C said:

The kind folks at UFO (eg: Alex) have bumped my submission to the 2nd round. Waiting to see if I get the big R or get short-listed from here.

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Liz,

I just sent you an e-mail. You made it to the third round.

Good luck with your Angry Robot sub!

alexshvartsman said:

Liz,

I just sent you an e-mail. You made it to the third round.

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Great news!! The e-mail came while I was in my real-life writers group and I didn't hear the alert so I didn't get to share the news with them, but I saw the e-mail when I got in the car. Thanks again for the early sub opportunity so that now I can sit back and relax on that one for a couple of months until the submission period ends - then I'll start obsessing again.

I encourage W1S1 to take advantage of the early sub offer! It's such a welcome change to deal with a pro market that responds quickly and keeps you informed at each stage.

I have a Shimmer sub at 22 days, 17 of which have been spent in the second round.

Tomorrow is my birthday. Fingers crossed they delay the rejection until Sunday or later.

sarahthegrey said:

I have a Shimmer sub at 22 days, 17 of which have been spent in the second round.

Tomorrow is my birthday. Fingers crossed they delay the rejection until Sunday or later.

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Or even better, that you get an acceptance tomorrow. Happy pre-birthday.

I'm not really middling on anything at the moment, but my sympathies and well wishes to all of you that are.

Change that: I do have a 2nd round sub for the Penumbra Poe issue. Totally blanked on that before, probably since it'll be a really long wait yet.

GreenRoom said:

Or even better, that you get an acceptance tomorrow. Happy pre-birthday.

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Trying so hard not to get my hopes up. This is Shimmer, after all; I'm thrilled just to have passed the reader.

Thanks much for the pre-birthday wishes, though!

Before I query (which I've never done before), I wanted to ask a question here:

I've got a submission out at Nine for 37 days now (16 days past their querying point). I'm one of the longest waiting. I've noticed that they announced the ToC to issue #2 22 days ago but have yet to publish the issue, while they refer to issue #3 as their June issue. Obviously they're behind, if nothing else. Both their Twitter account and website blog have been silent for 22 days now, and on Duotrope there are no reports the past 17 days.

I know Sarah has a story in issue #2 so I thought I'd bring it up. I have the option of querying, of course, so no biggie if no one has insight. I just thought something is a little odd and I hope the magazine is doing well.

They're behind, but they haven't communicated that to me directly or anything. I suspect July will be #3, based on the rough average of my total inexperience with e-zines and my rather substantial experience with print journals.

At this point, it's a matter of personal judgment, I think. Do you have other markets with limited windows that would like the story? Are you comfortable with the delay? A little query never hurt, right?

Not helpful, I know. Sorry.

Au contraire, that is very helpful. I've just been curious at the off-the-radar-ness of a magazine that had been very on-the-radar. But if you've heard nothing, I take that to be good news.

I'm going to query Monday at an even 40 days. I'm in no rush, just shushing the crickets, which never works.

Thanks for the reply!

I'm still trying to figure out how submissions are handled. Is it most often the case that the story was passed on to round two when there's a delay? Or do they just go through them randomly and there's nothing really to tell from a delayed response? For instance, if on duotrope the rejections come at a very steady pace, and yours has gone on past their recent track record, is it safe to assume that someone liked it?

Universal: Every market handles such things differently. In some cases the response time has little to do with how much they liked the submission but merely a function of whether yours was picked up by a fast slusher or a slow slusher. Other markets are very consistent to the point where you indeed can indulge in a little rejectomancy and know that yours is being seriously considered if you get past the average response time.

Just curious - anyone else have stories subbed to Bloodstones anthology, Fantasy-Faction anthology or Writers of the Future?

So, now I have a story at 35 days with BCS. The longest ever I've had a story with them. And the recent set of R's seems to have just gone out. Yikes.

Also still waiting on final round consideration at Goldfish Grimm's.

Even the story at Tor.com is inching closer to a certain flush-from-the-slush.

Aggy, not very patient today

So I peeked into my spam box, low and behold, I found that my recent submission to Untied Shoelaces had been passed up to second round. Funny how it got into my spam, tho.