Welcome to another edition of rejection kink porn, the blog.
Getting published is a spray and prey process, most writers submit to hundreds of publications throughout a calendar year. This year, my goal is to submit to over fifty. And I’ll calculate that goal by rejections alone. My goal is to get at least fifty rejections from publications before the year ends.
I’ve submitted a short story to a publication that seems promising, and have yet to hear back. It can take weeks or sometimes months to hear back, and in this publication’s case, they’d rather not have a piece submitted to multiple publications while they take the time they need to review the piece and see whether it’s right for them. This is somewhat annoying, as I’d like to be able to submit a single piece to multiple places at the same time, but it’s pretty common for publishers to disallow this. Publishers have pretty much all the control over these rules, so there’s not anything I can do about it. Regardless, I hope they consider the piece.
I also polished and submitted the first two chapters of a book I was working on to a contest! The winner gets a good bit of money, and at the very least, my creative writing will receive feedback. I’m thrilled to have a professional writer or editor critique my work. One thing about writing is that it typically does happen in a vacuum. You don’t have a lot of avenues for submitting work and getting feedback on it other than joining an existing writers group. And from personal experience, writers groups are usually not a healthy channel to receive honest feedback.
I’ve joined a few writers groups and ended up leaving them, as I’d get odd comments on my work based on the other writer’s personal preference and style, versus writers giving more unbiased feedback based on development, story, pacing — that sort of thing. I had one person who told me it was unrealistic for a bird to be out at night in one of my stories. It was a nocturnal bird, native to the region of the story’s setting. The bird definitely came out at night. But that’s the kind of feedback writers groups usually offer. I’m not saying writers groups are all bad and you shouldn’t try to join or form one; I’m saying that if you can find a good writers group, hold on to it for dear life!
Anyway, I don’t expect to win this novel-focused contest, but I really do hope to get constructive criticism to improve my writing. I was a bit miffed about the way they phrased the rules: That submissions would receive free advice and critiques. That wasn’t necessarily true. To enter the contest, I had to make an account on the contest’s website and buy a $20 ‘critique credit’ first. That was misleading, and I almost didn’t enter. But the site was reputable enough for me to roll my eyes and fork over the Jackson. (By the way, why is that piece of shit still on the $20 bill?! Oh right, racism.)
This was a book that I hadn’t touched for a few years at this point, but decided it was in the best shape to enter. I worked with my editor, my spouse (convenient, right? I’m truly blessed), to get it ready to enter and submitted it a day before the deadline.
Fingers crossed on the potential success of both submissions!
I have another couple of stories that, once edited, will be ready to submit as well. My goal is to keep marching forward on this process, polish a story, then submit, then yap about it in this blog, then try to push it out of my mind until I receive a rejection email.
That’s all for now, back to writing…
Mutant Pizza 