#submitting

[fxck-with-eli]

Good Girl

Make sure to let us know how turned on you get at having us decide how you go out

This hits my submissive heart directly!

I have been feeling very… VERY good the last few days <3

[burningvelvet]

I JUST FOUND OUT ONE OF MY PLAYS IS GOING TO BE PRODUCED AGAIN! I just sent my response. It's a short comedy that was rejected once before; I was told that call had hundreds of submissions so my odds were low, & was encouraged to let them resubmit it to their next call which would have fewer entries due to having more niche criteria — but which niche criteria my work and I met.

It's been months since then, so I didn't think it'd get in. This is a small company I now have a longish association with so I shouldn't be that surprised but I am because I had kind of forgotten about it... which proves that submitting one's work shouldn't be as daunting as it is; afterwards, it's out of your hands, so you may as well forget about it. If you're accepted it's a pleasant surprise, and if you're rejected it's simply forgettable. I don't remember how many times I've had work rejected in various mediums — I rarely submit, so not that much — it's probably somewhat 50/50 rejection/acceptance. But that's just so; it's a coin flip, and nothing personal.

Every writer I've talked to has expressed the observation that making decent work is only half the struggle of achieving recognition; the other half is a willingness to play the numbers game. I would add like many others before me that these odds are often determined by one's social positioning, to the detriment of most of us who didn't win the birth lottery. But nonetheless, as a writer seeking recognition you have to play the monotonous numbers game — to simply keep writing — and simply keep submitting — and simply keep waiting — and writing in the waiting. The process actually isn't simple at all, but the idea of it really is.

[czaneavecg]

I actually finished the piece 4 mins before my

[rocrown]

Sometimes when you submit stories or books, they ask you to include content warnings, which I think is good and tend to do unprompted because I don’t want the overworked and often underpaid reader who just went through a family tragedy to read my story about a similar tragedy.

Their job is to read stories not relive trauma because some asshole won’t say “fyi this occurs” in their cover letter. If they wanna read about that traumatic event they can on their own time as a means of processing or whatever but they don’t need to for a fucking job. Content warnings aren’t just about being conscientious, they’re worker solidarity in this case. Not only is it about not being a dick, it also prevents someone from having a worse day at work. To me that’s the win. If I can make it so your job doesn’t suck as much just by giving you a heads up, I’m gonna do it.

Also thorough content warnings aren’t spoilers. Especially in this case. They’re professionals appraising writing for publication. Give them all the details so that the writing gets into the hands of the person best-equipped to enjoy it. You’ll have a better chance at getting published.

I personally don’t require any content warnings and maybe most people don’t, but if one person does that’s great. I included them for the person for whom the contents of my book would really fuck up their day. They’re a harmless inclusion if nobody needs them and harm reducing if someone does. That’s good enough for me.

[fox-bright]

Writers, don't do this to yourself.

I am nearing the very end of a truly staggering number of short story submissions. AI submissions have come, at last, to the magazine for which I am a first reader; we had an increase of more than a thousand submissions this round.

I am tired. I've been doing this for a solid month longer than the outside of the usual time. I've worked my way through hundreds of stories, many of them absolutely appalling. Published authors who think that since they Came Up With the Idea, it's okay to use AI and then just tweak the story in edits (not only is this not okay, it's also generally painfully obvious; writing and editing are two different skillsets and these things are edited BADLY), unpublished authors who think that just letting the computer do it for them is fine...and then the usual raft of a couple of thousand sincere, honest attempts at the gate.

Some of the genuine stories have been good! One or two have been excellent. Some have been good-but-wrong-for-us (why are you sending us historical fiction with no element whatsoever of the fantastical? Why are you sending us Fifties-style westerns? Why are you sending us very non-magical romance? Why are you sending us straight-up porn without plot?). Many have been not good enough, as is usual for any submissions queue.

We're all tired, every one of us submissions editors. We're so beyond ready to be finished with this.

I have eight stories left to read in my own personal queue. And then I can be done and take a rest for a little while.

And it is into THAT frame of mind that comes the first page of the next story on my list.

Top left corner, contact information. Good.

Center of page, title and writer name. Good.

Top right corner, word count: 11,000 words.

And I look at it for just a moment.

I am fucking exhausted. It is my job to approach stories with the very clearest mind I can, as unaltered by outside circumstances as possible, but you want to bet your fucking ass I am not going to do anything but instantly bounce a story that is a thousand words over our top limit.

It feels weird to have to say something so obvious in 2024, but, authors?

Stick to the word limit and other submission criteria for whatever market you're submitting to.

If you're going to push your luck, at least do that at the beginning of a submission period, not the end; the queue fills up chronologically, meaning that if you submit at the end of a two week period it goes to the end of the list. Meaning I, or another submissions editor, will see it when we're the most tired we could possibly be.

Treat yourselves better, please.

[punchedbymarkesmith]

I woke up to a short story acceptance from a lit mag, and like... I cannot tell you how much this particular one means to me. This story is one of the best things I've ever written, but it's also transgressive in its themes, a story I knew was going to be hard to place, a story I worried would never find a home.

If you're thinking "huh, this bitch hasn't posted about the lit mag racket in a while" (which you're probably not thinking because about two people read these posts lol), YES, you're right. It's been just over a year since I published something new. I've been really slow and deliberate about my submissions, aiming higher in terms of where I'm submitting and writing weirder, more taboo work which is a combination that makes the already slow pace of the pub world, uh, even slower. I've been sending out this story for about a year and a half, and I was starting to have a crisis about it because... It felt like if I couldn't find a place for this particular story, I would have to completely rethink this path of continuing to write more fucked up, challenging work except... I don't know how to do that. Because I write what drives me, and this is it.

Maybe that sounds dramatic, but it's just such an odd time right now for dark, weird fiction in general and the sliver of space in the lit fic world for the people who write those kinds of pieces has always been small. Realizing that you've made a turning point in what type of writer you are, what kind of stories you create, and then wondering if there's even a corner of the pub world where you can do that? Kind of shakes your foundation pretty hard.

Anyway... I'm sure I'll be having another crisis about this in another year lol, but for now... very happy to have a story I believed in find a home with a really great lit mag that loves it as much as I do.

[georgiamoorewriter]

Why are endings so hard to write? My tip for writing an epilogue.

🙅‍♀️ 𝗗𝗼𝗻'𝘁 𝘄𝗿𝗶𝘁𝗲 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗲𝗽𝗶𝗹𝗼𝗴𝘂𝗲 𝗼𝗻 𝘆𝗼𝘂𝗿 𝗳𝗶𝗿𝘀𝘁 𝗱𝗿𝗮𝗳𝘁. I know, right! Sounds weird. (Is this controversial? Do you already do this? Let me know 👇🏻) 𝗛𝗘𝗔𝗥 𝗠𝗘 𝗢𝗨𝗧: Have you ever heard a writer say 'you can never really know how a book should start until you've written the end'? In a similar way, I think 𝘀𝗼𝗺𝗲𝘁𝗶𝗺𝗲𝘀 𝘆𝗼𝘂 𝗱𝗼𝗻'𝘁 𝗸𝗻𝗼𝘄 𝘄𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗽𝗲𝗿𝗳𝗲𝗰𝘁, 𝗺𝗼𝘀𝘁 𝘀𝗮𝘁𝗶𝘀𝗳𝘆𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗲𝗽𝗶𝗹𝗼𝗴𝘂𝗲 𝗶𝘀 𝗴𝗼𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝘁𝗼 𝗯𝗲 𝘂𝗻𝘁𝗶𝗹 𝘆𝗼𝘂𝗿 𝘀𝘁𝗼𝗿𝘆 𝗶𝘀 𝗰𝗹𝗼𝘀𝗲 𝘁𝗼 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗳𝗶𝗻𝗶𝘀𝗵𝗲𝗱 𝗽𝗿𝗼𝗱𝘂𝗰𝘁 - in other words, it's been through some editing. What if it uses a plot point that doesn't end up in your finished book? Or you call back to a scene that got taken out? (Maybe this is a pantser problem...) That's why I don't write epilogues as part of a first draft anymore.