I received four rejections in a 24 hour period today. Ow. I am also battling the stomach flu and am a total crybaby when not feeling well. Ouch again.
I also know Rattle is open to speculative poetry for its special section this time out and a house dropping on me is probably the only thing going to stop me from submitting. I have been waiting for this. It is time!
I have, on my submission list, places that are either open in the summer or are still open this month to submissions. It is not the easiest task, considering the vast majority of places are closed to summer reading but I did it. I try to hit places out of the way or places not backed by a university where closing its doors in summer seems the best thing to do.
Sometimes, submitting and writing anew make the sting not so bad. It is working for me, this time.
I have 18 rejections to go before my 40 goal is complete.
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I also have something boneheaded to admit: I submitted work to a place that wasn't open for submissions. It has happened before but usually, I didn't know they were closed because they didn't say. This did but my notes weren't put into my computer yet so I didn't follow my grid. I thought it was they were excepting UNTIL May first, not after. Oops. I thought about withdrawing my poems but most places automatically delete them anyway so I don't know if I should.
Have you ever done something like that?
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It seems a fair amount of you are starting revisions now. How is it going? Hopefully, accurately and with as little pain as possible. I now have to go and make the decisions of which poems to shelf indefinitely. Not the most fun part of the writing process...
I submitted once to a place that wasn't accepting at the time. Got quite a rude response back. I dropped my subscription.
ReplyDeleteThey don't have to be rude about things. I just hate it when that happens.
DeleteYes I've submitted to a place not taking submissions. I hope that the dam breaks soon and you catch a break. All those rejections can take a toll. Be sure to go for a walk if you can and get some sunshine to clear your head.
ReplyDeleteThanks, I received two more yesterday and one today so far. I guess editors don't take weekeneds off much anymore.
DeleteIt is a bummer that places are closed for submission during the summer. I should probably go through and make sure I hit those up that might close soon...
ReplyDeleteOh, do! There are a fair amount of places that still accept poetry in the summer, though. People often overlook them because they aren't "high tier". I just tend to submit to where I think my work fits best...
DeleteI'm sure it's no big deal if they're closed. They'll simply disregard it. Sorry about the slew of rejections and sickness in one day. Some days are like that for me too--seems the world is against me. That's when I do something like spending the day outside to get a bigger perspective.
ReplyDeleteKeep submitting! It'll pay off again. :)
I hope they just ignore it. I don't want to look like a flake.
DeleteI accidently sent a query that listed my ms as YA to a pub that I knew didn't take YA on accident once. (I was using an early draft of the query and had changed the ms from YA in the editing process) I meant to take the YA thing out of the query and forgot before I hit send. Ooops! Didn't go so well. lol.
ReplyDeleteI bet it didn't. LOL
DeleteIs Nightfire a stand-alone novel or is there a sequel in the works?