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Yesterday I withdrew a story from a market because we were starting to near the one year mark, and the couple of queries I’d made all got the usual “It’s in the queue, we’re swamped, just a little longer” reply. I don’t mind waiting a little longer, but I do mind when it gets used to keep you going for months.
So that’s cool, and no hard feelings over them having sat on it a while. I end up withdrawing a story for similar reasons once every couple of years. But here’s the reply I got regarding the withdrawal:
Thanks for the note. Your story is officially withdrawn from our reading queue. One thing you might want to consider in the future is that pro markets take a lot of time. So I’d tailor a story for a certain market and then move on while you wait. That’s what Bradbury and Matheson and all those guys do. Some pro markets such as Cemetery Dance take up to two years. So that’s why I say. But the credit one receives when they break pro is worth everything. I hope this helps you future endeavors. You can send along something else in the future when we reopen for subs in [identifying information redacted]. Just make sure it’s a different story as I don’t accept stories that have previously been withdrawn.
Some pro markets do take up to two years, but it’s darn few of them. Most of the professional magazines are professional; they get stuff back to you fast. Even without e-submissions, Gordon Van Gelder manages to wade through swamps of rejections and still return them in a timely manner. Sure, Tor.com is slow, but given that they pay five times as much as most, I’m willing to give them five times as much time in which to reply. Asimov’s, Analog, Lightspeed, Clarkesworld, Fantasy Magazine, Beneath Ceaseless Skies, and Strange Horizons all pay professional rates and yet manage what is apparently a highly unprofessional rapid reply rate.
We got 550-600 subs a month towards the end of my tenure with Fantasy, and I would have felt terrible making people wait over a month, let alone more. And I’m going to say, this particular rejection is a great argument for form rejections, because the patronizing tone here really put me off, plus this is TERRIBLE advice for a new writer. Write what you want to write, not what you think a magazine wants to see.
I dunno. Maybe the editor is working off a different definition of professional than I use.
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Abyss & Apex has a slew of interesting stories in this issue, including J. Kathleen Cheney’s steampunky Of Ambergris, Blood and Brandy, C. J. Cherryh’s The Last Tower and Vylar Kaftan’s Mind-Diver.
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Overall, 2010’s been a much better year than 2009, although it’s had its less pleasant moments, such as special assessment convulsions in my condo complex, my Grandmother’s death in November, and the usual array of rejections implicit in being a writer and sending stuff out. 🙂
On the bright side, my collection was a 2010 Endeavour Award finalist and I had fourteen stories published in 2010. Here’s the list, with a notable reprint and two podcasts to boot:
A dark story of data herds and contraband foods, edited by a fellow Codex writer.
An R-rated absurdist story telling of Belinda and Bingo’s love.
A reprint from the collection, which also appeared as a podcast on Podcastle. A slim little political fable.
Far flung tragedy of alien species interacting and sparking a doomed romance.
Who is V-man, what does he want, and why does he glow under certain conditions?
Graduate student and artist Maya is abducted by a strange alien light, leaving behind a fishbowl filled with desiccated fish and half-melted glass pebbles.
Contains a favorite line of mine, “Barbies who run with the wolves”.
This was originally written for the Apex magazine contest asking writers to combine urban legends with UFOs – it’s my version of the vanishing hitchhiker.
Flash fiction detailing events in a mythical location that I think of as vaguely French.
A Tabat story that originally appeared in the first Fantasy Magazine sampler and was later reprinted in my collection.
One of my Clarion West stories, the first set at the brothel The Little Teacup of the Soul.
2010 was a year for dark SF, and here’s another example of that.
Horror set in a small Mexican town.
Written during my grad student days at Indiana University.
Perhaps my favorite of the 2010 publications, this is my attempt to talk about some of the problems implicit in the steampunk genre. I -love- the accompanying artwork by Gregory Manchess.
A final dark story of a marriage between telepath and non-telepath to finish out the year.
In 2011, I have stories coming out from ABYSS & APEX (Bots d’Amor), BENEATH CEASELESS SKIES (Love, Resurrected), BULL SPEC (The Coffeemaker’s Passion), GIGANOTOSAURUS (Karaluvian Fale, which Armageddon players should note is set in Allanak), DAILY SCIENCE FICTION (Pippa’s Smiles), LIGHTSPEED (Long Enough And Just So Long), SHADOWS AND LIGHT II (Aquila’s Ring, another story that Armageddon players will be interested in, since it takes place in Allanak and Tuluk). Podcastle will be doing an audio version of my collaboration with Jeff VanderMeer, The Surgeon’s Tale.
I got a Kindle and discovered the joys of e-readers, and even converted my collection, EYES LIKE SKY AND COAL AND MOONLIGHT, into a Kindle version, as well as one for other e-readers.
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"The Wayward Wormhole, a new evolution of writing workshops has arrived. And I’m here for it! Geared more towards intermediate speculative fiction writers, the application process doesn’t ask about demographics like some other workshops and focuses entirely on your writing. The television free Spanish castle made for an idyllic and intimate setting while the whole experience leaned more in the direction of bootcamp slumber party. Our heavy and constant workload was offset by the family style meals together with our marvelous instructors. The Wayward Wormhole is not for the faint of heart but if you’re serious about supercharging your writing, then this is the place to do it."
(science fiction, story) Each day began with that horrible moment when he put a hand out to touch Mindy’s shoulder—hey, honey, I had this awful dream you died, in a boating accident, no less, when was last time we were on a boat. Then the stomach dropping realization, sudden as stepping out into an elevator shaft.
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