I rarely blog about rejections I receive for my fiction.  Telling a bunch of writers you received a rejection isn't exactly news.  But every once in a while I receive one worth mentioning.  Yesterday I received a nice rejection from Edmund Schubert at Orson Scott Card's Intergalactic Medicine Show.  Here's the money quote:

I'm going to pass on it, but I have to say your writing is very smooth these days. In fact, up to page 14 I thought there was a good chance I might be buying this one. But then the piece veered off and though the writing was still smooth, the story itself wasn't working for me.
 
I'm pretty much past the point where I get excited over personal rejections.  I've gotten the "almost" rejection, the "try us again" rejection, the Gordon Van Gelder "alas (plus feedback)" rejection, and even the "requested rewrite but still got rejected" rejection.  Been there and done that.  And while I know how busy editors are and always appreciate any feedback they care to give, the "moral victory" of a personal rejection doesn't get me too excited either.

This one mattered though.  Why?  Because he called my writing "very smooth."  Style has been one of my biggest bugaboos.  Before I took the Odyssey Workshop back in 2000, I was a complete rookie.  My style was weak, plain(-jane), uninspired, sloppy, etc.  After Odyssey I went in the opposite direction.  I ended up trying too hard, and went through a very frustrating phase during which my writing became over-stylized, i.e. the dreaded purple prose.  I attended Orson Scott Card's workshop a year later and he called me out on this.  And that began the long journey toward achieve clear effective writing.  

OSC is a big proponent of clear writing, and one of the biggest reasons he dubbed Edmund to be the editor over at IGMS is that he was he confident Edmund would select strong stories that reflected his own tastes.  So to have Edmund call my writing smooth means a lot.  I have by no means conquered style, and am not even close to satsfied with where my style is, but it's good to know I'm noticeably improving.  It's been a battle to get to this point, and the fact that I appreciate lush prose (ala George Martin, Robert. E. Howard, Clark Ashton Smith, and Dan Simmons to name a few) and unusual imagery (see the names I just mentioned) probably made it all the harder to get here.  Both of these things can easily contribute to overwriting, I think. There has been a lot of stuggle involved to achieve a sort of balance.

So while it's not an acceptance, it's an important step in my writing career.  Now if I could just get some editor to tell me my plotting is flawless ...             

Poll #1178009
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 34

If you live outside the U.S., how do snail-mail vs. email submisions impact your personal submission habits?

  Thanks for the all recent interest guys. I'm posting another poll, this one just for international authors.  Please keep it civil  

Some stuff to keep in mind:

--I've published in Interzone, a highly respected magazine in the UK.  I originally sent the submisison via snail-mail, then later email (long convoluted story why).  It's not the same as living in Australia or the UK, but it's something.  One reason I get along so well with most authors is because I know how you guys think.  I am you guys, but I'm also working at ROF.  And the writer in me understands that blogging about this will help me the editor in me understand the international auhthors' stance here a bit better.

--Please remember I don't have to blog about this at all.  But I'm interested in hearing your views.  Not just because some guy from Australia was annoyed.  No one person would make me spend this much time on the issue.  But after working three years at the magazine, you notice stuff.  I'm sure this conversation would've happened sooner or later.

--To people this hans't occurred to, please remember it isn't just about what the writers want.  That's so easy to forget, because there are a lot more writers than their are editors and publishers, but editors & publishers are just as crucial to the success of a magazine.  If a certain method works best for them, that is crucial to the process, even if it seems unfair or antiquated.  Publishing isn't a democracy  That may seem like a harsh thing to say, but it's also the truth.  Places that have gone the email route have done so because the publishers and editors decided it was in their best interests.  It may have made writers happy, but it wasn't why they did it.  Magazines sticking to postal subs are also doing what they consider best too.  They have that right.  Just because email is faster and more cost effective for writers, it doesn't mean it's the best route for every single magazine in regards to our submission policies.  We're not all the same=different process=different policies.  I know a lot of you understand that, but clearly some people don't.  Or won't.           

--Remember that editors have to read all the time.  How an editor likes to read matters a whole lot.  A WHOLE LOT.

Just some stuff to think about.       

Poll #1176874
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 84

How do snail-mail vs. email submissions policies at the magazines impact your personal submission habits?

Anyone following my blog lately knows I got into a bit of a brouhaha with a miffed author.  The cause of the author's ire?  He's from Australia and was none too pleased that Realms of Fantasy doesn't take email submissions.  I do understand his point (if not the method in which he expressed himself), but as I've pointed out on this blog already, I don't make the rules, nor do I have the power to change them.  Holding me accountable gets you nowhere.  Still, I am interested in giving people a fair chance to express themselves on this issue.  Don't expect anything to change, but so long as everyone plays nice in the sandbox, please feel free to take part in the poll and have your say under comments.

And once again for the record ...

While I didn't make the rule, I do happen to prefer reading off the page.  Not only do I find it easier on the eyes over a long stretch of time, but the tactile pleasure of turning the page to learn happens next tends to make it a more engaging reading experience for me.  It doesn't mean I can't enjoy reading off the screen, but it's probably a good thing for most writers I'm considering your manuscripts in the manner I'm most comfortable with, don't you think?

Edit: Why is LJ putting my post beneath the poll?  That's never happened before.       

My recent posts have revolved around my back and forth with a particular author and some of the fallout that resulted on a forum thread.  I've been checking that thread from time to time, and actually thought I was checking it more than I should.  Now I'm glad I overindulged myself, because I want to correct an erroneous stat that was posted.  In one of my recent posts, I provided old links to slush stats I provided for my one and two-year anniversaries at ROF, sort of a submission round-up.  

Someone did some extrapolations based on those numbers, and while most of them looked right to me, one of them made me crinkle my brow enough that I went back and checked my personal records.  I'm uncertain how the guy crunched his numbers (or if maybe he meant something else by his post, or misunderstood one of my figures, which would mess with his figures), but they stated that only slightly over 17% of all automatic passes to ROF got rejected.  I'm assuming this figure is based on totals extrapolated from both years, but again, I don't know what formula made him reach this figure.

Regardless, the % is quite off.  I'd like to address this ASAP, as our community is small and information travels fast.  Based on my records, which have logged every automatic pass since I've been with ROF, if I factor in every story I know Shawna has come to a decision on, 80 out of 365 automatic passes have been or are slated to be published.  That means 285 out of 365 failed to be accepted for publication.  Break it down and that's 57 out of every 73 automatic passes that has been rejected.  Granted, my personal records are more up to date and are accounting for almost another whole year of submissions to the magazine, but that's a signifcant difference in the percentages.  If I toss out the most recent year, the % would fluctuate a few points at most, I think.  If we rejected just 17% of our automatic passes, we'd be so overstocked with stories we'd have to close to submissions for ...for ...well, I'm not going to do that math. :)

And before people do further extrapolations and post more figures, we've received more submissions than 365 these past three years that have been automatically passed along to Shawna (or will be, since my official anniversary isn't until May 10th).  These are just the ones she's reached her decision about and has informed me. 

 I want to blog a bit about slush.  Big surprise, right?  Seems there's always something to say on the matter.  Like today, for instance.  While perusing a forum, I came across a statement that ...well ...made me want to blog.  The poster didn't single out any markets, but in reference to the short story markets, he claimed that for markets demanding you go the IRC route from abroad, the truth of the matter is that a good many of these markets receive 99% of their material from writers they already know or who are commissioned or on spec.

Naturally this got my slush hackles up (picture sheets of fantasy manuscripts, rippling along my spine in the breeze).  I've posted slush statistics before (and here) If you crunch the numbers, maybe the top 1% or so of all the slush gets accepted for publication.  But the accepted material overall?  I'm afraid the % is much higher.  IMNSHO, this is a major distinction.  Also, define writers these markets "already know."  I knew 4 of my slush survivors (though only 1 in person) before they were accepted by us (and for every slush survivor I've known, I've rejected at least 50 times that number I've also known, so no cries of favortism please).  And just because a writer has published a novel with a major house like Tor, Bantam Spectra, etc., it does not mean we've heard of you.  There are a lot of novels published every year.  We can't keep track of everyone.  That's why cover letters are sometimes helpful.  So if we take a story from these people, where do they fit in regards to that 99%?

Now granted, this is all in regards to Realms of Fantasy.  But do you imagine it's like this with just this magazine?  And as to "commissioned and on spec," these are far from uniform practices among magazines when it comes to fiction.  Many mags rarely go these routes, especially after they've established themselves.  Magazine editors like finding slush survivors.  We like choosing stories according to our tastes.  On spec or commission has its place, and more than that depending on your business model.  But grouping a bunch of (unnamed) mags as part of that aforementioned 99%?  Come on.  Off the top of my head I can think of just a few established genre mags that are strictly or mostly commissioned or on spec with their fiction on anything resembling a regular basis. 

Sometimes I wonder where people get their information. 

I don't know if the subject line of this post is the best term for what I'm blogging about.  If anyone has a better term, please inform me.  Anywho ...

If any other editors (or heck, anyone for that matter) would like to comment on this, I'd love to hear your thoughts.  After almost three years at Realms of Fantasy, I've noticed something in the piles that (for the moment) I'm terming as brand writing.  By brand writing, I'm referring to work I recognize as being of a certain sort.  Before I go any further let me state that by no means is this a hard and fast rule.  That said, it crops up a lot.
 
The "it" in question deals with the writers' authorial backgrounds.  Some stories are written in such a way that I can tell they've been workshopped (and sometimes I can recognize what workshop).  Others are written in a way that makes it abundantly obvious this author's natural playground isn't fantasy, but writing novels in the [blank]* genre.  There is also one magazine I can think where a lot of its regular contributors all seem to write in a very similar manner.  All these areas share the common theme of having a certain feel, or brand to them.  I know certain individual authors can be instantly recognized by the way they write, but what I'm talking about here is somewhat different. 

Have any other editorial types out there encountered this?

*I am being intentionally vague because I imagine these sorts of topics can be sore spots with some people.  I mean no offense, but here in the blogosphere people get into twists over all sorts of stuff.  So better to keep things vague ...

 

If you keep a blog and you also write fiction, this is worth reading.  I think Hobb makes some fair points, and I applaud her for having the guts to post her feelings on the topic.  I think what she writes applies to some bloggers, but certainly not all of us.  This post will be a bit lengthy (which would certainly support her points), but I want to raise some points of my own:

1) If you like to blog, blog.  There's nothing wrong with using this as a constructive outlet, so long as you don't let it rule you, as some people clearly do.

2) If you post infrequently, you don't have much to worry about.

3) If you keep your posts short, you don't have much to worry about.  As a general rule, most of my posts are short.  The big exception is when I post another edition of my ROF Retrospectives.  Those take time.  That said, I like doing them and I'm not about to stop (I've come too far!)  But if I'm going to be fair about this and take Hobb's essay to heart, then I realize I should post these retrospectives when I have extra time, i.e. after I've already completed my fiction writing for the day.  So that is the way it shall be from now on.

4) Just because someone friends you, remember you don't have to friend them back.  I have 261 friends on my LJ account.  If I friended everyone back and read all their posts, I wouldn't get anything done.  Don't feel guilty over not friending people back.  Do what's best for you.

5) You don't have to read every post that your friends put up.  Seriously.  I skim or skip so much of what I come across.  I read what interests me.  Basically, I take an editorial approach here.  If you don't keep my interest, I move on to the next piece of slush (er, blog).  

6) Don't blog just for the sake of blogging.  These are times you can be writing instead.

7) Ask yourself what the point is of keeping your blog.  Personally, I like to use my blog to meet other people in the industry, and to get my name out there, i.e. use it as a marketing tool.  So I tend to keep these things in mind when I blog.  You'll note that about 95% of what I blog about has to do with writing or editing/Realms of Fantasy, or  news related to these things.  The other 5% usually falls into the realm of books I've recently read, movies I've recently seen, or the occasional blog post about blogging (like the post in question).  I make it a rule to never veer from these topics.  It lets my readers know what to expect when they visit my blog, and keeps me from wasting time blogging about the unnecessaries.

8) If most of your blog posts go on this long (and besides the ROF Retrospectives mine rarely do) and you're not making $$$ from blogging, then Robin Hobb's rant probably applies to you.

9) Discounting the ROF Restrospectives, I rarely spend more than a half hour each day in the blogosphere.  This includes time spent posting, as well as time spent reading and responding to other people's blogs.

10) Keep this stuff in mind and it should help keep your blogging habits under control. :)    

 your brain is soggy with sleep (yes, I meant to write "soggy"--I like it!) and you feel like the best you can possibly manage is to play couch potato and watch some mindless tv before calling it a night.  But instead you turn on the computer and start pounding those keys.  And you want at least 1,000 words, you really do, but you're so tired and when you check the word count you see you're at 865.  And you think to yourself, "Well, that's close enough, right?"  And you agree with yourself, but before you know it you're typing again, and you don't stop until you get that 1,000.  And you wake up the next morning, remember that stubborn determination you showed, which kept alive the recent momentum you've been building with your writing following one of the most turbulent periods of your life, which left you very little writing time, and damn it, you feel proud.

And then you feel like a lightbulb has gone off in your brain, because the word "discipline" is taking on a whole new meaning ...

 Scott William Carter has started a blog that interviews first-time novelists.  Go check it out.

Every so often I'll request a rewrite/revision for something I come across in the slush.  On rare occasions, I'll find something in the slush and decide it's good enough to pass along as is, but will offer the author a suggestion(s) to use or discard as he sees fit.  I can think of one occasion where an author and I really had to do some literary haggling before the rewrite got done, but in most cases I find that authors have been very receptive to my suggestions, rarely if ever raising objections.  When they do disagree over something, usually it's over a point so minor that I don't make an issue of it.  In all of these scenarios, which have included my working with authors on humor, battles, clarity of events and/or prose, internal logic, plotting, continuity, world-building, characterizations, climaxes, endings, and even the occasional new title, I have never had to give what I would characterize a delicate critique.

But in this latest batch of stories I'm slushing through, I found myself in this exact situation.  I came across a story that I knew I was going to pass along, but there was one spot I still wanted to offer a suggestion.  The thing is, the spot in question was (cue drums) a sex scene.  I once worked with an author on the events leading up to a sex scene (an incestuous one, too!), but I'd never offered my thoughts on an actual sex scene, so this was new territory (spare me the puns, please).  And it wasn't a bad sex scene.  In fact, it was quite good.  But I saw the potential to add an additional layer of depth to the story, and really wanted to offer the suggestion, even if the author discarded it.

But when I sat down to write the author, I realized what an odd situation this was.  We've never met or had any contact previously, and now out of the blue I wanted to contact her and offer my thoughts on her sex scene.  Sheesh.  If I was an editor of erotica or romance I'd doubt I'd have even batted an eye--sex scenes come with the territory, and I think most authors would take such critiques in stride.  But in the Realms of Fantasy slush, I don't come across many sex scenes (or maybe I dish out all my rejections before I get to the steamy parts), so the situation stuck out to me like a soar thumb.  If this was for a critique group I don't think this would strike me as a big deal, but this was editor to author for a professional magazine, first contact (no puns!), and the only part of the story I wanted to offer a suggestion for was the sex scene.  To be honest, I don't think I would've concerned myself over this if the story came from a guy.  But with a woman ...well, the bottom line is I didn't want to come off a pervert.

So I could've left well enough alone.  As I said, this story was already good enough to pass along, and it already had a legitimate shot at publication with us (IMO).  But if I left well enough alone, I wouldn't be doing my job.  And that didn't sit right with me.  So I contacted the author (whose identity shall be protected), made my suggestion, and yes, I did point that I've never been in this situation before and was treading carefully ...

And her reply:

That is a very interesting idea.  I hadn't thought of it and it would definitely add depth to the scene and highlight the nature of what's going on between them.  I'll play around with it in the next couple days to see if I can make it work.


Even if she decides not to use my suggestion (fingers crossed that she does), I'm glad I offered it.  And I'm glad that she received my critique in the spirit in which it was intended, i.e. with an eye toward enriching an already powerful story.  Until I was faced with this situation, it was never something I imagined myself dealing with, probably because of the dearth of sex scenes in the slush.  But I'm happy to say I've successfully navigated this hurdle in what is still a young editorial career.

I wonder what other surprises I have in a store ...

So I just posted about how  I received my first negative review concerning my fiction writing.   I noted how I've learned it actually bothers me  more when I read a negative review regarding  a story I fished out from the slush that sees publication in Realms of Fantasy (reasons why enclosed in that post).  Aqeldroma chimed in to say she felt the same way as I do, and then wondered whether other editors/writers are like us.  So I'm polling all you editors/writers about what raises your literary hackles more.  Have at it!Poll #1061763
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 11

If you are both an editor and a published writer, are you more bothered when you read a negative review regarding your editorial vision (i.e. your authors' works) or your own authorial work?

My introduction to fantasy came in the form of Conan comics, followed by Conan pastiche novels.  Then I discovered the original Conan stories by Robert E. Howard, so I consider this my true introduction to fantasy.  Howard only wrote one Conan novel in his life, called "Hour of the Dragon" (some may know it as Conan the Conqueror), and everything else was a shorter work.   Even "Hour of the Dragon" was serialized (back in the golden age  of  Weird Tales).  So in this respect, my true introduction to fantasy came in the shorter form.

But while I remained a fan of Robert E. Howard and would continue seeking out his other short fiction (still do) from here I quickly made the jump to reading fantasy novels (and eventually science fiction novel).  So in those all-important adolescent years, when we suck this stuff down like crack and our imagination knows no bounds, the speculative story structures I was feeding into my brain were primarily those of novels.

So it's no surprise that when I realized I wanted to write this stuff I was basically thinking in terms of novels.  Then in 2000 I attended the Odyssey Fantasy & Science Fiction Writing Workshop, and learned a lot about both writing and editing speculative fiction, particularly in the shorter forms.  My experiences here gave me the skills necessary to eventually work at Realms of Fantasy.  And after Odyssey, years before I started working at RoF, I tried my hand at writing short fiction for a while.

I wasn't terribly successful.  I received some personal rejections, some "try us again" letters, but didn't make sales.  Even my sale with Interzone is set in a world that I want to write novels in down the road, and at 14,400 words, it's not exactly short.   The bottom line is that things weren't  "clicking" when I tried to write shorter stories.  I'm comfortable with writing novels.  On an instinctual level I understand them.  It comes from devouring so many when I was younger.  I'm not saying I can write a perfect novel at the drop of a hat, but I can say the longer form is the one I'm naturally comfortable with.  Some people say they can't come up with ideas for a novel.  That has never been a problem for me.  Coming up with quality ideas for shorter fiction (or executing those ideas) was.

Then came Realms of Fantasy.  A whim made me go after this gig of assistant editor, and the coolest editor in the world (aka Shawna McCarthy) gave me a shot.  While I was pretty lousy at writing shorter fiction, it turned out I was pretty good working with it as an editor.   But along the way something strange happened.  I knew that working with all this slush would help me as a writer.  And I'm right.  It has.

But over the past two months or so, something has clicked.  I've been working at Realms for 2+ years, meaning I've read a lot of stories.  I've also taken a greater interest in the other short spec markets.  And now I'm reading all these back issues to Realms, meaning in addition to everything else I'm getting a steady diet of top-flight short fantasy.

And I'm starting to understand to the shorter form on an instinctual level.  I like to think this means it's beginning to become coded into my writerly DNA. :)  Regardless, it means the ideas I'm coming up with in this form are better, and I'm starting to get a better idea about how to execute (i.e. write) this stuff. 

Meanwhile I've been working on this Arthur novel for a while, and I'm pleased with how it's coming.  Then a couple of weeks ago  I had this short story idea ("Songs of Dreaming Stars")  explode into my head.  It wouldn't leave me alone, so I actually put aside the novel to work on it.  Despite that it was YA and a  fairy tale (neither of which are my normal playgrounds), and despite the fact that it was written from the pov of a girl of 13, it came naturally to me.  Shorter stuff never comes naturally to me.  No matter how much work this first draft ends up needing, even it doesn't sell, this is an important development for me as a writer.  An encouraging one too.

So I finished the first draft on Saturday, went over it with a critical eye on Sunday, and after trimming 500 words, I posted it on a forum I belong to for shredding critiquing.  Monday came around, and I went back to writing the novel.  Only wrote about two-and-a-half pages, but I took care of a lot of other speculative stuff demanding my attention for some time, so I was relatively pleased, and it felt good to get back to the novel.

End of story?  Not exactly.

Today I came up with another idea for a shorter work ("Heart of Flesh, Heart of Glass").  It's another one I'm really excited about, one I feel I understand on an instinctual level.  I want to let this one drift around in my mind for a couple of days, but after that I'm reasonably sure that if I sit down to write this it will also come pretty naturally.  Because I'm starting to understand how to write shorter fiction.  Long way to go, but I'm starting.  Finally.

This is great, but I don't want to let my novel suffer.  I have almost 270 pages, and if I leave it alone too long it will stagnate.  That's unacceptable.   But  if I'm finally starting to click with shorter work, it would really behoove me to write a few (or a lot of) pieces, especially when my premiere story is about to be published.  I'd like to keep my name out there, not just as an editor but a writer.

So the only answer is to work on both the novel and short stories at once.  Easier said than done, but it can be done.  I'm not the fastest writer in the world, but I believe there's room for improvement.  Now there needs to be.  So to you prolific types out there (pro and otherwise), please, chime in.  I know there's no secret formula, but if there's anything I need to keep in mind if I want to be prolific, what do you think it is?  I've been a steady worker with my writing, this year more than ever, but I need to up my output.

Share a cookie or two. :)

So a little while back I received an email from Patrice Sarath, a regular contributor to Realms of Fantasy.  She told me that she and Jayme Blaschke would be running the annual writer's workshop at this year's Armidillocon, and she wanted to know if I'd contribute an essay concerning the dos and don'ts of getting out of the slush pile.  I told her sure, but when I sat down to write it I found myself wondering what in the world I could say that I haven't said already.  After a while you get tired of repeating yourself.

Then I came up with a cool idea.  I wanted to provide openings to the stories belonging to my slush survivors that have been published (or will be) in Realms of Fantasy.  Rather than talking about the same old stuff, I could do an analysis of sorts for each of these openings, explain what I liked about them.  So I contacted all 14 of my slush survivors (I actually have 15 now, I just haven't posted about this dude yet), and all 14 of these writers were generous enough to grant me permission to use their openings.

So I thought some of you may find it interesting if I posted this essay on my blog.  The first few pages of the essay consist of me going into a lot of standard stuff about the submissions process and such.  Skip or read it as you please (note: contains lots of observational humor you may appreciate).  Then I get into the analysis of the openings.  That part a lot more of you may find interesting.

Thanks to all my slush survivors.  You are all brilliant and generous.  And without further adieu ado...

 

 

So this struck me as kind of interesting today.  I'm used to watching certain slush writers grow, seeing their grasp of writing & storytelling improve with their submissions.  Not all of them mind you, but some.  Some.  I'll see them graduate from standard rejections to encouraging rejections, or encouraging rejections from yours truly to being passed up to Shawna, sometimes reaching publication.

But after two years of doing this, of seeing stories by some of our automatic passes intent on carving out careers for themselves, it struck me today how much some of these writers have grown.  I think about some of their work from two years back vs. now and there's no comparison.  These writers are also improving.

It's no big secret, I guess, but I suppose with our automatic passes I never paid as much attention regarding their improvement.  They'd already reached the ROF mountaintop, so to speak.  But after two years I can't help but notice how much of some of our contributors have improved at the short story craft.

Kudos to our contributors. 

I've run this by a few people and so far everyone has agreed with me.   Quite simply, when you're writing your novel, remind yourself that it's never as good as or as bad as you think it is.  Writing your novel can prove to be a rather bipolar experience.  One day you think you're brilliant and the next day you may think your writing is fit for nothing but the delete button.  But keeping this rule in mind can help you find a precious middle ground, and in turn help you avoid the worst of these extremes.  Both can be harmful in their own way, even if there are moments when both may end up being true.  This rule helps me more when I think something is terrible, but I think it's always something worth keeping in mind for as big an undertaking as a novel (especially the epic ones!)

And if you're not experiencing these extremes ...what's your secret?

So I'm going to put out an idea concerning writing fiction, and I wouldn't be surprised if others have suggested this before.  Writing is like Darwinism, i.e. survival of the fittest.  Not a hard and fast rule, but I think there are a lot of parallels.  For example:

--Writing: How many of those in the Writing Kingdom aspire to write "one day," but never get around to it?   Already we've sliced off a major section of competition, and in the Writing Kingdom these may be the weakest creatures of all.  They're not even writing, but talking about writing.  In terms of the animal kingdom these folks are moaning about hunger instead of hunting.

--Submitting: How many of those in the Writing Kingdom write but won't send their works out for publication?  It's one thing to hold off on sending something out because it needs more polish or another draft, and it's something else entirely to write piece after piece and never send any of them out for consideration.  If you're comfortable with writing just for yourself, great.  But otherwise you're the animal hunting mice in your cave while the entire spoils of the Galapagos Islands are beckoning beyond your proverbial door (are there mice on the Galapagos Islands?  Shrug.  I'd guess no.  But you see my point)

--Formatting: Let's use cavemen to illustrate some points, because cavemen are funny.  "Man next door has fire.  Me no need fire.  Me know what me doing."  Translation: "I don't need to read the submission guidelines.  I know what I'm doing."  These are the writers who fail to put their stories in the proper fonts, fail to enclose their SAE, or stamps, or IRCs, send fantasy stories to science fiction markets, send poetry to markets that publish strictly fiction, etc.  If there are better methods of hunting/gathering you can easily learn, use them.

--Thin Skin: "Me didn't catch anything today.  Hunting too hard.  Me would rather starve."  Too many writers new to the game expect to be published right from the beginning.  It happens to a few, sure (lucky bastards).  But most of us must claw and scrap for every inch of progress.  Instead of the Galapagos Islands it's more like hunting in the desert, I think.  A lot of people may give up and choose dehydration after one or a few rejections.  Whether they're the smart ones is another conversation. :)

--Frustration: "No matter how many times me throw this spear me have bad aim.  Me never catch anything.  Me give up."  Practice, practice, practice.

--The Slaying of Goliath: "Me killed a boar!  Me killed a  boar!  Me never hunting again.  From now on  me fishing."  For some people getting published once and slaying your Goliath is enough.  Congrats on your publication, but all this proves is that you can successfully hunt.  But you must keep hunting to survive in the vicious and unforgiving Writing Kingdom. 

--Overwhelmed: "How me ever catch anything?  All them other good hunters catching all them animals.  Leave nothing for me."  Stop worrying about available slots in magazines and competing with other writers.  Your only competition is you.  If you write a good enough story that suits the editor's needs for his or her magazine, you'll get your sale. 

--Laziness: "Me no feel like hunting today."  Hmm.  What could I ever mean by this one?

 So.  Are these exact parallels to animal kingdom?  Certainly not!  But the Writing Kingdom does have its own set of rules for successful survival.  By successful, I mean publication since that is what most writers aspire to (and should).   If I kept thinking about it I'm sure I could come up with other examples.  But I think I've made my point.  The fittest writers will "survive."  Of course, if others reading this entry want to throw out additional examples, please have at it!     

Why is it we can write something we're absolutely convinced is utter drivel, yet the next time we look at our failure we think, "Hey, this is pretty good!"

Does this strike anyone else as strange?  I know I'm not the only one to have experienced this.

When you sell that first story, waiting for it to be published can be hard.  I know this, because I've been waiting for Interzone Magazine to publish my first story, which they accepted back in early 2006.  However, I'm NOT complaining.  Far from it.  First of all, the assistant editor, Jetse de Vries (a former guest for editorial musings, I'll add) worked very hard with me on two rounds of rewrites, challenging me and pushing me to make my story far better than what I originally submitted.  His skills are to be admired, and my gratitude to him is boundless for his time, energy, and belief in me.

My gratitude runs just as deep toward Andy Cox, the publisher/editor of Interzone.   He listens to the advice and opinions of his editorial crew, but ultimately he makes the call on what stories to put into his magazine.  And he made that call on my yarn, deciding "this is good enough for Interzone."  For an author, having an editor come to this decision for the first time is very validating.  The fact that this comes with a quality  venue such as Interzone just makes this a super-happy bonus.

But even so ...with each new issue, I can't help but hope "maybe this time."  Perfectly understandable, I think.  And each time it doesn't happen, I would simply go back to my writing and editing.  This really is the best medicine for any sort of lurking impatience, finding satisfaction in the moment as opposed to worrying about the future.

But there was always that tinny tiny voice in the back of my head, saying, "But still ..."

Well it turns out that voice knows absolute jack.  It's a fool, a moron, a cretin.  I couldn't be happier that I've been waiting.  Really.  Why?  Well, late last week, for no good reason at all, I was thinking about this story ("Feelings of the Flesh"), about one scene in particular.  I hadn't thought about the story in a while, and it had been many good long months since I actually bothered to look it over.

And yet, somehow, all these months later, during an idle moment of reflection,  I caught a plot hole!  Awful.  Horrifying.  Terrible.  And quite frankly unacceptable.  It was actually a big plot hole IMO.  But it was rather easy to fix.  It involved substituting one word for another.   That's it.  And yet, had I left this word unchanged, it most definitely would've undermined a big part of my ending.   So I now have an entirely new respect for  Mark Twain's phrase: The difference between the right word and the almost right word is the difference between lightning and the lightning bug.

Honestly,  though, I'm just amazed I caught the problem.  I mean, it was one word that I hadn't looked at in months.  Months!  The problem must have been deeply rooted in my subconscious, slowly working its way to the surface.  And if not for this wait I never would've caught this problem.  So sometimes waiting really is a good thing. 

Thankfully, Jetse was nice enough to forward the tweaked version along to Andy, so no harm done.  But ladies and gentlemen of the jury, I present to you a case where the author really and truly is happy to have waited.  Thank you, Interzone.  You guys rock!

Oh.  And to any that are curious, the word in question that would've wreaked such havoc with my tale is none other than "testicle-shriveling."

Go figure. :)  

Did you know that of the 13 slush survivors I've plucked that have been accepted for publication with Realms of Fantasy, 6 of them sent in stories at an earlier time that I or Shawna rejected?  It might actually be 7, because I'm uncertain about one of them.  Hey Stillostrange, did I ever reject you? :)  Either way, I'm hovering right around 50%.   And some of these guys and gals had stories rejected by RoF before I ever came along.

The point is, for all you fledgling writers out there, you have to keep submitting.  There is a good chance that if you refine your writing skills to a publishable level there will always be that one editor who doesn't get/connect with your stuff, and your stories will be rejected no matter how brilliant they are, and no matter where else you've been published.  But, and this is the most important part, one rejection from a market tells you absolutely nothing.  You have to keep submitting, over and again.  Some of these markets will keep sending you standard rejection letters.  It doesn't mean you should stop submitting to these places, but if you've received a dozen standard rejections in a row, now you can safely assume this will be a tough market to crack.  Meanwhile, if by your second rejection from a good market the editor is telling you "try us again," well, your chances of cracking this market are obviously better.  But you'd never learn this by giving up after one rejection.

There are many authors able to give more examples than I ever could, but I'll share my lone best example.  The first time I submitted to Interzone I received a short but pleasant email rejection from Andy Cox telling me try again.  The next time I submitted to them, Jetse de Vries, one of the assistant editors there, put me through two strenuous (and worthwhile!) rewrites.  Then Andy went on to accept my story, which will mark my first publication.  You can't give up after that first rejection (although speaking as an editor I wish certain regular submitters would).

Anyone else want to share their stories for the newbies reading my blog?  Maybe you had a market that proved very receptive to your writing early on.  Or maybe there was that one market that was/is an SOB to make any progress with, no matter how far along in your career you are.  And what about that one where the persistence did pay off?  Come share so the newbies can take heart!