Posted in Writing, tagged #365Ways, #365Ways2024, genre fiction, rejections, submissions, Writers, writing on December 10, 2024| 2 Comments »
It’s perhaps a funny thing to celebrate but if you’re a writer this may strike a chord.
My email this morning contained a rejection, and it’s had me smiling all day.
Apex Magazine put out a call for flash fiction about memory, and I happened to have a flash piece on memory.
I submitted.
They responded.
With rejection, yes, but it was a personal rejection with phrases like “this is beautifully written” and “hope to read something from you in the future.”
I’ll take that:)
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Posted in Writing, tagged #365Ways, #365Ways2024, submission manager, submissions, The Grinder, Thoughts, Writers, writing on August 2, 2024| Leave a Comment »
For various reasons, my new writing output has been a little slow, but today I thought to myself, “Self, if you don’t have any new material to submit for publication, you should submit some of your favorite reprints and see if they can find a new audience.”
I thought that was a great idea.
Perhaps you have the Next Great Novel all ready to go (more power to you, friend), but even if you don’t I bet you still have something you can send out.
If you use The Grinder for your submission tracking (and I recommend that site highly), it’s easy to search for reprint markets.
So keep writing and submitting, getting those ho hum rejections and delicious acceptances, as often as you can. It’s all part of the Great Circle of Writing Life™.
Submit early, submit often!
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Posted in Writing, tagged #365Ways, #365Ways2023, Fiction, genre fiction, submissions, Writers, writing on October 6, 2023| Leave a Comment »
Are you a writer with a short story looking for a market? You’re in luck, because the award-winning Uncanny Magazine is open for submissions.
Uncanny Magazine will be open to short story submissions from October 2 to October 16.
Submissions – Uncanny Magazine
Uncanny is looking for original, unpublished speculative fiction stories between 750-10,000 words. Payment is $.10 per word (including audio rights).
They pay better than pro rates and are right up at the top of the short story game. Your name could be in their table of contents.
Good luck!
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Posted in Writing, tagged #365Ways, #365Ways2023, genre fiction, submissions, Thoughts, Writers, writing on July 22, 2023| Leave a Comment »
I have a submission out right now. If you’re a writer, you know the type. Average turnaround time for this venue is 27 days and my story is currently rocking a cool 135 days right now.
One can’t help but hope.
The fun thing, however, is that as long as the submission is still out there, still under consideration, it hasn’t been rejected.
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A fellow writer was wondering how to interpret the rejections he was getting, many of which were personal. Here’s a version of what I wrote in reply:
You should absolutely feel good about personal feedback. That is rare and precious gold there, my friend. It means that what you are submitting is publishable, just not by that particular editor and outlet at that particular time. Maybe the fit isn’t perfect or maybe it is, but your story is about a magical stag with a drinking problem and the editor just bought a story about a magical stag with a drinking problem. Or it’s twice as long as the space they have left in the current issue, and they will remember the day they had to send your rejection with despair every time your name and list of awards comes up in future conversation.
It means that your stories are working, and that’s critical. A broken story isn’t ready for primetime, but a publishable story just needs to find the right home.
When I say “market research,” I mean that I’m working to send my material to someone who could reasonably be expected to publish it. Happy magic unicorn stories are not a great fit for a grimdark horror venue;) I try to narrow down the list of possibilities. Submissions tend to take a long time and most places are not cool with simultaneous subs, meaning that every month a story is out at the wrong place is a month that it’s not being evaluated by someone who might actually buy it. So I try to write the best story I can and then work to find a place likely to give it a home. And the Submission Grinder also lets you sort possible venues by turnaround time.I do try to follow the “write, edit, put it away and then come back to it when you can look at it as if someone else wrote it” advice, if possible. Too much editing can suck the life out of the story.
I may have mentioned that I had a hard time with rejections at the beginning. No longer! One day I realized that I was completely unfazed by my latest rejection. I just opened my submission template and filled in the next possible target.
So, you’re killing it. Keep going!
Because you never know.
Posted in Writing, tagged #365Ways, #365Ways2023, Carol Scheina, creativity, Fiction, genre fiction, inspiration, Nature's Futures, submissions, Writers, writing on March 9, 2023| 1 Comment »
With apologies to turtles. And tortoises. And science.
Today, allow me to refer you to a story from Nature’s Futures, about a put-upon pair of frontline workers and the genetically-modified reptile who captured their hearts.
Clean-up on Planet 9 by Carol Scheina
A giant sea turtle swimming in a building-sized aquarium. Fields of toothy purple flowers. Goddamn dollhouse-sized pine forests. Quite a bit wasn’t the size or shape it was supposed to be.
While I appreciate the author’s discussion of her inspiration for the story, I can’t help but think that it could also be (at least distantly) related to the mysterious origins of the dimension-hopping tortoise* in my own story, “The T-4200.”
Sadly, “The T-4200” is not currently available online, but this story inspired me to send it off to a reprint market. Fingers crossed!
* I know, while a turtle and a tortoise are both members of the Testudine family of reptiles, they are not the same. Still (and with apologies to all right-thinking scientists out there), the story already adds animal-based faster-than-light travel, so I’m just going to go with it.
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Posted in Writing, tagged #365Ways, #365Ways2022, inspiration, rejection, resilience, submissions, Thoughts, Writers, writing on September 20, 2022| 1 Comment »
Are you a writer? Afraid of rejection? Wish you had a thicker skin? Practice getting rejected with the Journal of Universal Rejection!
The founding principle of the Journal of Universal Rejection (JofUR) is rejection. Universal rejection. That is to say, all submissions, regardless of quality, will be rejected. Despite that apparent drawback, here are a number of reasons you may choose to submit to the JofUR:
• You can send your manuscript here without suffering waves of anxiety regarding the eventual fate of your submission. You know with 100% certainty that it will not be accepted for publication.
• There are no page-fees.
• You may claim to have submitted to the most prestigious journal (judged by acceptance rate).
• The JofUR is one-of-a-kind. Merely submitting work to it may be considered a badge of honor.
• You retain complete rights to your work, and are free to resubmit to other journals even before our review process is complete.
• Decisions are often (though not always) rendered within hours of submission.
Folks, I conducted my exposure therapy the old-fashioned way, submitting story after story to multiple venues until my skin grew hard as nails. If only I’d known about the JoUR sooner!*
* Seriously though, it’s worth getting past this particular hurdle. Whatever works for you!
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“Do one thing every day that scares you.”
— Eleanor Roosevelt
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Posted in Writing, tagged #365Ways, #365Ways2022, creativity, Fiction, genre fiction, publishing, sff, speculative fiction, speculative fiction novels, submissions, Writers, writing, writing a novel on February 7, 2022| Leave a Comment »
Attention writers!
Are you un-agented? Have you been waiting for a high-profile publisher to send out a call for submissions? Do you happen to have a science fiction, fantasy or horror manuscript lying around the house, waiting for its dare-to-be-great moment?
Then this, my friends, is your lucky day!
Angry Robot has announced a week-long open submission period for un-agented works. I don’t happen to have one handy but maybe you do? If so, may the odds be ever in your favor!
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The Submission period will run for one week, from Monday the 21st of February to Monday the 28th February.
We are looking for:
– Novel length works.
– A synopsis of the full work in a separate Word document.
– An elevator pitch and author bio in your email.Science Fiction, Fantasy and Horror.
– Adult fiction.
– Finished manuscripts.
To apply, please send us:
– A sample that consists of the first three chapters of your work (or first fifteen pages if the chapters are short).
– A synopsis of the full work in a separate Word document.
– An elevator pitch and author bio in your email.
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J.R. Johnson 
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