the business of submitting

Submissions decisions are always hard. How long are you willing to wait to hear from a top magazine? Do you set your work aside while you wait and wait and wait? Or send it out widely? And if you do, do you send it to top magazines only? Then move down  a tier after some rejections? For flash especially, is it better to be online than in print? For a future collection, is it better to leave most of the pieces unpublished? And even if you read magazines closely, it's hard to tell whether you're a good fit or not. Often you get rejections from magazines you thought were a perfect fit.

Still waiting on two top magazines where I've published before, for decisions on submissions I sent in January and February. Just sent a status query to the January magazine and got a very nice note back about how behind the editor is because of the pandemic, with a parenthetical reference to child care that left me feeling guilty. I have my fingers crossed on both of them.

I have a flash about a Zoom meeting that I thought was topical and timely but I haven't been able to place it. Rejection Saturday. Rejection Sunday. And then today, a long, Bartleby-tinged story where I started with just the top places (since it's not timely and I'm in no hurry and why not) just got an amazingly soft rejection from the venerable lit mag STORY of all places. They would "love a chance to read more of my writing IN THE NEAR FUTURE." Naturally I have nothing at all to send them. It's not often that I write a long story, and lately all of my energies have been tied up in The Lunatics' Ball. Well, I can treasure this anyway. Strange game where writers treasure rejections.

It's been raining, buckets and buckets, which ordinarily wouldn't be news, but this year it definitely is.

later
​The sun is out and I've gotten four more rejections. One of the long story from a magazine where I submitted it in July (not so friendly as the one from STORY), and three CNF in one swoop. My horoscope didn't hint that I'd be a rejection magnet today. I'm afraid to open any more emails.