editors – H.G. Bells

Happy St. Patrick’s Day! The Book Of Kells is free on iTunes today. I don’t know a thing about it, but I will soon enough. Enjoy!

And today, author Michael J. Sullivan posted some interesting insights from another author, Marion Zimmer Bradley, on Why Stories Get Rejected. A good read, and something every new author needs to internalize.

I have it down pat by now. Though I think this can be a problem; this insidious expectation of rejection has effected me in a way I didn’t anticipate. I have four things that I’m really excited about right now: my novel got a full request at an agency I would love to work with, my screenplay is being considered for the Nicholl Fellowship, as well as a contest to get me into Pitchfest, and also a short story of mine has been shortlisted for an anthology I’m excited for.

This is a lot of excitement.

Usually it’s just a lot of little things, various stories out for various anthologies, and the trickle of rejections come in steady and constant. No big deal (anymore).

So when I actually have things to be excited for, I realize how oppressed this expectation of rejection was making me.

Sometimes we need to step back to see things more clearly…

The danger of getting excited is that it makes the rejection just that much worse. I’m finding this creeping into other aspects of my life; I’ve stopped getting excited for movies (movies that I would have gotten excited for in the past!) because of past let downs (not a rejection, but the same feelings are at play).

Last week was the most difficult I’ve found meditation. My mind kept racing forward to the future, and I’d have to pull it back. Sit. Stay. Not terrible, but it got me to realize just how much I’ve been not been letting myself get excited.

So I’m excited. Even if none of these four amazing things happen, it feels good to have so much possibility laid out before me. And even if a single one does happen? Well damn. Things are pretty swell.

Silly kitty. My own is hiding under my blankets, scared of the wind.

Right! So, hope all is well with you, dear reader.

Thanks for reading.

Heidi out.

In submitting short stories pretty non-stop since June, I’ve discovered a strange phenomenon in the publishing world.

I don’t know who’s going to be reading my submission.

It goes something like this:

I click a duotrope listing I wish to investigate. I read the duotrope entry, then go to the actual publisher’s webpage. I find the specific project I’ll be submitting to. I’ll read the submission guidelines. Then, if I want to submit, I’ll start looking into the publisher and who I should be addressing my submission to.

In most cases, I have to dig, dig, to find out who’s name to address my submission to. Then the possibilities look like this:

“Dear Editor” seems so lazy and impersonal, but I’ve had to use it on several occasions.

Closer than that is “Dear Guy1/Guy2” because in their “About” or “Bio” section they have two (or more) fiction editors, and I’m not sure which is handling the project I’m submitting to. Only slightly better than “Dear Editor”.

Usually googling “who is editing anthologyXYZ” or similar phrases only brings me back to the publisher’s site, because there’s nothing about the anthology yet. I also spend quite a bit of time on Absolute Write to try and narrow down names.

So what gives? Why is it so hard to find out who the editor is? Am I just supposed to know, and if I do I get sent to the front of the cue?

Many publishers do not have this problem; they have nice bio pages, with a paragraph or two about their editors, and I can take a better guess at who will want to see my submission. Or they will state “Anthology XYZ, edited by SupercoolGal” or something similar.

My current plan is to document how many steps I have to take to find a name. I’ll post about this again when I have, say, ten submissions to use the data from. …it’ll be maybe two months. 🙂

Anyone else run into this problem? Am I missing something?

Tag: editors

Kells and Reasons for Rejection

Let’s play “Who’s the Editor”