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Writers & Illustrators of the Future Forum ANTI-HARASSMENT POLICY The Writers & Illustrators of the Future Contests are committed to ensuring a safe and welcoming environment for all participants in both Contests which includes this Forum as well as any other activities, meetings, or events...

Welcome to the Writers and Illustrators of the Future Forum. The Forum has been created to provide a place for aspiring writers and artists to meet other like-minded writers and artists, individuals interested in pursuing a dream of becoming a writer or artist. In this forum, you will meet people fr...

John Goodwin has asked Wulf Moon to become a Forum Moderator. Wulf has graciously accepted. Please welcome Wulf to his new role.

Let's not all misbehave at once, now...

Currently the Forum won’t send out automated response email. That prevents new members from signing up; but it also prevents recovering lost passwords. If you find yourself locked out and can’t recover your password, email me (first name at last name dot Space), and I’ll try to resolve it. I can onl...

Wulf Moon wrote:Welcome at last, BrandieJ! Glad the system finally got fixed!

Sadly, it’s not really fixed yet. As a stopgap measure, John or I can manually approve new accounts. And I’m not certain I can do that from my phone (for technical reasons), so approval may be delayed until I get home from work.

There have been problems -- recurring problems -- with the Forum server. It hasn't been sending out confirmation email, nor password recovery email. Please trust that Your Loyal Internet Hamsters are hard at work trying to resolve this. It's complicated, with many layers. We haven't yet identified t...

Some of you (thank you!) have been reporting a particular spammer. This one is more clever than average. The comments you have reported have had no spam links! But the comments have been nonsensical, off-topic, in broken English. I think the trick here is that the spammer makes a number of seemingly...

Wulf Moon wrote:Okay, my writing advice. "Good things come to those who wait, but only what's left behind by those who hustle."

The best way to wait is to write more stuff.

My experience is only one book, so far: Today I Am Carey based on my short story "Today I Am Paul". Editor Tony Daniel sent me a two-page doc. Lots of it consisted of tense changes and similar copy edits. There were also places where he thought a point deserved emphasis, usually because it...

I'm late to the party, but... Congratulations, Preston!

Chris533 wrote:Congrats to everyone - I imagine the finalists are not getting any sleep tonight! I hope I get to have that problem some day.

Get sleep! It could be a while. You want to be wide awake for The Call.

Sataris wrote:just got off the phone with joni, who was lovely as you'd expect—finalist this time! still shaking a little bit. best of luck all!

Yowza!

That would be telling...

RSchibler wrote:Got what I’m calling a second tier rejection from Analg today, after over 100 days. I was invited to resubmit with something else, so I’m calling it a win! For a bare novice like me, the little signs are really encouraging.

He means it. When an editor says that, they always mean it. Keep going!

Here's an idea, since Sean Hazlett dropped by (hi Sean!). Why don't we fill the short jaunt to 5000 with advice on how to win the contest from former winners. It can be something you did that turned the page, something you learned at the workshop, something someone told you on a critique, advice fr...

Good morning, little spammer! Thought you'd catch me napping?

They've learned to disguise their spam links as "Recommended reading lists".

Absolutely take pride in your Honorable Mentions! They don't just give those out like candy. Yes, it means your story was in the top 10%, maybe even the top 5%. Only around a hundred per quarter. It means Dave found enough to like that he finished your story. Most stories, he only reads a page or tw...

Editors also talk to other editors, especially at cons. I know they do talk about who is close, because Dean (Wesley Smith) told me they do. And when someone that was *this close* to getting published drops off the face of the earth, they also ask one another what happened, and whether they've seen...

Absolutely. Build your support network. They're also simply faster. Musicians get better and faster with practice. So do artists, engineers, doctors, mathematicians... Any profession you can name. And so do writers. Five years ago, 3,000 words per day felt impossible to me. Now it feels like slackin...

Rules are rules. The easiest way to get disqualified is to not follow them. Worse is to lie and hope the judge doesn't catch it. Writers worry that a bad story will ruin their reputation forever. Every editor I've spoken with says they're too busy to remember bad stories, much less the authors. The...

[quote="jI would hope this reputation now precedes this individual?[/quote]

I don't recall the name, unfortunately. I'll search the archives, but old threads get pruned to save space.

In the mean time, it's always a good idea to check Writer Beware and Absolute Write.

So sorry, Ishmael. I've heard horror stories like that. In one (much discussed here, I think), the editor practically wrote his own story -- adding in major elements of sadism and sexual brutality -- and then mocked the author for objecting. A little research showed he was famous for that. And for g...

My own experience (so far) is strictly short fiction, and almost exclusively pro-paying markets. (I'll occasionally give a story for a friend's market or friend-of-friend's. I'm notoriously easy to flatter.) My markets have included: ⋅ Analog ⋅ Galaxy's Edge ⋅ Clarkeswo...

As suggested by Ishmael, this is a thread for discussing the editorial process and what to expect. Novel editing and short fiction editing have significant differences, so I'm launching two threads. I'll bet you can guess what this one is... I've also invited editors to contribute their thoughts. We...

As suggested by Ishmael, this is a thread for discussing the editorial process and what to expect. Novel editing and short fiction editing have significant differences, so I'm launching two threads. I'll bet you can guess what this one is... I've also invited editors to contribute their thoughts. We...

Ishmael wrote:The thing was, nobody had given me any idea of what to expect. I wonder if a thread discussing editorial licence would be useful, or whether they're all so different that no guidance is really possible?

Or maybe two. I'm launching them now.

In the final analysis I am the custodian of my own reputation, though I'm quite aware my literary profile is so low that to call it 'my reputation' is more than somewhat vainglorious. But I like to think of myself as a wordsmith, a craftsman, writing beautiful prose, creating art. My work needs edi...

I've yet to find personal rejection comments useful. By the time I start submitting a story I've moved on creatively so even if I got a truly insightful comment that would help me make a piece much better, I wouldn't act on it because I feel my time is better spent working on my latest story. But t...

For one, I can no longer find the link that shows all new posts and comments as my front page. Found it! It's under the Quick links menu in the upper left: http://forum.writersofthefuture.com/search.php?search_id=unreadposts . It used to be under the thread/post list. I'll leave it where it is. Tha...