Almost Success - The "Mixed Feelings" Thread

[smashprose]

Received my form-rejection from Asimov's today-- I'm just grateful they didn't keep it for too long. Off to the next!

Unfortunately, a lot of markets are now closed for submissions until the new year. Hopefully I can find one that will fit this story nicely.

[LDWriter2]

Received my form-rejection from Asimov's today-- I'm just grateful they didn't keep it for too long. Off to the next!

Unfortunately, a lot of markets are now closed for submissions until the new year. Hopefully I can find one that will fit this story nicely.

My rejection came in today too. It seemed faster than the last few stories.

[Gossamer]

(Long time lurker, first time poster)

Hello, fellow wordsmiths!

I have a submission at Assimov's at 38 days, and today it just switched over to "Under Review."
<snip>

38 days at Asimov's is average for them, maybe even a little fast. 68 days at Analog is 40 to 60 days short of their recent response times. Patience is indeed the watchword there.

My status changed to Under Review yesterday, 22 days after submission.

I am curious whether Under Review means a reader has just been assigned to the piece, or if a reader is forwarding it to editorial for 2nd level reading. Could anyone shed any light into the editorial flow at Asimov's?

[bobsandiego]

ooooooo

I too have switched to under review.

This is a story that has gotten some good notes and editorial comments on its rejection so here's hoping for a wee bit better this go around.

[Martin L. Shoemaker]

I am curious whether Under Review means a reader has just been assigned to the piece, or if a reader is forwarding it to editorial for 2nd level reading. Could anyone shed any light into the editorial flow at Asimov's?

Up until this year, Sheila had no reader. She read all her own slush. Now the rumor is that she has a reader.

My understanding is that the CWSubmissions system (created by Clarkesworld, used at Analog and Asimov's and others) switches to Under Review when the story is downloaded from the server to the editor's or reader's eReader. That doesn't mean they're actually reading it yet, but they probably will soon.

[bobsandiego]

I am curious whether Under Review means a reader has just been assigned to the piece, or if a reader is forwarding it to editorial for 2nd level reading. Could anyone shed any light into the editorial flow at Asimov's?

Up until this year, Sheila had no reader. She read all her own slush. Now the rumor is that she has a reader.

My understanding is that the CWSubmissions system (created by Clarkesworld, used at Analog and Asimov's and others) switches to Under Review when the story is downloaded from the server to the editor's or reader's eReader. That doesn't mean they're actually reading it yet, but they probably will soon.

ahhh Martin the man with the answers

[Gossamer]

I am curious whether Under Review means a reader has just been assigned to the piece, or if a reader is forwarding it to editorial for 2nd level reading. Could anyone shed any light into the editorial flow at Asimov's?

Up until this year, Sheila had no reader. She read all her own slush. Now the rumor is that she has a reader.

My understanding is that the CWSubmissions system (created by Clarkesworld, used at Analog and Asimov's and others) switches to Under Review when the story is downloaded from the server to the editor's or reader's eReader. That doesn't mean they're actually reading it yet, but they probably will soon.

I see. Thank you Martin.

[Martin L. Shoemaker]

I should add...

At Asimov's, IN MY EXPERIENCE, the wait from Under Review to a decision is usually days, maybe a week.

At Analog, I have never seen one of my stories in Under Review. Maybe Trevor has that feature turned off.

[Gossamer]

I should add...

At Asimov's, IN MY EXPERIENCE, the wait from Under Review to a decision is usually days, maybe a week.

At Analog, I have never seen one of my stories in Under Review. Maybe Trevor has that feature turned off.

Goodness. I don't know if I have enough nails to last a week.
But once again, thank you. You're a fountain of information.
Now please excuse me while I resume my nail-biting.

[E.CaimanSands]

I've been "under review" for 10 days or thereabouts I think once or twice, then gotten a form R. I've also gotten a couple of "personal", "send more" type responses that haven't been under review for any length of time, just the usual few days. So my conclusion... the amount of time spent under review means little. Maybe if you've been under review for longer than 10 days it might mean something, maybe then Ms. Williams is really sitting on your story and thinking about it but otherwise I see no pattern.

[Ishmael]

My breakfast emails this morning included three rejections, but two of them were personal. One of the latter was from Nightmare for the story that had already earned a personal from Pseudopod; the second was a personal from Pseudopod for another story.

What do these two stories have in common? They are both gothic horror. They are also, I believe, the only two gothic horror shorts I have ever written. (My novel is also gothic but I published that myself.)

The Grinder tells me that Pseudopod is liberal with personals but Nightmare isn't. Is the market trying to tell me something, and if so what?

[Davian Aw]

Got a form rejection from Tor.com after 214 days. My previous submission there had been my first, which got a nice personal rejection after 146 days asking me to send more writing; so I had really high hopes this time. I thought I'd at least be guaranteed a personal rejection after 7 months of waiting, but nope.

I'm really bummed out about this. Enough so that I created an account here just so I could have somewhere to be sad in.

According to the Submissions Grinder, though, Tor.com just gave out a handful of form replies after similar lengths of time, so at least I'm not alone. I guess it wasn't so much that they liked it, but that they were busy.

[Martin L. Shoemaker]

Got a form rejection from Tor.com after 214 days. My previous submission there had been my first, which got a nice personal rejection after 146 days asking me to send more writing; so I had really high hopes this time. I thought I'd at least be guaranteed a personal rejection after 7 months of waiting, but nope.

I'm really bummed out about this. Enough so that I created an account here just so I could have somewhere to be sad in.

According to the Submissions Grinder, though, Tor.com just gave out a handful of form replies after similar lengths of time, so at least I'm not alone. I guess it wasn't so much that they liked it, but that they were busy.

Dude! For what it's worth, I would be thrilled beyond belief to get a "Send Me More" from Tor.com. Those are rare, and they mean it. Yes, I know, they're a glacially slow market, but they pay great and they have great visibility. PLEASE don't let this one get you down! When you break through there, you'll be my hero!

[Davian Aw]

Really? Awesome! The Grinder stats showed that they give personal rejections 36% of the time, but I didn't know how many of those were requests for more. That's definitely encouraging, thanks!

[Tamlyn]

I got a form at 223 days when all the other reported responses around then were personal. Definitely feel your pain. I didn't have a previous (awesome) personal to tide me over though ;p

[Ishmael]

In a moment of middle of the night clarity I realised that the rejection from Nightmare wasn't personal after all. I'm sure I remember someone on the forum saying that "It's nicely written and I enjoyed reading it, but overall it didn't quite win me over, I'm afraid." was just a variant of the regular form rejection. I shall have to correct my records. It did say " I look forward to seeing your next submission" though. Maybe also standard?

[Davian Aw]

I'm guessing it's a higher tier of standard rejection, if so. I know that Analog has at least two different standard rejections, one of which adds the line "I rather like your style of writing and suggest you try us again" - which I received both from Trevor and Stanley, word for word. But I've also submitted stuff there that didn't have that line, so editors probably only use it when they mean it.

[george nik.]

In a moment of middle of the night clarity I realised that the rejection from Nightmare wasn't personal after all. I'm sure I remember someone on the forum saying that "It's nicely written and I enjoyed reading it, but overall it didn't quite win me over, I'm afraid." was just a variant of the regular form rejection. I shall have to correct my records. It did say " I look forward to seeing your next submission" though. Maybe also standard?

It's definitely a much higher tier rejection, so you're well entitled to count it as personal. The concept of "personal" rejection is very much overrated, I think. I've got 7 personal rejections from Shimmer, and that's because I've submitted seven times to Shimmer. I believe if you send a recipe for tomato soup to Shimmer, or Beneath Ceaseless Skies, or a few other markets, you'll get a personal rejection. Getting a "It's nicely written and I enjoyed reading it, but overall it didn't quite win me over, I'm afraid." and " I look forward to seeing your next submission" from JJA is a much bigger achievement than a personal rejection from a lot of markets.

[E.CaimanSands]

In a moment of middle of the night clarity I realised that the rejection from Nightmare wasn't personal after all. I'm sure I remember someone on the forum saying that "It's nicely written and I enjoyed reading it, but overall it didn't quite win me over, I'm afraid." was just a variant of the regular form rejection. I shall have to correct my records. It did say " I look forward to seeing your next submission" though. Maybe also standard?

It's definitely a much higher tier rejection, so you're well entitled to count it as personal. The concept of "personal" rejection is very much overrated, I think. I've got 7 personal rejections from Shimmer, and that's because I've submitted seven times to Shimmer. I believe if you send a recipe for tomato soup to Shimmer, or Beneath Ceaseless Skies, or a few other markets, you'll get a personal rejection. Getting a "It's nicely written and I enjoyed reading it, but overall it didn't quite win me over, I'm afraid." and " I look forward to seeing your next submission" from JJA is a much bigger achievement than a personal rejection from a lot of markets.

Indeed, this. Which is why I've always insisted on calling WotF honorable mentions "personal" rejections as they clearly mean more than a genuinely personalised rejection from Shimmer or similar markets in most cases. I know a lot of folks around here disagree with me and insist HMs are forms but they mean you've done something right, and are explicitly designed to give encouragement so I don't see how they can be described as form Rs.

[Ishmael]

Thank you to George and Elinor, and thank you and welcome to Davian. This makes me feel better again. The story was the one that Shawn Garrett had previously described as 'a very near miss' and it does happen to be one that I like quite a lot. Though I cannot claim to have read enormous amounts of gothic literature, I have never encountered anything resembling it before. I guess we would all like to think that we had created something unique.

I don't know whether it has a sufficient hook for WotF or I might consider trying it here. Anyway, for the time being it's off elsewhere.

[Strycher]

... you're well entitled to count it as personal.

Which is why I've always insisted on calling WotF honorable mentions "personal" rejections . . .

A higher tier form from a JJA publication might be harder to come by than a personal from Shimmer, but that doesn't make it a personal. When you log a higher tier form on The Grinder or Duotrope you [a person, anybody] are misrepresenting the market to other writers. That doesn't help anyone, and it undercuts the person who actually got a personal from JJA (or in the case of WotF, a Semi).

The concept of "personal" rejection is very much overrated, I think. I've got 7 personal rejections from Shimmer, and that's because I've submitted seven times to Shimmer. I believe if you send a recipe for tomato soup to Shimmer, or Beneath Ceaseless Skies, or a few other markets, you'll get a personal rejection. Getting a "It's nicely written and I enjoyed reading it, but overall it didn't quite win me over, I'm afraid." and " I look forward to seeing your next submission" from JJA is a much bigger achievement than a personal rejection from a lot of markets.

A higher tier from Nightmare is an accomplishment. I've never gotten a higher tier from a JJA publication--but I do have two form rejections from Shimmer. It is what it is. I don't see how misrepresenting yourself, even to yourself, can possibly help someone become a better writer.

I agree personal rejections are useless other than for making you feel like you did well, but for completely different reasons.

[T. R. Napper]

18-day personal rejection from Strange Horizons yesterday. They made some positive comments about the content of the story, so it was an actual personal rejection (unlike the Shimmer rejections mentioned above).

A HM for WotF should certainly be considered a 'personal' rejection. You're in (roughly) the top ten per cent of stories with a HM, the least you can do is claim a step higher than a form rejection.

p.s. - I've only ever received form Rs from Asimov's.

[Benjamin Tyler Smith]

18-day personal rejection from Strange Horizons yesterday. They made some positive comments about the content of the story, so it was an actual personal rejection (unlike the Shimmer rejections mentioned above).

A HM for WotF should certainly be considered a 'personal' rejection. You're in (roughly) the top ten per cent of stories with a HM, the least you can do is claim a step higher than a form rejection.

p.s. - I've only ever received form Rs from Asimov's.

That's something to get a personal rejection from Strange Horizons. To date I've sent them 9 stories and have only ever received form rejections. My most recent submission to them made it through to the final winnowing process at Flash Fiction Online earlier this year, and I considered it one of my better pieces after I went through it once more with a fine-tooth comb. And it still got a form rejection, so either it's not as good as I think or it just wasn't Strange Horizon's cup of tea. So, congratulations to you on that!

Speaking of Flash Fiction Online, my most recent rejection came from them as well. It made it into the semi-final winnowing stage. That's the third time this year from that one venue, I believe. Before this year I'd never gotten that far with Flash Fiction Online, so I guess I'm moving in the right direction.

[Davian Aw]

I've had 5 form and 3 personal rejections from Strange Horizons since 2008; all three personals were this year. My writing seems to be at that aggravating stage where it's good enough to get lots of personal rejections from top magazines, but not good enough to actually get published by those magazines.

[george nik.]

... you're well entitled to count it as personal.

Which is why I've always insisted on calling WotF honorable mentions "personal" rejections . . .

A higher tier form from a JJA publication might be harder to come by than a personal from Shimmer, but that doesn't make it a personal. When you log a higher tier form on The Grinder or Duotrope you [a person, anybody] are misrepresenting the market to other writers. That doesn't help anyone, and it undercuts the person who actually got a personal from JJA (or in the case of WotF, a Semi).

The concept of "personal" rejection is very much overrated, I think. I've got 7 personal rejections from Shimmer, and that's because I've submitted seven times to Shimmer. I believe if you send a recipe for tomato soup to Shimmer, or Beneath Ceaseless Skies, or a few other markets, you'll get a personal rejection. Getting a "It's nicely written and I enjoyed reading it, but overall it didn't quite win me over, I'm afraid." and " I look forward to seeing your next submission" from JJA is a much bigger achievement than a personal rejection from a lot of markets.

A higher tier from Nightmare is an accomplishment. I've never gotten a higher tier from a JJA publication--but I do have two form rejections from Shimmer. It is what it is. I don't see how misrepresenting yourself, even to yourself, can possibly help someone become a better writer.

I agree personal rejections are useless other than for making you feel like you did well, but for completely different reasons.

So you say that you should only log a personal rejection if the market's reply has some kind of personalized feedback. I'm sorry but I can't see how this piece of information could be of any interest either to the person who logs it or anyone else, since the personalized feedback might be either positive or negative and it depends upon the whim of the editor and not how highly he thought of the story.
My only personal rejection from DSF stated that they liked the piece for such and such reason, and it almost made it to the second round. I can't see any sense in logging this rejection as personal and --when I manage to send them a better story and it does make it to the second round-- marking that one as form.
By your definition, one should mark a semi-finalist from WOTF as personal but a non-winning finalist (which doesn't include a crit) as form rejection. Sorry but this doesn't make any sense to me. I can only speak for myself of course, but I really think that most writers are interested in marking the stories that one way or the other made it a little above the slush pile and this is the only practical use of marking a rejection as personal.
Or else this distinction of "personal" and "form" rejections is not enough, and we should ask the Grinder to give us the choice of a "higher-tier" rejection as well.

[Strycher]

I'm a little confused at the shade being directed at Shimmer and to a lesser extent Beneath Ceaseless Skies on this forum. Yes, they try to provide personalized feedback to authors (and still manage to return subs in a timely manner!). Every such personalized note can help an author determine what that particular venue is looking for and perhaps point out areas of weakness an author might not notice otherwise. Why is that worth so little? Elsewhere on this very forum I've seen forumites lament the lack of available feedback.

Not every venue takes the time to do this for authors. And because art is subjective, establishing your improvement as a writer is difficult. There are not a lot of objective markers that show you progress in your work. For those other venues, upper tier forms and personal rejections are two distinct (still somewhat subjective) markers that a writer might use to note progress.

...it depends upon the whim of the editor and not how highly he thought of the story.

I disagree. I think, if an editor who hasn't committed to personalized feedback to all/most responses sends a personal, that's a pretty good indication your story had impact. WotF isn't special in the amount of subs it gets. Most pro paying venues receive thousands of submissions a year. And slushing is just one of many duties an editor has--why would they take time to leave a note, even a negative note, unless your story provoked them to do so?

...most writers are interested in marking the stories that one way or the other made it a little above the slush pile and this is the only practical use of marking a rejection as personal. ...we should ask the Grinder to give us the choice of a "higher-tier" rejection as well.

The Grinder is in Beta. If that's a feature you'd like to see, they do have a contact form. I know of at least one other person who has made this suggestion.

In the meantime, each submission has a place for notes. For subs to places that often give personals I can mark personals from senior editors (ie Elise at Shimmer), and places that mostly do forms I can mark upper-tiers:



This allows me to go back and see two important things. 1) I can see if a particular story needs to go in the trunk. 20-30+ submissions and no personals, no upper tiers? Not a good sign. 2) I can see what kind of markets are giving me uppers and personals and determine which market would be best to try next.

By your definition, one should mark a semi-finalist from WOTF as personal but a non-winning finalist (which doesn't include a crit) as form rejection.

No, I would mark a non-winning finalist as a personal rejection because Joni provides comments from the judges. (You may recall that Martin had a non-winning story that Jerry Pournelle loved.)

I can't see how this piece of information could be of any interest

Perhaps I'm mistaken, but it seems as though you're saying that personal rejection don't matter so why not give yourself one if you feel you've done well? To me, that makes no sense. If they don't matter, how does deciding you've gotten one when you haven't help you become a better writer?

or anyone else

I don't understand this either. The entire point of using The Grinder instead of Ralan's and a spreadsheet is to see what kind of results other writers are getting. If you think it's pointless, why post there? Especially if you're going to post inaccurate information and skew the data for the people who do think it's of interest.

[Benjamin Tyler Smith]

I've had 5 form and 3 personal rejections from Strange Horizons since 2008; all three personals were this year. My writing seems to be at that aggravating stage where it's good enough to get lots of personal rejections from top magazines, but not good enough to actually get published by those magazines.

It's an aggravating stage, Davian, but still a step in the right direction. Pat yourself on the back for that, and let's keep improving our writing! The curtain's almost about to be raised on the next stage!

[smashprose]

Lots of rejections from Analog today...including mine.

[george nik.]

I'm a little confused at the shade being directed at Shimmer and to a lesser extent Beneath Ceaseless Skies on this forum. Yes, they try to provide personalized feedback to authors (and still manage to return subs in a timely manner!). Every such personalized note can help an author determine what that particular venue is looking for and perhaps point out areas of weakness an author might not notice otherwise. Why is that worth so little? Elsewhere on this very forum I've seen forumites lament the lack of available feedback.

Not every venue takes the time to do this for authors. And because art is subjective, establishing your improvement as a writer is difficult. There are not a lot of objective markers that show you progress in your work. For those other venues, upper tier forms and personal rejections are two distinct (still somewhat subjective) markers that a writer might use to note progress.

...it depends upon the whim of the editor and not how highly he thought of the story.

I disagree. I think, if an editor who hasn't committed to personalized feedback to all/most responses sends a personal, that's a pretty good indication your story had impact. WotF isn't special in the amount of subs it gets. Most pro paying venues receive thousands of submissions a year. And slushing is just one of many duties an editor has--why would they take time to leave a note, even a negative note, unless your story provoked them to do so?

...most writers are interested in marking the stories that one way or the other made it a little above the slush pile and this is the only practical use of marking a rejection as personal. ...we should ask the Grinder to give us the choice of a "higher-tier" rejection as well.

The Grinder is in Beta. If that's a feature you'd like to see, they do have a contact form. I know of at least one other person who has made this suggestion.

In the meantime, each submission has a place for notes. For subs to places that often give personals I can mark personals from senior editors (ie Elise at Shimmer), and places that mostly do forms I can mark upper-tiers:



This allows me to go back and see two important things. 1) I can see if a particular story needs to go in the trunk. 20-30+ submissions and no personals, no upper tiers? Not a good sign. 2) I can see what kind of markets are giving me uppers and personals and determine which market would be best to try next.

By your definition, one should mark a semi-finalist from WOTF as personal but a non-winning finalist (which doesn't include a crit) as form rejection.

No, I would mark a non-winning finalist as a personal rejection because Joni provides comments from the judges. (You may recall that Martin had a non-winning story that Jerry Pournelle loved.)

I can't see how this piece of information could be of any interest

Perhaps I'm mistaken, but it seems as though you're saying that personal rejection don't matter so why not give yourself one if you feel you've done well? To me, that makes no sense. If they don't matter, how does deciding you've gotten one when you haven't help you become a better writer?

or anyone else

I don't understand this either. The entire point of using The Grinder instead of Ralan's and a spreadsheet is to see what kind of results other writers are getting. If you think it's pointless, why post there? Especially if you're going to post inaccurate information and skew the data for the people who do think it's of interest.

Krystal,
It's obvious we disagree on this, but I can't think of any more points to make, so I'm calling it quits.
Just a couple of things I need to point out before I go:
a) I have never denigrated Shimmer or Beneath Ceaseless Skies for offering comments to writers. Why should I do such a thing? On the contrary, I admire and praise them for it. I merely mentioned that getting a personal from a market who sends out personals to everyone isn't that much of an accomplishment.
b) And yes, I've thought of making that suggestion to the Grinder. I'm extremely hard-pressed at the time being, and it's not one of my immediate priorities, but I might do it eventually. This would really be useful.

[thewritescott]

I'm guessing it's a higher tier of standard rejection, if so. I know that Analog has at least two different standard rejections, one of which adds the line "I rather like your style of writing and suggest you try us again" - which I received both from Trevor and Stanley, word for word. But I've also submitted stuff there that didn't have that line, so editors probably only use it when they mean it.

Sounds like we need to start tracking personal form rejections too.