I’ve made fifty-six story submissions to various magazines this year. This is the first year I’ve actually kept track and I’m kind of surprised. I knew I kept my stories out there, but I didn’t realize I was sending that many.
A few weeks back, when I’d made about forty submissions, I thought I’d post here when I hit fifty. Except that over the last few days I got a bunch of rejections and the number leapt. Some markets respond very quickly.
I didn’t write fifty-six stories. In fact I’ve only added four new stories to the mix this year. But anytime a story comes back, I send it off again to another market. I think this is fairly standard practice. I’ve heard of writers who make changes and edit on the basis of feedback, but I avoid that. Best to keep it moving to find the editor to which the story is most suited.
In that mix of statistics, I’ve had seven acceptances, and still have twenty-five stories under consideration.
Slowly I’m filtering stories out of the cycle as they age. I throw them to the wolves of Apple and Amazon and other retailers. On occasion readers find them. Even after all that time, I’m honored they find an audience.
I don’t know how the picture relates, but I kind of like it. Bugs crawling around fungi out at Totara Reserve (photo taken by me).
