Submissions (it’s all subjective yada yada yada.)

As Managing Editor of The Forge Literary Magazine, I read a lot of submissions. As a writer, I send very few. I am really bad at sending subs out. If I get a rejection my reaction is along the lines of thinking my story isn’t good, instead of thinking perhaps it simply didn’t chime with […]

Linktastic stuff!

I keep forgetting to mention that I am in The Best of Every Day Fiction 2 – an anthology from those EDF peeps. It’s available in hardback or softback. Thanks to EDF for including my wee story “The Collector of Shiny.” I was pleased to be in the debut issue of kill author and I […]

Waiting for the good news, not the bad

Sending work “out there” means waiting for responses. I’m not so great at subbing. I know writers who constantly have lots of work out at one time and just send that baby straight back out the minute it comes back to them. I understand that, I just don’t do it myself. Thing is, I choose […]

A better class of rejection?

I was advised that it would be better if I didn’t talk about rejections and submissions on my blog in case it gives a “bad impression” of my writing abilities. The person who advised this meant well, and said it kindly, but I just don’t think it’s my style to pretend that I only ever […]

(Email vs postal subs.) The writers in my head are better than me at this.

I steeled myself and sent off another few bits and pieces to various literary magazines. My printer is broken (my printers always become fucksy real fast, it’s a thing) so I only sent to places that accept online subs. Thinking about it though, I rarely post my stories. I entered a couple of big competitions […]

Fastest ever sub response

I sent a small piece of fiction to Dogzplot at 20.38 last night, and Barry Graham responded at 20.47. Nine minutes! Wow! And it was an acceptance, so yay, both for the super zippy response, and for the yes.

Subbing frenzy (aka~ well, I sent a few flashes out.)

I am so shit at subbing. Once in a while I’ll sit down and really devote time to the process, but mostly I just whine about being rejected, and totally ignore the “get it back out there” advice of writing pals. It’s like I’ll give it one shot, and if someone doesn’t fall on it […]

Acceptances, hurrah, and speed, or not.

I had two acceptances yesterday. First time I have had two in one day, quite a lovely feeling. The first was astonishingly quick. I subbed something, and 35 minutes later received an acceptance. The second took rather longer. I subbed the piece in April, received a query about it in June, and an acceptance yesterday. […]