The other day I got another rejection on my short story “Quitter.” As I was updating my submissions spreadsheet, I realized that there are a lot of journals I haven’t heard back from. Now, I know it’s not unusual to get no response, but it occurred to me that I hadn’t checked in on my Submittable account lately so I logged in.
It was kind of a depressing exercise, because there were, in fact, a handful of rejections there that I hadn’t received any notification of. I went through them, one by one, and changed their status on my own spreadsheet. Then, just to makes sure I got them all, I clicked to sort by status and (holy shit) one popped up green.
Accepted
It was from the literary journal F(r)iction. Jumping back to my email, I searched for the title and found an email in my junk folder from MARCH saying they loved my short story and want to publish it. I fired an email back immediately saying thank you and yes, please, publish my story, but I haven’t heard anything back yet. That was three days ago. Three days and three months.
Crap.
I have seriously mixed feelings about this. On the one hand, I’m just giddy that someone liked my writing. On the other hand, why didn’t they call or text or something? I know they must be super busy, but I am not a hard person to track down. Granted, it’s just a little flash fiction piece, but still…
Moving On
So yeah. I guess I’m sharing this as a cautionary tale. Be sure to check on your submissions regularly. From now I on I will be logging into Submittable at least once a week. And until the sting of this one wears off, I’ll probably be searching all my email files every morning like a freak to make sure I don’t miss anything else.
I’ll keep you posted. Who knows, I may yet hear from them.
Being a writer is hard.
Oh man!!!!
This is one of those happy/angry/WFT news. It is great that someone loved your work but…..
Would a separate e-mail work? One that only has your writing? I have G-mail which is primarily my writing e-mail. I’m considering creating a different one when I send things out.
I guess this is one of those experience things you can fall back on.
I tried a separate email, but then forgot to check it. I think I just have to be more diligent about searching my email on a regular basis, checking in with Submittable. Arg. I’m going to try calling today and make sure they got MY belated response. I’ll keep you posted.
So what happened? Fingers crossed.
I couldn’t find a phone number. I tried emailing again, but haven’t heard back. (sad face)