My reading skills suck.
30 Jan 2009 03:33 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
Note to self: pay attention to the phrase not interested in urban fantasy and stop reading so fast.
*heddesk*
What magazines (or other short story venues) still exist that cater to the urban fantasy genre? It seems they're all dropping like flies with each new day...
Also: I had a file that listed where I'd submitted stories, and which story, and I lost that file when the hard drive went south. (I lost a lot of stuff, of which this one small file is among the least of the lingering agony, but still.) I know the names of which magazines I'd submitted to, but not who got which story, and I had two or three that I'd sent out. Bloody hell, I don't even have the original emails anymore that were rejections from each, because I lost all my email at the same time. Sigh.
Oh ye mighty slush readers, maybe you can answer this: are stories tracked? It would have been at least a year, maybe a little more, since any were submitted, but I'd hate to resubmit ignorantly and/or inadvertently. Or if I do accidentally repeat myself, has it been long enough that it wouldn't be taken as an intentional, and thus rude, thing to do? GUH.
*heddesk*
What magazines (or other short story venues) still exist that cater to the urban fantasy genre? It seems they're all dropping like flies with each new day...
Also: I had a file that listed where I'd submitted stories, and which story, and I lost that file when the hard drive went south. (I lost a lot of stuff, of which this one small file is among the least of the lingering agony, but still.) I know the names of which magazines I'd submitted to, but not who got which story, and I had two or three that I'd sent out. Bloody hell, I don't even have the original emails anymore that were rejections from each, because I lost all my email at the same time. Sigh.
Oh ye mighty slush readers, maybe you can answer this: are stories tracked? It would have been at least a year, maybe a little more, since any were submitted, but I'd hate to resubmit ignorantly and/or inadvertently. Or if I do accidentally repeat myself, has it been long enough that it wouldn't be taken as an intentional, and thus rude, thing to do? GUH.
no subject
Date: 30 Jan 2009 09:50 pm (UTC)What magazine was this?
no subject
Date: 30 Jan 2009 09:53 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 30 Jan 2009 09:58 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 30 Jan 2009 10:00 pm (UTC)http://sfscope.com/2009/01/presto-strangeo-looking-for-we.html New market that doesn't pay much, but may take UF
http://sfscope.com/2009/01/brain-harvest-looking-for-bada.html Very short fiction, but probably take uf
no subject
Date: 30 Jan 2009 10:12 pm (UTC)I NEED TO WRITE SHORT. LOTS AND LOTS SHORTER.
I can roughly gauge -- very roughly -- in short stories, but anything under 1K words and I'm baffled. Just baffled.
no subject
Date: 30 Jan 2009 10:14 pm (UTC)I'm a Nidiot.
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Date: 30 Jan 2009 11:30 pm (UTC)What's up with this? I love urban fantasy! Did a bunch of shitty writers ruin it for everyone, or something? :(
no subject
Date: 30 Jan 2009 11:38 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 31 Jan 2009 12:09 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 30 Jan 2009 11:32 pm (UTC)People make honest mistakes. I don't think, if you do happen to accidentally send out a story back to a market, that it would be a strike against you.
As for my own records, I always print out hardcopy for rejections and keep things in my folder. Not that hardcopy can't be lost, but I just feel safer having information on two different media. I think that's just the paranoia though.
no subject
Date: 30 Jan 2009 11:43 pm (UTC)If I printed everything out, I would be DROWNING. I try, oh how I try, to keep hardcopies of stuff but within a week it gets away from me. I've learned my lesson on that one -- and a difficulty like this is minor, believe me, compared to the mess & disorganized clutter I would have around me otherwise.
I'm not sure whether it'd be acceptable or not to note that after dire loss of records that although the story has been edited since last submission, that if it's a duplication... *bangs head on desk* I feel like a freaking idiot, even with semi-legit excuses. I just can't believe I didn't snag the folder with that file in it. Then again, I also lost 96gig of stuff for work, and another 14gig of woodworking research, so... one file is rather tiny comparatively. but still.
*cries*
no subject
Date: 31 Jan 2009 12:24 am (UTC)I understand what you mean about drowning in paper. I've got way too much as it is, and have to routinely force myself to pare things down.
I don't have a concrete answer as to whether you should or shouldn't say something in a cover letter. I could see reasonable justification on either approach. Is it a large number of submissions out there right at the moment? Or just a few?
I hate hard drive crashes. I spent three months last summer recovering a server that had 6 drives die. Very, very unpleasant business. Did you wipe out the hard disk? I know there are data recovery specialists who can get back data from drives that seem inoperable to the average system. (Not cheap though, so probably not worth it unless what was on there was worth more than $1000 to you.)
no subject
Date: 31 Jan 2009 12:32 am (UTC)It's the one or two files here and there that are the real suckerpunches, lo these many months later. Bleah.
As for the actual submissions -- no, only two stories! (If I were really that much of a short story person, then the file probably would've been among the ones I actively sought to save, but this is just a "once in a blue moon" kind of thing, that's probably why I went, hunh, that file hasn't been touched in nine months, so it's lower priority... figures, eh.)
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Date: 31 Jan 2009 05:55 pm (UTC)Your books are getting quite comfortable on my upper shelf, btw. They appear to be nesting, in fact. I wouldn't be at all surprised if little book eggs show up shortly.
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Date: 1 Feb 2009 02:25 am (UTC)The excel file is just one of those things that wasn't on the front of my mind, since I am not a short story writer (honestly, no, not really) and it's just not something I do. I'm really very lazy about submitting what I have written, because most of the time I just plain forget they even exist. Heh. Yeah. Slacker, I know.
I suppose we should de-nest, then, eh. Drop me an email with what you're up to next week!
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Date: 1 Feb 2009 12:07 am (UTC)Some places do, but only for so long. The do encourage resubmission. What you can do is dust off all the copies and make changes, that way if you're resubmitting to a magazine, and the editor remembers it, then it's possible they might see how it has been altered. If you can improve the first page, that's a good start. Slush rejects happen most often there.
Personally, I keep hard copy because simultaneous submissions can lead to blackballing in incestuous sized writing circles. I have a list of magazines, submissions, and dates that I do in excel that I print off every time I update it. Well, I write the reject date on it rather than reprint the whole thing. Breaking oneself of anal retentiveness isn't pretty.
no subject
Date: 1 Feb 2009 02:27 am (UTC)On the other hand, there's no chance of simultaneous submissions, not at all. The two or three stories would have all been flipped back at me -- it's just that I don't recall who flipped what. I guess I'll have to go with "maybe if it's been a year or more, they'll have forgotten"... sigh.