Thursday, March 11, 2010

Time To Reel Them In

I'm the type that nearly haunts Duotrope when I have more than three or four pieces out in submission land. I'm on that site constantly to see if any new responses have been reported from the same markets to which I subbed. When I went on my temporary break from writing a few months back, I had five stories submitted to various places. Sometime in December, one was accepted. The other four are still out there. They had already been out for some time when I went on my break. During the time I was focused on the movie site, I paid no attention to how long they had been out, but now I am seeing that the four stories have been out for 170, 225, 324 and 374 days, respectively. Two are zombies stories, one is a flash piece and the last (the one that's been out the longest) is a time travel story.

The time travel story is gonna stay where it's at. It went to the Time in a Bottle antho where it was promptly lost. It wasn't until K.C. Shaw mentioned to them that I had also subbed that they found it. Since the TOC for the book was already finalized by then, I had the option of withdrawing the story or letting them keep it for consideration for volume 2. I went with the latter. The other three stories however, may need to be addressed.
Am I right in thinking it's time to query and/or withdraw them?

The new issue of Ghostlight Magazine is now out. This one features my story A Private Misery, the idea for which came to me one day when I wondered what would happen if an itch in a sensitive and private area would not stop. The awesome Aaron Polson also has a story in this issue and by my count this is the fifth time I have shared a TOC with him in a book or magazine. I guess they have to balance out his genius with my drivel.

5 comments:

Aaron Polson said...

Genius? We're all geniuses, my friend. We definately have some TOC mojo going. Let's submit to pro markets together, eh?

Jamie Eyberg said...

That would be pretty sweet if you two could get into the same pro market ToC. I think you can do it.

K.C. Shaw said...

Obviously those editors are just trying to maximize the awesomeness of their TOCs. And it's working!

Definitely ping those other markets to find out what's going on with your stories. That's a long time to wait and hear nothing.

Fox Lee said...

You and Aaron BOTH rock : )

Cate Gardner said...

By including two awesome dudes, they're just ensuring they sell their magazine.