Friday, March 30, 2007

Thought It Was This Time

According to the editors at the Crab Orchard Review, if they have your submission longer than five months, it's being considered. So after six months passed, I had a good feeling. One of my short fiction pieces is under consideration. Thatclose to gaining a publication credit. Editorial work was due to be finished in mid-February. By mid-March, the sense was strong that my piece was going to be picked up.

The moral of the story is, don't read so much into the drivel that is spewed by literary journal editors who are short-staffed and can't handle the submissions in a reasonable amount of time. Today I received the rejection notice, a standard form. The fault was mine for not submitting the short story to other journals a month ago, under the assumption that the story was about to be published and what's the point in spending money on postage?

There are a few other stories on submission, rapidly approaching or just beyond the journals' reported response time. I have learned today that I must submit when I want, and not worry about something that may not happen. I misjudged the situation, let hope get in the way of practicality, and that will never happen again.

Fire up the printer and crank out the next round. The literary journals will soon close for submissions for the summer, and I'll do all I can to swamp them.

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