Waiting for Godot… I mean LitMag Responses

I find waiting for LitMag responses very nerve-wracking and stressful. I want to check my status on Submittable hourly, but I know it’s not going to change. I have two pieces sitting in their queue, one since January 22 and the other since the 29th. I caved yesterday and checked them again, the first time in a week.

No movement.

And rightfully so. The response time for both pieces is not over yet so I can’t bug the editors or even glare menacingly at my computer screen. It’s expected, it’s accepted, it’s how things are. But it still frustrates me.

I don’t like to have a piece out to multiple places, even if they allow simultaneous submissions. It’s a personal thing, I don’t know if I can explain it well. However, the long turnaround times make it difficult to get anything published and many magazines don’t accept simultaneous. My personal preferences aside, this makes things more complicated.

I’ve promised myself to get something published this year so these pieces will keep making the rounds if the two magazines they’re at now don’t accept them. I’m hoping to get them to at least four or five magazines (if they’re not accepted first!) by the end of the year.

Does this review process frustrate you, Reader? If you’ve worked for a LitMag, is the lengthy turnaround time necessary? What are the editors doing in the meantime?

Please leave a comment, I love to hear from you. While you’re at it, feel free to click over to my Facebook Fan Page and follow me there. Post updates go there automatically and I like to post some book-nerd things there for your enjoyment.

Until next time, write on.

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Published!

Get ready for the shameless plug because I’m published for the first time!

There’s a local independent publishing house that got suckered into publishing two of my short stories.  The journal is called Summer Legends and is available for $25 plus shipping.

I truthfully have mixed feelings about this publication.  One hand, my writing is in print and some people will pay money for it!  That’s incredible to me.  On the downside, I’m not sure how widely this journal will be circulated and what kind of appeal it will have; All the authors in it are unknowns, myself included.

I’m so excited that I was accepted, but I wonder what kind of criteria was used because there are some pieces that I feel were falling a bit short.  I wonder if this publication is something I would even want to include in a query letter because I don’t know if an agent would be impressed.

One of the nice features is that I didn’t have to pay to submit my work and received a complimentary copy of the journal.  On the down side, I wasn’t paid for my work.  I’m not particularly bothered by this because I don’t feel the pieces are the best reflection of my writing, but are still good enough that I’m not embarrassed for them to be in the public domain.  I have another short story that I’d like to publish but I’m hoping to get paid for it or at least have it distributed to a wider audience.

Okay, Reader, time to engage in a conversation.  What do you think about this publication?  Should I be proud?  Use it in a query? Look for more well-known journals in the future?  Have you ever submitted to a small journal before and what was the outcome?  Please leave a comment on any of these below and let me know your thoughts!