Wednesday, February 25, 2009

First time for everything

Check out my story Premonition on Flashesinthedark.com today.

So I was perusing some of the mags that I have sent stories to lately and I came across something I have never come across in a literary mag, ever. You know the ones who have the really cool submission systems that have become pretty common lately. Most literary mags actually use the same one. I understand it is a subscription thing (I think it costs them $300 a year to use it) but it standardizes things and makes it easy on the writers. They only have to log into the system to see that they did indeed get the story. No need to bug the editors because it is in the system, although I have a feeling that this doesn't stop some people.

Now usually these things will have a message on there, something like *pending* or something else *declined*. I have never seen anything other than these two things until last night when I went to Opium Mag's and it read *recommended for publication* Now I understand this is a hold and will probably go through a couple more editors (if it makes it past the next one) before I hear from them, good or bad. I was still flabbergasted. I didn't think the process would allow it to say anything other than *pending* or *declined* although I have heard that, when the wind blows from the northern plains and you are holding your tongue just right it will read *accepted*.

In other news, Chapter 9 knocked out, cold. Starting Chapter 10 today. Officially in Novella length territory.

12 comments:

Aaron Polson said...

Raul was one cold dude. Hope the winds blow just right.

Jamie Eyberg said...

Thanks Aaron. He did come across as a little calloused.

Cate Gardner said...

Recommended for publication, I'd have whooped. Oh my! As I've long said, the internet is a fabulous place.

And, cool story. :)

Jamie Eyberg said...

Cate- I did a little yell, and my daughter was in the room at the time (she is six) and said 'good for you dad.' I luv the internet.

Anonymous said...

I've never seen a system like this. What a great idea. I spend way too much time having the "Should I query?" argument with myself.

Jamie Eyberg said...

Brady- Welcome to the ol' blog to start. Second, the submission tracker thing seems to be relegated to Literary mags (crazyhorse, west branch, One Story. . .) although it doesn't have to be. The genre markets just haven't found it yet (or they don't have the public funding that many of the lit markets have from university and government grants to pay for the subscription)

Fox Lee said...

I like the character of Raul. He was an ass, but his intent was purely practical. If he truly believed they were doomed, trying to save them would been pointless exertion.

A great story, and neat commentary on the psychology behind human behavior : )

Danielle Birch said...

Very creepy. I loved it. And well done on another chapter.

BT said...

Excellent - excellent story, excellent news, excellent progress.

Fear & Trembling use the same tracker process so at least one genre mag has found it.

I suddenly fell like Mr Burns - excellent!

Jameson T. Caine said...

Great story! Raul reminds me a little bit of...me. Is that scary?

Adrian Todd Zuniga said...

Hey, wanted to give some insight to our process at Opium: I'm all for encouraging writers, and I love the idea of the writer feeling like they're moving along, with us, in the process of our reading their story. We're slower than we'd like (I make all the final decisions for print), and any encouragement along the way seems like a great thing.

Plus, I'm a huge fan of anticipation, who isn't? And this seems to fill that bill, too.

Anyway, eager to read your story, will get to it soon-like!

Todd

Jamie Eyberg said...

Thanks everyone for the kind words on the story. Very nice of you. Probably too nice *scratches chin and looks around the room*

Todd- Thank you for stopping by. I have no hard feelings, either way. There are a lot of good writers out there putting out a ton of brilliant material. As they say at the Oscars, it is an honor to be nominated.