There is a lot of waiting in the writing business than I imagined. On August 19, I submitted a very short story to Writers Digest. Sixty days later, they still haven't revealed the five finalists. I also submitted "I Will Save You" to Uncanny Magazine on 31 August. I am still waiting to hear back 48 days later. Submissions are due for the F(r)iction contest on 1 November, but winners will not be announced until 18 April.
To be clear, I am not faulting any of these magazines for the length of time. I get it. There are so many entries that reading and reviewing must take forever. I am sure losers or rejected contestants do make the job easier.
I raised this because it was something I was not expecting. I've read a lot about preparing myself for rejections, but I've not heard that those rejections often come after a lengthy hold. I can see the buildup of anticipation deepening the emotional investment. In many cases, the stories can only go to one publisher at a time, focusing authors on a single decision at any given time. Pieces will also take much longer to go through the rounds of all the possible publishers and restart the cycle of submit/reject each time it is submitted.
I am not deterred. I will be cleaning up plenty of material to run through this process.
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