Hannah Karena Jones

An Occupational Hazard: Why Writers Resent Holidays

Let’s be honest. We always become really committed to write, to create, to finally-put-that-great-story-idea-on-paper the exact moment that we can’t; namely, when we have other commitments be they to family, friends, traditions, dirty dishes, school, our bodies. It’s convenient. It’s certainly easier to glower and blame an early morning sunrise service, a parade, or a required family feast for intruding upon our precious writing time than to accept that there are a billion other vacant hours we could use for writing that we simply waste instead. If we just empowered ourselves to push the power off button on the TV more often…

Fellow writers, don’t resent the fact that the kids have off from school today, that the pleasant weather is calling you outside, that you’ve been invited to a super time-consuming backyard barbecue. Go do it, enjoy it, and–if it makes you feel better–know that you have another experience to file away in your pack-rat of a brain to use in future writings.

When you recommit to writing and submitting on Tuesday, consider today’s spotlight journal, Cicada Magazine.

Quick Info about Cicada

What they want: fiction/non-fiction (up to 5,000 words), “Expressions” (350-1,500 words), poems (up to 25 lines). The magazine is aimed at an audience of readers age 14 and up, so the material must be appropriate (some minor curse words allowed, but keep to a minimum; no suicide or rape) and applicable to readers’ experiences. They’re interested in pretty much everything–realistic, contemporary, historical, humor, mysteries, fantasy, and science fiction–and are particularly craving some humor submissions.

How they want it: snail mail or email. Check out the website for further submission guidelines.

When they want it: rolling submissions, anytime throughout the year. Subject to change, though, because sometimes they close submissions for a few months.

How long they say it takes to get back to you: within 12 weeks, faster if email submission.

How long I say it took for them to get back to me: 27 days for a “good” rejection letter last time, currently waiting 14 weeks on two poetry submissions (upon realizing that it’s much longer that their promised wait time just this very second, now I’m worried that maybe they lost my poetry submissions. Perhaps I should email them and check. If I don’t hear anything from them by Tuesday night I’ll email them Wednesday morning. Maybe the holiday messed with their reviewing schedule.) All my submissions to them were via email.

Do they pay? Yes!

I HIGHLY recommend (as I would with every magazine and journal) reading several copies before submitting. Some local libraries have subscriptions, but if you can’t find any free copies, you can subscribe for not too much of an expense. If you are committed to young adult writing, you really must be familiar with this journal because it’s one of the leading literary journals for the age group. Don’t worry, you can always write it off on taxes.

Also, if you really like writing for children, but for a different age group, consider getting familiar with the whole Cricket magazine family:

Concerning their particular plea for humor of any brand, if you have it and you know it fits the age group, send it in! Because they really need it, your story has a better statistical chance than general submissions for getting a big friendly acceptance.

Their website also has this awesome thing called the Slam where you can submit short excerpts of your writing to get posted and critiqued online by other writers and readers. It’s competitive and not for the “faint-of-heart,” but you get good feedback and the magazine publishes the best of the Slam in one of the issues every year.

While you’re waiting to hear back about your submissions…distract yourself with a sunny parade. Happy Memorial Day!

Listen to Your Mother: Waiting By the Phone Never Gets You Anywhere

Sixty-five unopened emails greeted me. Not a single one was about my submissions. An awful great amount were from Victoria’s Secret and Barnes and Noble, warning me about last-minute sales. Lame. One was The Honors Review, announcing that the print version of this year’s issue are heading out in the mail this week (!!!) So, I guess it’s not all bad news; I’ll get to see my name in print soon. But after seven whole days away from the computer, I was expecting to have some rejection and/or acceptance emails waiting for me. A reward, of sorts, for being Patient and Technology-Free. Apparently, that award has been officially retired, so I’m glad that I didn’t spend vast portions of the past week pining away, refreshing my email and compulsively checking literary journal websites (which I’m off to do right now). Even forgetting about the EXISTENCE of the pot of water on the stove didn’t make it boil faster.

On this day upon which I cannot look forward to any responses at all because everybody in the literary and mail delivery world is sleeping in (or at church) I am still waiting upon…

Painted Bride Quarterly (date submitted: January 4th; what submitted: 1 fiction, 1 non-fiction) TWT (Total Wait Time): 5 months, 5 days
Cicada (date submitted: February 16th; what submitted: 2 poems) TWT: 3 months, 2 weeks, 4 days
matchbook (date submitted: March 7th; what submitted: 1 short short fiction) TWT: 2 months, 3 weeks, 6 days
The Susquehanna Review (date submitted: March 14th; what submitted: 1 fiction, 2 non-fiction) TWT: 2 months, 2 weeks, 6 days
Zahir (date submitted: April 25th; what submitted: 1 fiction) TWT: 1 month, 6 days
Sigma Tau Delta Rectangle (date submitted: May 11th; what submitted: 1 non-fiction) TWT: 2 weeks, 4 days
Brevity (date submitted: today, May 19th; what submitted: 1 non-fiction) TWT: 1 week, 3 days

Please forgive me if I counted up the TWT wrong. Math isn’t my strong suit.

How long have you all been waiting to hear back?

P.S. Tybee Island and Savannah, Georgia, were awesome. I highly recommend you visit if you enjoy the beach, seeing a brick wall pockmarked with cannon-ball holes, lighthouses, seafood, ice cream, dolphins, reading historical plaques attached to big tall monuments, or were ever a Girl Scout.

There’s Absolutely Nothing New or Interesting in the Publishing World

Or at least, if there is, I don’t know about it.

I’m on vacation in Georgia this week with the best boyfriend in the world and it is a complete vacation. I refuse to be chained to my computer or worry about all the NYU publishing institute homework I should be finishing up. In fact, I left my computer at home and this week’s blog posts were pre-written and my super sister is publishing them on the appropriate day. (Don’t expect this to be a habit. I assure you, every week but this one will be chock-full with fresh, interesting, current information.)

But today? I choose to lay on the beach and take a nap instead.

To keep you busy while you wait, though, check out Writer’s Relief. The website is an endless network of helpful and encouraging articles. Also, if you’re interested, they are a company who–for a small fee–will submit your work for you. If all you’re getting is bad rejection letters, maybe you’re submitting to the wrong places. Writer’s Relief might be able to help.

A Compressed Response Time at The Journal of Compressed Creative Arts

It’s new. It’s flashy. And they’re wicked fast.

I submitted at 1am on Tuesday, May 17th and I got a response by 11am on Thursday, May 19th (it was the good rejection letter I mentioned earlier on this blog). In the world of literary journals, where the wait ranges from 6 weeks to 6 months, that is an impressive turnaround rate.

Associated with the Rosemont College MFA program, The Journal of Compressed Creative Arts, a strictly online publication, has debuted within the past month and is accepting fiction and non-fiction submissions until August 15th. They are publishing a favorite submissions on the website every week during that time. They’ll be accepting poetry later in the year.

The only catch? Prose has to be sub-600 words and poetry will also have to be extremely compressed. As they like to phrase it: “We publish (very) tiny, compressed prose creations of 600 words or less. We use Submishmash for all submissions. We value form, character, and words that fit to both. Experimentation is interesting. Experimentation for the sake of appearing experimental is less interesting. We like close reading and close writing. We like to feel what we read before we understand.”

So visit their website to see what kinds of works they’re choosing and get a feel for what you should write, compress, and submit. Every email they send–even the automated message confirming the receipt–is warm, friendly, and makes you fall in love with this new journal a little more.

If you’re tired of waiting and want to hear some news immediately, submit right now!

Mythbuster: The “Good” Rejection Letter

Believe it or not, there are two types of rejection letters: bad ones, and good ones. The bad ones are form letters, one that the editors obviously composed and mass sent out to authors, merely filling in the blanks for name and perhaps the title of the submission. Good rejection letters, on the other hand, are very personal and specific to you as a writer and your submission. These usually contain extra-heartbreaking details like that they loved it, but they don’t have room in the journal, or it was well-written and entertaining but not quite “dovetailing with current editorial needs.” Sometimes they ask you to submit again in the future (make sure you do, because editors don’t say that lightly!) Though it hurts more because you were just that close to getting published, it should also make you feel awesome and accomplished!

On Thursday, I got two rejection letters. One was good, the other was bad. When I read the good one, I was disappointed because I’m really fond of the journal and thought it was the perfect place for my short story. But the editor had such nice things to say, explaining how many of the review board members really enjoyed it and “wanted more,” it kind of softened the blow. But it also taught me two things:

I know that my submission was close to what they wanted, so I’m better informed about what to submit next time
Obviously, they thought the story was good, just not quite for them, (having someone’s opinion besides mine, my mom’s, and my sister’s–which are all heavily biased in my favor–who thinks it’s a good story is always reassuring!)

And guess what that means? I definitely must submit it elsewhere because it’s only a matter of time before it finds the right home. When I skipped out back to tell Mom, who was stained green from cutting the grass, I was excited. “I got a rejection letter,” I shouted over the lawnmower. “But it was a good one.” I read it allowed to her and she was excited too.

We did not have a similar happy dance for the bad rejection letter–a totally impersonal form one–I received later in the afternoon.

So if you’ve gotten a rejection letter–good or bad–make sure you submit it somewhere else, immediately. Don’t wait around, moping. Even though waiting to hear back from a journal is about as enjoyable as plucking your eyebrows, waiting to get published without actually submitting stuff is much much worse. And it makes the wait a lot longer. As soon as I got the good rejection, I sent the story to Brevity through submishmash. But now I can wait, and look forward to a letter from them.

I am presently waiting on:

Painted Bride Quarterly (date submitted: January 4th; what submitted: 1 fiction, 1 non-fiction)
Cicada (date submitted: February 16th; what submitted: 2 poems)
matchbook (date submitted: March 7th; what submitted: 1 short short fiction)
The Susquehanna Review (date submitted: March 14th; what submitted: 1 fiction, 2 non-fiction)
Zahir (date submitted: April 25th; what submitted: 1 fiction)
Sigma Tau Delta Rectangle (date submitted: May 11th; what submitted: 1 non-fiction)
Brevity (date submitted: today, May 19th; what submitted: 1 non-fiction

Has anyone out there submitted to any of these places and heard back recently? Are you experiencing similar wait times? Lets keep each other company while we wait.

And for those of you who’s feelings are still hurt about rejection letters, at least you weren’t rejected with a post it note.

The Best Writer’s Block: A Vacation

Just letting you all know that I shall be leaving for Tybee Island and Savannah, Georgia tonight at 11pm. It’s a week-long vacation and I won’t have access to a computer or internet so I won’t be blogging. However, I’ve pre-blogged for the week the three posts I would normally put up. My fabulous younger sister will be publishing them on the appropriate days, so forgive any glitches or belated posts.

I promise to bring back inspiring pictures of the South and blog about some specifically Southern journals that I’ve submitted to.

While you wait, keep submitting!

The One Downfall to Being Published Electronically: You Can’t Sign a Kindle

Personally, I started out being rather iffy/stand-offish/old-fashioned about the whole e-book revolution. Give me a physically bound book or give me death, I cried over-dramatically. I was particularly fond of Meg Cabot’s continued complaint that ebooks are not bathtub friendly (not that paper books are really very compatible with getting wet either, but at least they don’t carry the threat of electrocution should they be dropped in the tub*). But then my boyfriend’s parents gave me a beautiful beautiful kindle for Christmas and I realized how awesome it was. One of the main benefits is that I do not have to drive to Barnes & Nobles the day a book came out in stores. I can buy it in my own home, for less money! (And by home I totally mean my bed. In my pjs.) Also, I could downgrade to a smaller purse because I didn’t need the space for three books at any given time anymore.

The moral of the story is that e-books are now formally a BIG DEAL and I’m really glad that I jumped on the bandwagon. They’re such a big deal in publishing that, in mine and others opinions, they significantly change the entire view of self-publishing. For a long time, the perception was that everything self-published was so personal and completely unedited that only immediate family members were going to buy it. There are some exceptions, of course. John Erickson, author of the Hank the Cowdog series, self-published and sold thousands of copies out of the back of his pickup at rodeos. His books became so popular that a traditional publisher proposed a traditional book deal. So if you’re struggling to self-promote right now, stay committed! It might pay off big.

Obviously, though, self-publishing requires a huge time commitment to self-marketing. However, with publication avenues like Kindle that offer a national audience, it’s becoming easier and self-published 99cent books are becoming best sellers. Which choice is best for you?

There were lots of developments with magazine apps and the iPad this week, if you want to keep updated. Also, if you have an iPad you might want to check out Nomad Editions. How long before literary journals follow suit?

It might be awhile before that happens, but there’s definitely an increase in online literary publications. If you’re hesitant about being published on the internet, something to consider is that, statistically, you have a better chance of getting published. Think about it. If a print issue only has 40-pages, they are bound to that space limitation. But the internet can have endless amounts of pages. Philadelphia Stories, for example, prints some stories on their website that they didn’t have room for in the print copy. And Painted Bride Quarterly offers the unique opportunity to get published on their website through their monthly Sidecar.

On a separate note, for those of you going through the critique and editing process, you’re not alone.

*I actually have no idea whether or not e-books emit electricity when drowned. They plug into wall outlets like a hairdryer, though, so I worry.

The Plan

Welcome to The (Writer’s) Waiting Room! As anyone who’s ever gotten stuck in a real life doctor’s waiting room with nothing good to read knows, the wait can turn into a vortex of wasted, unproductive time. It’s boring. And, unless you want to make friends with that guy in the corner who might–definitely, probably–have swine flu, it’s lonely too.

One of the main activities for writers is waiting: waiting to hear back from that magazine, journal, literary agent, publisher. As soon as we send out a submission or query letter, we set up camp in a new, torturous waiting room. If you’re really serious about writing, you’ve sent out materials to multiple places, constructing multiple waiting rooms.

Sometimes you know it’s going to 6-8 weeks. But, more often than not, you don’t even know how long the wait is going to be. It gets to the point that you don’t even care if there’s a slew of rejection letters waiting for you in the mailbox (or email), you just want to hear back from somebody–anybody–who has read your work.

The question becomes how do you distract yourself in the meantime. And the answer is…

Wait for it.

[…]

This blog!

I’m designing the (Writer’s) Waiting Room to keep you company while you wait. I’ll provide as much information as I can about how long the wait is for specific publications, offer information about other journals and contests you should simultaneously submit to (stay productive!), and post links to other blogs, articles, and publishing trends that can help improve your craft, your submission tactics, and encourage you to keep writing while you wait!

What to Expect:

Slow Sundays: on the one day of the week with no mail delivery (and the highly unlikely chance of a journal sending out an email) I’ll tally up how long I’ve been waiting for certain journals to get back to me. And I’ll encourage you to chime in if you’ve submitted to the same journals and contribute to the statistics for how long the average wait-time is.

New Magazine Mondays: starting out the week fresh, I’ll give a little bio on a small journal accepting submissions. If you have a short story that fits the bill, submit there! I’ll also try to stick to journals I’ve personally submitted to so I can provide the expected wait time.

Writer’s Wednesdays: discussions on and links to articles and blog posts that writers should read. Hopefully some inspire you and it’ll be a good kick-off to give you some things to do the rest of your week.

Why Should Anybody Listen to Me?

I’m a writer. For those of you who need to know my credentials to trust me, I have work published or forthcoming in Inside Pennsylvania, The Stillwater Review, The Honors Review (available for viewing at http://honorsreview.wordpress.com/current/), and I recently won 2nd place in The Baltimore Review Creative Non-Fiction Contest. By no stretch of the imagination am I claiming to be an awesome guru or a well-published role model, but I love writing and I’m serious about submitting my work. With my excessive amount of submissions to various journals, I believe that I’ve scouted out a portion of the publishing market pretty well and I want to share what I’ve learned. At the very least, you can find out how long you might have to wait based upon my personal experience. Maybe it’s because we’re embarrassed about rejections, but I don’t think writers share this sort of information enough and I want to change that. So I encourage you to comment on my posts and share how long you’ve had to wait for responses (you don’t have to admit if it was acceptance or rejection, don’t worry!)

So, my main campaign is to keep busy while you wait.

Tune in if you want to join The (Writer’s) Waiting Room and stop waiting alone.