{"id":3367,"date":"2012-06-15T06:00:18","date_gmt":"2012-06-15T11:00:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.confabulatorcafe.com\/?p=3367"},"modified":"2012-06-15T06:00:18","modified_gmt":"2012-06-15T11:00:18","slug":"sase-self-aggrandizing-submission-envy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.confabulatorcafe.com\/?p=3367","title":{"rendered":"SASE (Self-Aggrandizing Submission Envy)"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Spies use mailboxes, don’t they? Photo at Wikipedia.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Back when I was trying to break into comics as a writer, I submitted several pitches. This was back in the day before the Big Two (that\u2019s Marvel and DC for those who don\u2019t know) closed down their slushpiles. I got very nice rejection letters from DC and I have them around here somewhere. One from another smaller publisher even offered some feedback that was very helpful.<\/p>\n

I had a relationship with one small publisher and one editor (each at different places) and got very nice emails that were terribly encouraging though both passed on the projects. I was encouraged. I should give them credit for me still wanting to be creative even though I had put my heart and soul into the projects I submitted. They told me I was good enough but the stories weren\u2019t what they published. Sigh.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Esquire magazine opened submissions for a contest and I sent a story there, which also got turned down. It was at that point that I decided to self-publish some short stories. I established my website and off I went.<\/p>\n

Nowadays, my submissions are to the publisher<\/a> of the Evolver<\/a> series. (There\u2019s a second series in the works, but it hasn\u2019t been announced yet. Hopefully that will happen soon.) Recently I sent in a draft of one book and an outline for another. As the song goes, the waiting is the hardest part.<\/p>\n

I have a plan to submit my novel when it\u2019s ready. I know exactly where I want to send it and I\u2019m working hard to get to that end.<\/p>\n

As far as having the guts to submit short stories elsewhere, I just haven\u2019t done it yet. Every time I get ready to start working on that, something has gotten in the way. Work, life, whatever. My real hangup has been just researching the damn markets and trying to figure out where my stories fit. I\u2019ve claimed on my website that I write science fiction, suspense, supernatural, and fantasy stories but very few fit neatly into one category. Often, my stories straddle one or more of the genres I claim to write in. At least I think so.<\/p>\n

It was only recently that I figured out that my SF novel fits into the subgenre called Space Opera. Jeez, that\u2019s gonna be problematic. SO has a questionable reputation despite being the most popular form of SF out there. My story (along with others I have that are shorter) isn\u2019t as epic as Star Wars<\/em> and probably won\u2019t have the same appeal as something like Firefly<\/em> or Ender\u2019s Game<\/em>. Doesn\u2019t matter though.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m pretty happy to have finally figured out the subgenre. I think that\u2019s really been my problem all along. No one\u2019s told me my stuff is what it is, I\u2019ve had to discover that for myself. I\u2019ve always said a story is a story regardless of genre. Historical fiction is easy to spot, and sometimes science fiction is easy to spot but not always. (I think Inception<\/em> is a terrific SF thriller but I\u2019m not sure a lot of people figured out it was SF. Also something like The Boys From Brazil is really SF, but people focus on the thriller aspect of it because – well, because SF is the purview of teenaged boys, I suppose. I digress…)<\/p>\n

Regardless, this all-over-the-place-ramble of a post is supposed to put a fine point on submissions. I haven\u2019t sent my stories away a lot. I should because I’m ready and I’m getting that thick skin developed. It’s fear that’s held me back, to be honest. However, now that I\u2019m comfortable with where my stories fall in terms of genre, I\u2019ll be going to the mailbox a lot more often.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Back when I was trying to break into comics as a writer, I submitted several pitches. This was back in the day before the Big Two (that\u2019s Marvel and DC for those who don\u2019t know) closed down their slushpiles. I got very nice rejection letters from DC and I have them around here somewhere. One […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[207,1074],"class_list":["post-3367","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-writers-life","tag-comics","tag-story-submissions"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.confabulatorcafe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3367","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.confabulatorcafe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.confabulatorcafe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.confabulatorcafe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.confabulatorcafe.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3367"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.confabulatorcafe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3367\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.confabulatorcafe.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3367"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.confabulatorcafe.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3367"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.confabulatorcafe.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3367"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}