Sunday, June 15, 2008

how long is too long?

Compared notes with a fiction writer yesterday. One magazine kept her work for 10 months before rejecting it. I just received a cheerleadery note from an online journal that kept my poems so long my style has changed. Then rejected me with an urgent request to send more. Questions for writers out there: How long is too long? Do you distinguish between print and online journals?

Put the kayaks in for the first time this summer. Sounds lovely, but it was straight-up urban: dragging them over rocks to a patch of pebbles and launching next to the storm sewer.

No poems. But garden is flourishing. Ate walleye last night steamed on the grill with homegrown fennel and baby arugula.

This is not a joke, but it's funny: A blind man got on the bus, and some grumbling folks created a small space for him to sit. When he asked where he could sit, everyone pointed.

Ben said I should write the next break-out musical, titled BUS!

9 comments:

Anonymous said...

That kind of thing happens to blind people often. One time I went to dinner with Max who is completely blind the waiter turned to me and asked "what does he want?" I said he is blind not deaf nor stupid ask him......

Nin Andrews said...

Hi Amy, that's my blog issue of the week. I'd love a list of places that don't respond in a year or more. Some places never respond at all.

If you have names, please send them to me? I'd love to know before I mail out to places that the wait could be forever . . .

And yeah, I've been asked for orgasm poems by reviews that still have those! And yeah, I suppose I can still write them, but for real . . .

Amy said...

Randall, do those waiters get a tip?
Nin, I'll give you a couple names. And I'm afraid you're stuck with those "orgasms"....!

marybid said...

Y'all have seen this, right?

http://www.jefferybahr.com
/Publications/RptSubTimes.asp

I'm waiting for some stuff I sent out in March. I haven't queried in a long time, probably because I don't do sim-subs any more.

It annoys me if something sits for more than 9 months. That's a gestation period, right?

Amy said...

Mary, thanks for the link! Nine months is way too long for me, unless they're sim-subs (which I don't do, except by accident...). Six months is stretching it, I think.

Erin O'Brien said...

My rejection stories are so sad and myriad, I have an entire site dedicated to them.


If you don't want to schlepp through all my silly rejection Youtubes, this is one of the worst stories.

mother effers.

tbarnardiii said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
tbarnardiii said...

Ahhh... fennel

Unknown said...

one journal that shall remain nameless has rejected me six times, yet keeps asking for more with each rejection note. take the poems, i say! take them! it's very frustrating.

i think 4 months should be the max. only in poetry are these long response times the norm. i tend to have about 10 submissions out at a time and even so, i await the mailbox moment every time i get home.

online journals get read, and to me that has great appeal. in my experience, the editors of online journals tend to respond faster and publish the poems more quickly, thereby clearing the dust catchers for my desk.