More Acceptances, More Headaches

I can’t believe I’m complaining.

This year has been a roller coaster of acceptances for my short stories and micro nonfiction pieces. Maybe elevator is more the analogy, a sideways one.

The average so far has been one acceptance a month. Actually a little more because

1)      I haven’t done the best job of keeping track

2)      Journals/editors have also not taken the time to do due diligence in contacting me about my work

This has always been the case. I’ve gotten a lot better about tracking my submissions and entering all rejections, pending, acceptances electronically into the grid system. When I do have an acceptance I try to withdraw the piece immediately from other places. Recently, I discovered examples of both of the above. I got an acceptance and said yes. Then forgot. And it was accepted elsewhere where I said yes, again, and then withdrew it, forgetting totally about the former “yes.” The second time was the fault of the editor. Two journals accepted Little Norway and when I withdrew it from pending locations an editor contacted me saying they had taken it and actually published it online WITHOUT NOTIFICATION. I checked my spam folder=nothing. I’m not sure how this happened as I believe they did everything in good faith. Nevertheless, I had to ask them to take it down. In the end, they took another piece instead.

It’s been stressful, all this keeping track. And, did I mention no one is paying me for my work. As I’ve mentioned before at this blog: Louisa May Alcott made more from her published short stories in the 1870s, 80s than I’ve ever received.

Soo other work for updates!