It may end up that way, but right now it’s a moan. There’s been an American theme anthology open for submissions for a while now. Very odd and interesting title, very restricted theme, and initially I had no intention of writing for it. My subconscious – as it often does – had other ideas. I sat down to write letters last week, and found I was writing a short story, just under 4,000 words, and very specificically for this anthology. Okay. I finished the story, revised, edited, filed, and went to have a (very) late lunch.
Back on line after that I chased up where I remembered seeing the anthology listed, ah *****, I clicked on the listing, the little thing that goes around did so, indicating that it was connecting to the anthology site, around and around and…after five minutes I got the impression that the little circling thing was a liar. I went to a different site, and clicked on the anthology there. the little thing that goes around did so, indicating that it was connecting to the anthology site, around and around and…after five minutes I got the impression that the little circling thing was a liar.
I googled for the anthology publisher, got their name, brought that up on a search, clicked on the name – the little thing that goes around did so, indicating that it was connecting to the publishing site, around and around and…after five minutes I got the impression that the little circling thing was a liar. I was irritated by all this, it seemed possible that the problem wasn’t my computer but the publisher site, however I kept trying.
So I started trawling market sites and on one of them found the editor’s email address for submissions. I did an email, attached the story, and fired it off optimistically. Two things on all of this. The editor had been complaining that he hadn’t been offered many good stories, and I wonder if it wasn’t because most writers aren’t as obstinate as I am. The other thing is that my @#$% subconscious seems to have another story in mind for that !@#$% anthology!
And an update to this post on March 1st. I finally did get into the site, and yes, the email I found elsewhere was right. Meanwhile my subsconscious had indeed been working undercover, and the anthology currently now has two submissions from me.