Submitting Through the Blog, I Mean Dog, Days of Summer

August -- the dog days of summer are upon us as Sirius once again approaches the sun. Siriusly. Those days when a frozen mudslide or a tall glass of sangria on the back porch sounds like a better option for many a writer than pounding your head against the keyboard for an hour or two. Well, if you don't feel like sweating out something completely new, consider this: many journals closed for 'the summer' actually open their reading periods in August, and might be looking for something cool and refreshing in their own in-boxes.

This month I'm going to try and fill my rejection-depleted submission log back up with plenty of active, pending, possibly even (oh, to hope), accepted submissions.

I started with three stories that had recently been rejected, and gave them a critical once-over. Two survived relatively unscathed (there's always a word, or a sentence, or a paragraph or two, that can be improved), and those are now both out to a couple of journals each, with more simultaneous submissions of them to go out as the month progresses. The third needs significant work on the beginning, but I hope will be going out later in the month as well.

At least one submission a day is my goal; 31 new outstanding entries in the log for the month. Hmm, that last bit means that for at least one day in August I'm going to have to send out at least two stories. You see, Catalonia Review rejected my story in one (count it, that's o-n-e, one) day, with the ever-helpful polite rejection note ("Thank you for sharing your thoughts and for letting us consider this work, but we will pass this time.") Not a record -- I've had a piece rejected on the same day that I sent it out -- but still pretty damn quick.

I'll survive. In the heat of summer I thrive.

Now how are we fixed for stamps?

Thanks for reading,

Stephen