Almost Success - The "Mixed Feelings" Thread

New Myths have just informed me that my story was in the very last pile for consideration, looked like I was within an inch of selling it, when I withdrew it. Why?

They changed their guidelines to allow AI generated work. That doesn't sit well with me at all. If they'd bought it I wouldn't have wanted people reading it and wondering whether I wrote it or not.

@pdblake they're allowing AI generated work?

That strikes me as being very out of touch with the current sentiments in the industry... and really unfortunate

@gideonpsmith Yes, afraid so. https://sites.google.com/newmyths.com/newmyths-com-home/submissions

@pdblake It looks like they are also going to have a contest in the fall—AI versus humans. I am terrified of/interested in the outcome.

@kz_richards Seems a bit odd really. I would imagine most people could tell the difference, but if they prove no one really can then where will we be?

@pdblake It does seem odd. I’m sorry you were so close when you withdrew, but I think it’s the right call. Hopefully your story finds a better home.

Posted by: @pdblake

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@kz_richards Seems a bit odd really. I would imagine most people could tell the difference, but if they prove no one really can then where will we be?

Though they're not unedited AI stories, so I imagine it'll be nigh impossible to tell the difference. I'm pretty sure I could edit an AI draft enough to make it indistinguishable from one of my own stories...

As someone hoping to get out of skilled manual labor, I'm really worried about AI's abilities. It's beginning to look like AI's will consume the creative and white-collar world and us meat-sacks will be stuck doing all the manual labor. Scary.

And when a (separate?) AI learns to edit and select submissions, and--why not--publish online anthologies / ezines itself too, will we be in a situation where there is no meat sack input required at all? An endless sea of AI generated ezines being published by the hour.

I suppose these comments also belong on the "AI as a Writing. Tool" thread too. https://writersofthefuture.com/forum/writing-craft-talent-technique/ai-as-a-writing-tool/ @angelslayah

Posted by: @pdblake

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New Myths have just informed me that my story was in the very last pile for consideration, looked like I was within an inch of selling it, when I withdrew it. Why?

They changed their guidelines to allow AI generated work. That doesn't sit well with me at all. If they'd bought it I wouldn't have wanted people reading it and wondering whether I wrote it or not.

this is a good reminder to me that I also have a piece they held back at the beginning of February that I was planning to withdraw but hadn't gotten to it yet. Now I guess I'm off to do that.

@pdblake Yeah I heard about that. Not a very good thing in my opinion, though others may say they're trying to capitalize on it. Either way, I'm not too eager to submit to them either. Plenty of fish in the sea.

latest rejection (today) read ", although I enjoyed the piece, I regret to tell you that it didn't make it into my "yes" pile"

It may be a form rejection, I don't know, but they said they enjoyed it, so I'm going to take that as a semi-win, especially as I have had a rejection from this particular market in the past and I checked the last one and they didn't say anything about enjoying that one. So *maybe* they liked this one more....? Just not quite enough...

onward and upward ? 

Man, I'm having a real year of near misses in 2023. In addition to 13 responses that I marked as "friendly-form"[*] rejections (my highest ever), and 16 personal rejections, I've made the second round 12 times, and progressed from there to the final round 9 more times--again, both of these are the highest numbers I've ever managed since I started keeping track (going back to 2013).

However, my conversion rate from the final round has been trash this year, with only two stories actually clearing that final hurdle, and none since May. Most of those rejections have been lovely (my most recent one, from Space and Time a couple of days ago, had a lot of wonderful things to say about my story), and aside from the final "acceptances" number, everything this year looks like it's good--but that sharp drop-off to the final number still feels really deflating.

[*] A little context--friendly-form is a flag I have on my junky home-made submission tracking system, and it's a distinction that the Submission Grinder doesn't support, to distinguish between flat form rejections and positive form rejections, or between positive form rejections and actual personal ones. Some markets have two form rejections (Analog and Lightspeed I know for sure), one simply saying that it didn't work for them, while the other indicates that while the story didn't work for them, they did like something about it, and encourage you to submit again. As a rule, if the rejection is a form letter that doesn't reference any details about the story, but still explicitly mentions liking or enjoying it, I flag it that way. 

Held for consideration, Allegory - tho they call this a 'Maybe Letter' 

My mixed feelings com in here: if they don't publish it, finally, they intend to publish a list of 'honorable mentions' or something. 

I'd rather not appear on such a list. I assume they'll honor that request... What do you think?

Well, I got a re-write request...they liked the story, but...so, off to attempt a fix. Sometimes this works. Sometimes this doesn't. Guess I'll see!

Couldn’t not post this here. I just got a rejection after making it to the final round of consideration. Unfortunately, they could only take 7 of the 8 stories, and mine got the axe. 

@kz_richards This is still definitely something to celebrate and I hope that you will - perhaps set a date for a weeks time when the sting of not quite getting there has faded and you can see it with true perspective (I know that often in these circumstances the loss feels more than than the good) but we have to deal with every loss, every chance we get to celebrate we should to try to balance our writers minds. You made it to a hair breadth of a sale, thats worth celebrating

@gideonpsmith Thanks, Gideon. I’m disappointed, but that’s just the way it goes sometimes. I’m sure getting finalist and not winning was much more disappointing. ❤️

Almost success:

I placed finalist in the Baen Fantasy Adventure Award, didn't make the cut. 

I had a story in with The Dark for fifteen days before they rejected it. That length of time surprised me, based on what others have said about them.

I got a personal rejection from Analog. They said "I like your style of writing and suggest that you try us again." So that's exciting!

Since I started serious submissions in March, I'm up to 38 rejections and have 13 pending subs. I feel like I'm teetering on the edge of success, and I need to get a bigger fan to blow me over

@amstard Fantastic news all around! You’re so freakin’ close!

@amstard You are so, so close. The three near misses speak volumes of your work so keep at it and no one will be surprised to see you pop up in the "Success!" thread or Winners circle (triangle!?) at WotF.

I think I got a rejection from The Dark within an hour...crazy (and not on a didn't follow the guidelines automatic rejection either!). So, 15 days suggests you were under serious consideration.

Very kind words. Thank you

I have a story for New Myths’s Janus anthology that made it to “further consideration.” Fingers crossed!

A story of mine is being held by a great pro-market, you know, one of those that open for a couple of weeks a year, with a wave of around 1.4k subs for a handful of lucky winners.

Now, the waiting time has started.

This is my first hold notice ever (I made it to the final cut elsewhere, but they had no hold notices), so I had to shed a tear. Why post in "Mixed Feelings"? First, to celebrate what, to me, is not a small achievement. Second, because this is not success. I jumped from maybe 2% chances to 30%, but it's still a huge gap. In any case, it means that this story is solid. I take this as a win.

Another notch in my "almost success" belt: I got a personalized rejection from Dreamforge Anvil. Mr. Noel wished me the best of luck in WotF and said that he enjoyed my story, even though they didn't select it.

A piece that was held has just been rejected. A form R too, not even quoting the name of the piece. No luck with held pieces here. Second time I have a hold notice, second R. I'm a bit deflated, but statistics say held or not held, the chances are so very low anyway.

I'm at 99 subs, 88 rejections (27 personal), 1 acceptance. I shouldn't look at the wall, I got one in, I know. So around 1% so far, but will drop into decimals only soon if I keep on submitting 🤣 

@hannya Alas! I have my fingers crossed for a hold as well. Keep it up! You're doing great

Posted by: @hannya

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A piece that was held has just been rejected. A form R too, not even quoting the name of the piece. No luck with held pieces here. Second time I have a hold notice, second R. I'm a bit deflated, but statistics say held or not held, the chances are so very low anyway.

I'm at 99 subs, 88 rejections (27 personal), 1 acceptance. I shouldn't look at the wall, I got one in, I know. So around 1% so far, but will drop into decimals only soon if I keep on submitting 🤣 

deflated? Be kinder to yourself I've had 7 acceptances this year. But I would give all seven for your one Nature:Futures! You may have just had one, but what a one!

Thank you Gideon, you're so kind  

I'm celebrating 100 submissions  

Technically 101, but I missed number 100 lol. I mean, it's not 'almost success'. To me, it feels like a success in itself. I didn't give up.

Next step is 100 rejections. Should come quick enough, and that'll be another opportunity for a party!

@hannya The risk and reward of writing/submitting.  Now that I'm keeping track of my rejections with Duotrope, it does get depressing seeing the list of Rs grow.  Nice to put in notes when I get an HM or SHM, but still it's a R.

@hannya 100 is a lot of submissions.  Good job on that.