I have a number of the old blue ones, and one single one (my very first) that's signed Dave Wolverton rather than David Farland. My finalist cert is more like the new white ones, but it has a touch of color that the HM and SHM ones don't.
I'm hoping my Q1 will be my first that does better than a rejection which would mean my first certificate would be signed by Jody Lynn Nye. Thanks again to those who provided formative comments and suggestions on my Q1 story. Much appreciated!
WOTF results:
Vol 42: Q1 SHM, Q2 SHM, Q3 RWC, Q4 P
running totals to date:
WOTF: 6 Rs, 4 RWCs, 8 HMs, 2 SHMs
IOTF: 4 Rs, 3 HMs
Check out my new website: https://www.amyrwethingtonwriterofspeculativeworlds.com/
According to Winston Churchill, "success is going from failure to failure with enthusiasm"
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@doctorjest I have a blue and gold cert from one of my HM's back in the day. My SF is white this time. I'll snap a side-by-side and post the pic so you can see.
"There are three rules to writing a novel. Unfortunately, no one knows what they are." — W. Somerset Maugham
@doctorjest I have a blue and gold cert from one of my HM's back in the day. My SF is white this time. I'll snap a side-by-side and post the pic so you can see.
Congrats! Let us know when you get your critique!
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@doctorjest I have a blue and gold cert from one of my HM's back in the day. My SF is white this time. I'll snap a side-by-side and post the pic so you can see.
Congrats! Let us know when you get your critique!
Yeah...I'm not sure if I actually will...? Not sure how that's being handled now with the passing of The Great One.
"There are three rules to writing a novel. Unfortunately, no one knows what they are." — W. Somerset Maugham
@morgan-broadhead That's fantastic. I hope you're going to frame that puppy. I'm sure they'll arrange a critique for you: they have a horde of insanely-talented judges, I'm sure one of them can spare the time and wisdom to critique each of the SFs.
My HM arrived in the mail today: really loving the stamps. Can't wait to open it when I get home from work in a bajillion hours.
Thanks! The finalist cert looks identical to the semi finalist, then--I have mine framed behind my writing desk at the moment. The other blue and white ones live together in a three ring binder.
I'd be curious to see a semi or finalist cert from the blue days...
I have to admit I'm a big fan of the older blue and gold certificates. I mean, it's cool to get ANY certificate; the older ones just look classier IMHO.
"There are three rules to writing a novel. Unfortunately, no one knows what they are." — W. Somerset Maugham
I didn't realize there were different versions of the certificates depending on the placement of the story--that's a fun detail! The design discussion made me curious, and I tracked down my oldest certificates (from 2010)--here's the one before the blue version:
This is the earliest design I have, so I don't know if there was another one before that, but it's interesting to see all of the variations!
Oh, that's really nice, @bethpowers. Also, I just noticed your signature. 57 entries? That's incredible! That is mind-blowing tenacity. Fingers crossed that this is your year ?
That is one beee-yoo-tee-ful certificate, Beth. 2010 you say. You've been around for a while.You're half the age of Moonie-boy (WotF age, that is). I may need to defer to your expertise in some matters, at some point in time.
3 HMs 6 SHMs Umpteen Rs Still hoping and working toward better - One of these days, Alice . . . POW! We're going to the moon!
I didn't realize there were different versions of the certificates depending on the placement of the story--that's a fun detail! The design discussion made me curious, and I tracked down my oldest certificates (from 2010)--here's the one before the blue version:
This is the earliest design I have, so I don't know if there was another one before that, but it's interesting to see all of the variations!
That would be cool to have a "Certificate Designs Through the Years" kind of thing. Wonder if they have such a thing already over at Author Services.
"There are three rules to writing a novel. Unfortunately, no one knows what they are." — W. Somerset Maugham
Like everyone else I received the white HM one. I have one previous certificate with gold border and gold icon with a quill pen in along the center. Reminds me of a steampunk tale. It's signed by KDW. Maybe the last contest she did. I seem to have lost others I had. Thought I knew where one was but did not find it when we moved three years ago. I didn't receive one I recall. Still should be a couple more. I recall the blue one some have mentioned, but no sign of it. Wish I kept the letter I received that stated my story had gotten to the top 20 percent I think it said. But I threw it out by mistake, not realizing which letter it was. Maybe I can get one from Jody soon. Probably not and none further up the chain though.
Working on turning Lead into Gold.
Four HMs From WotF The latest was Q1'12 HM-quarter 4 Volume 32 One HM for another contest published in Strange New Worlds Ten. Another HM http://onthepremises.com/minis/mini_18.html
Oh, that's really nice, @bethpowers. Also, I just noticed your signature. 57 entries? That's incredible! That is mind-blowing tenacity. Fingers crossed that this is your year ?
That's what happens when you don't miss a quarter...since 2008! I have high hopes for my Q1 and a couple of stories I have planned for the rest of the year, so we'll see!
That is one beee-yoo-tee-ful certificate, Beth. 2010 you say. You've been around for a while.You're half the age of Moonie-boy (WotF age, that is). I may need to defer to your expertise in some matters, at some point in time.
I've been submitting for awhile now, but I only leveled up to SHM recently--the contest deadlines have given me incentive to write a lot of stories over the years, though!
That would be cool to have a "Certificate Designs Through the Years" kind of thing. Wonder if they have such a thing already over at Author Services.
That would be neat--I think it would be fun to see all of the variations! Someday, I'd like to track all of mine down (I've moved several times since I started submitting, so they're all stored in various places in the house) and take a picture of them lined up! Then I could see if there are any other variations too!
I didn't realize there were different versions of the certificates depending on the placement of the story--that's a fun detail! The design discussion made me curious, and I tracked down my oldest certificates (from 2010)--here's the one before the blue version:
This is the earliest design I have, so I don't know if there was another one before that, but it's interesting to see all of the variations!
That is a really pretty cert! I didn't put in my first entry until 2014--I talked myself out of entering for years prior to that, after convincing myself I wasn't good enough. And I probably wasn't good enough yet, but I wish I'd thought to try anyway, and found my way to the forums back then.
@bethpowers That’s a beauty. There’s another design before that one, blue with gold stars, with real calligraphy in gold paint for your name and dates. I was entering in the 90s. ?
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@bethpowers That’s a beauty. There’s another design before that one, blue with gold stars, with real calligraphy in gold paint for your name and dates. I was entering in the 90s. ?
That one sounds very impressive! When you mentioned the blue one before, I assumed that you meant the other blue one between this one and the current white one, but your description makes me wish I had started entering earlier! I was writing in the 90s, but I didn't submit until later
@storysinger I think an archive of certificate designs would be interesting!
Got two story submissions that have made it well past the average reply time for their respective magazines, and with this quarter undecided as yet, I'm just a big ole ball of anticipation and anxiety!
Hope everyone else is hanging in there and still writing. Six weeks until submission time for the next Quarter!
Got two story submissions that have made it well past the average reply time for their respective magazines...
In my limited experience, the whole industry bogs down over the Winter Break of Xmas/NY and doesn't recover its pace till March. Anyone else got an observation on this?
Got two story submissions that have made it well past the average reply time for their respective magazines...
In my limited experience, the whole industry bogs down over the Winter Break of Xmas/NY and doesn't recover its pace till March. Anyone else got an observation on this?
I'd say that I do see that, but at the same time, if you're paying attention to the Submission Grinder, you can see what kind of average response times a given market is running, and where you are with respect to the times currently being posted.
Sometimes, you can see that a market is lagging, too, when the date and the response-times are climbing in tandem, or close--so if on the 10th people are getting 15 day rejections, and on the 20th they're getting 25 day rejections, that means they're still processing stories that were received on the same day.
I try not to get into it too much. I'm also bad at not getting into it too much.
Got two story submissions that have made it well past the average reply time for their respective magazines...
In my limited experience, the whole industry bogs down over the Winter Break of Xmas/NY and doesn't recover its pace till March. Anyone else got an observation on this?
I'd say that I do see that, but at the same time, if you're paying attention to the Submission Grinder, you can see what kind of average response times a given market is running, and where you are with respect to the times currently being posted.
Sometimes, you can see that a market is lagging, too, when the date and the response-times are climbing in tandem, or close--so if on the 10th people are getting 15 day rejections, and on the 20th they're getting 25 day rejections, that means they're still processing stories that were received on the same day.
I try not to get into it too much. I'm also bad at not getting into it too much.
Rejectomancy is a way of life, and the Grinder is our crafting table.
V34: R,HM,R V35: HM,R,R,HM V36: R,HM,HM,SHM V37: HM,SF,SHM,SHM V38: (P)F, SHM, F, F V39: SHM, SHM, HM, SHM
Published Finalist Volume 38 Pro’d out Q4V39 www.rebeccaetreasure.com
Got two story submissions that have made it well past the average reply time for their respective magazines...
In my limited experience, the whole industry bogs down over the Winter Break of Xmas/NY and doesn't recover its pace till March. Anyone else got an observation on this?
I've got a few that are well overdue too. Looking at the data on grinder they seem to be more behind than holding though.
And several other people sort of touch on this: there's "over the average" and there's "held over after culling" and the two are completely different. As long as "the Grinder" says they haven't got to me yet, I hold out no particular hope. It's when the market has just passed and left me standing I get foolishly excited. Weeks after that I begin to hope. The worst is: Form rejection after "grinder" has pretty conclusively shown I made second (or third) cut. Maybe a personal word or two would be in line then? But whatever. You're busy. Not like, you know, MY job is hard!
And several other people sort of touch on this: there's "over the average" and there's "held over after culling" and the two are completely different. As long as "the Grinder" says they haven't got to me yet, I hold out no particular hope. It's when the market has just passed and left me standing I get foolishly excited. Weeks after that I begin to hope. The worst is: Form rejection after "grinder" has pretty conclusively shown I made second (or third) cut. Maybe a personal word or two would be in line then? But whatever. You're busy. Not like, you know, MY job is hard!
Some places do tiered forms, which helps with that for me.
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Some places do tiered forms, which helps with that for me.
I like those too--it's been nice to get a few of the second-tier form rejections from nicer markets. Getting the "please submit more" types of rejections from markets I aspire to has been very encouraging, as you know you're doing something right, even if it's not everything quite yet.
For my current chunk of submissions, I have a few pending at markets that are running behind, but also a couple that are beyond the mark for the more recent Grinder-reported rejections, with one standing tall in "I wonder if they even received it" territory. Those usually turn into rejections eventually, but it's still nice to be in that zone now and then.
The finalist cert looks identical to the semi finalist, then--I have mine framed behind my writing desk at the moment. The other blue and white ones live together in a three ring binder.
