Discussion Q4 Volume 38

Posted by: @morgan-broadhead

All right, gang...I'm in for Q4. This is the first time I've entered the contest in a couple of years. Sure feels good to be back.

Good luck, everyone!

Welcome back!  

@morgan-broadhead  Welcome back and best of success with your Q4!

Thanks everyone. Question: In times past, I received an automated email confirmation from Joni that my submission was received. Is that no longer a thing with the new submission portal? I did get a message on the portal that my story was received, so I'm assuming all is well. Just wondering if I should expect an email confirmation also.

All right, gang...I'm in for Q4. This is the first time I've entered the contest in a couple of years. Sure feels good to be back.

Good luck, everyone!

Welcome back Morgan. Best of luck for your story. 

@morgan-broadhead  The system confirms immediately upon submission. You see that message, you are in. They will get it set up once again to send out email confirmations, but that's still in the works. In the meantime, if you need a second confirmation, message Jason Toth and he will verify it for you. Please don't write to Joni, she is swamped with gala planning. She really wants you to use and trust the submission system, it reduces so much work for her. Thanks, all!

Only THREE DAYS LEFT! Get those stories wrapped up and sent in! You can't win if you aren't in! I hope to see you in Hollywood next year to sign me a copy of VOLUME 38!

&ct=g

Posted by: @wulfmoon

@morgan-broadhead  The system confirms immediately upon submission. You see that message, you are in. They will get it set up once again to send out email confirmations, but that's still in the works. In the meantime, if you need a second confirmation, message Jason Toth and he will verify it for you. Please don't write to Joni, she is swamped with gala planning. She really wants you to use and trust the submission system, it reduces so much work for her. Thanks, all!

 

Thanks, Wulf! I'll trust the system...no need filling up Jason's message box just to calm my paranoia!

Posted by: @morgan-broadhead

Posted by: @wulfmoon

@morgan-broadhead  The system confirms immediately upon submission. You see that message, you are in. They will get it set up once again to send out email confirmations, but that's still in the works. In the meantime, if you need a second confirmation, message Jason Toth and he will verify it for you. Please don't write to Joni, she is swamped with gala planning. She really wants you to use and trust the submission system, it reduces so much work for her. Thanks, all!

 

Thanks, Wulf! I'll trust the system...no need filling up Jason's message box just to calm my paranoia!

 

Just so you can calm your paranoia you submission was accepted into the system today with an ID of 30287623. Hope these are your lucky numbers

Jason

Posted by: @jason

Posted by: @morgan-broadhead

Posted by: @wulfmoon

@morgan-broadhead  The system confirms immediately upon submission. You see that message, you are in. They will get it set up once again to send out email confirmations, but that's still in the works. In the meantime, if you need a second confirmation, message Jason Toth and he will verify it for you. Please don't write to Joni, she is swamped with gala planning. She really wants you to use and trust the submission system, it reduces so much work for her. Thanks, all!

 

Thanks, Wulf! I'll trust the system...no need filling up Jason's message box just to calm my paranoia!

 

Just so you can calm your paranoia you submission was accepted into the system today with an ID of 30287623. Hope these are your lucky numbers

Jason

Heading to the lottery office now. Thanks!

(@jason)30287623. Hope these are your lucky numbers.

(@morgan-broadhead)Heading to the lottery office now. Thanks!

Let's see, 30,28,7,62, and 3. The magic # 1, the target we are all aiming for.

I will try those numbers in Wednesday's Florida Lotto. If I win you'll hear about it for sure.

Getting ready to submit. Thinking about Wulfmoon's Super Secret #0. What's the point of the extra space above the title if all the identifying info is gone? Reader notes?

Posted by: @babooher

Getting ready to submit. Thinking about Wulfmoon's Super Secret #0. What's the point of the extra space above the title if all the identifying info is gone? Reader notes?

haha! I just made a note to you about that.

It's the proper way to format per William Shunn's formatting guidelines.
https://www.shunn.net/format/story/

I don't know the actual reason why the story begins halfway down on the first page, but my guess is that it's a holdover from when stories were typed/printed onto paper and sent in. Someone on here might know the actual reason, and we'll all learn something cool--LOL.

Follow the formatting guidelines ya'll! When Kevin J Anderson was telling us stories (in a zoom meeting with SSWS tribe) he mentioned that stories sent in for the anthology call for his Western Graduate students last year (the Unmasked anthology), almost none of them were formatted properly. Editors look for this kind of thing and will use that as a reason to reject your story. Why throw yourself out of the running to be accepted over it?

Also, I'm a slush reader for a speculative mag and we have instructions from our editors (and a system in place) that requests we reject stories that are not formatted properly. The magazine includes specific instructions with what they are looking for re: formatting, and when authors ignore those things, that tells the editors something about that author.

Hey, just things to know. Not to be scary. LOL 😉

~A. 

Posted by: @babooher

Getting ready to submit. Thinking about Wulfmoon's Super Secret #0. What's the point of the extra space above the title if all the identifying info is gone? Reader notes?

What Alicia said. It's Proper Manuscript Format. Editors are used to it and expect it, and anything substantially deviating from it is considered unprofessional. Dave is a professional editor. Don't give him a reason to make his first mark against you before he even starts reading your story. This is one area where you DON'T want to be unique.

As to why the drop down title exists, as I recall, editors use the space to make their publishing notes. 

Ifwe'renotincludingthestandardinformation,we'renotfollowingthestandardformat.

Whew, okay, I got it out of my system. I can go add my extraneous white spaces to my submission. I suppose it makes adding the word count a lot simpler.

And for the record, I was not advising anyone to not have the title midway down the first page. I was simply curious as to why that convention is observed but not...well, I swear it's all out of my system. I have empty space to make. Please don't Shunn me. (I'll see myself out now.)

Posted by: @babooher 

Please don't Shunn me. (I'll see myself out now.)

????

Not only a dad joke, but a writing dad joke. Well done!

Posted by: @babooher

Ifwe'renotincludingthestandardinformation,we'renotfollowingthestandardformat.

Whew, okay, I got it out of my system. I can go add my extraneous white spaces to my submission. I suppose it makes adding the word count a lot simpler.

 

And for the record, I was not advising anyone to not have the title midway down the first page. I was simply curious as to why that convention is observed but not...well, I swear it's all out of my system. I have empty space to make. Please don't Shunn me. (I'll see myself out now.)

LOL ... I get it.

You guys make me laugh.

But also, what Moon said above 😉
Now go forth and empty space maketh! You got this, Babooher!  

~A.
(your pun made me chuckle)

Posted by: @babooher

Ifwe'renotincludingthestandardinformation,we'renotfollowingthestandardformat.

Whew, okay, I got it out of my system. I can go add my extraneous white spaces to my submission. I suppose it makes adding the word count a lot simpler.

 

And for the record, I was not advising anyone to not have the title midway down the first page. I was simply curious as to why that convention is observed but not...well, I swear it's all out of my system. I have empty space to make. Please don't Shunn me. (I'll see myself out now.)

Shunn standard manuscript format is the speak-easy of the slush gate. Speak the secret Shunn words and they'll at least open the door for you. They may throw you out later for some other blundering faux pas, but hey at least you got inside.

I'm so glad I got my Q4 in early this time around. Between school, an internship, and my normal job, I haven't had near as much time to devote to writing. Time to hit the grindstone again, though, so I can knock out my Q1 and get it to my beta readers.

So, I'm in. First complete year for me.

@aliciacay spotted something interesting in a crit (btw, she's amazing). I had two different types of quotation marks in the draft. How does that happen? Fixing it was a peach. Now I'm all weirded out because I don't know how I managed to make the mess in the first place.

Posted by: @babooher

So, I'm in. First complete year for me.

@aliciacay spotted something interesting in a crit (btw, she's amazing). I had two different types of quotation marks in the draft. How does that happen? Fixing it was a peach. Now I'm all weirded out because I don't know how I managed to make the mess in the first place.

Yay! Congrats on the first complete year!  

That quotation mark thing has happened to me before too. Most often when I switch from Scrivener to MS Word and make touch-ups in the Word doc. (eep!)

Also, thank you for the shout-out! **blushes** LOL

I'm honored and grateful to be trusted to, and to get to read ya'lls stories. So many incredible artists abound on this forum (and beyond). I am rooting for each and every one of you!
Now, excuse me while I'm just over here hollering that ya'll place in the contest, or win, or get new words down, but mostly, that you have fun writing!

Best of luck, everyone!

~A. ♥

@babooher 
Congratulations on a full year of submissions!
Totally agree that @aliciacay is an amazing proofreader. She is the bomb!
I think the varied quotation marks come from auto formatting, especially if you’ve drafted on different platforms/devices. I’ve run into that in Microsoft products when using a different computers. 

I'll add my congrats for your first full year, Babooher!

Alicia was also kind enough to go over my story. As others have claimed, she did a fantastic job-and in the last week of subs!

So I'm in for Q4 (just!) I didn't get a confirmation email, though. Did others?

As for others here, I've seen some of your work. It's awesome! Best of luck to all!

Posted by: @aliciacay

Posted by: @babooher

@aliciacay spotted something interesting in a crit (btw, she's amazing). I had two different types of quotation marks in the draft. How does that happen? Fixing it was a peach. Now I'm all weirded out because I don't know how I managed to make the mess in the first place.

That quotation mark thing has happened to me before too. Most often when I switch from Scrivener to MS Word and make touch-ups in the Word doc. (eep!)

It happens to me when switching between Google Docs and Microsoft Word. I've learned to be very careful with that.

Posted by: @scott_m_sands

I'll add my congrats for your first full year, Babooher!

Alicia was also kind enough to go over my story. As others have claimed, she did a fantastic job-and in the last week of subs!

So I'm in for Q4 (just!) I didn't get a confirmation email, though. Did others?

As for others here, I've seen some of your work. It's awesome! Best of luck to all!

Sounds like no confirmation emails have gone out (others have asked also) and won't until that particular thing/blemish/issue is corrected with the new system -??

Jason, the crazy-awesome system admin guy, has mentioned in other forum posts that he's working on it. So, hopefully next quarter?  

Eep. I'm actually a bit nervous subbing for the last quarter of Vol. 38.

May the odds be ever in our favor. ♥

~A.

I'm in for Q4 v38, a day to spare (although with time difference a little bit more ;))

That makes it two quarters on the bounce, having missed Q1 and Q2, which is an improvement on one quarter last year.

I've had very helpful critiques from a number of forumites (@rschibler @nvhaskell and @aliciacay) and feel like my writing has improved from where I was this time last year--literally, as my submission dates were 29/09/20 and 29/09/21!

Best of luck to everyone who has entered or will enter

I didn't get a confirmation of submission email either but I checked the new online portal and it says I submitted my story.

Posted by: @joel-c-scoberg

I'm in for Q4 v38, a day to spare (although with time difference a little bit more ;))

That makes it two quarters on the bounce, having missed Q1 and Q2, which is an improvement on one quarter last year.

I've had very helpful critiques from a number of forumites (@rschibler @nvhaskell and @aliciacay) and feel like my writing has improved from where I was this time last year--literally, as my submission dates were 29/09/20 and 29/09/21!

Best of luck to everyone who has entered or will enter

Good luck, Joel!
I know what everyone else is up against with your awesome story out there!  

~A.

Posted by: @aliciacay

 

That quotation mark thing has happened to me before too. Most often when I switch from Scrivener to MS Word and make touch-ups in the Word doc. (eep!)

Also, thank you for the shout-out! **blushes** LOL

I'm honored and grateful to be trusted to, and to get to read ya'lls stories. So many incredible artists abound on this forum (and beyond). I am rooting for each and every one of you!
Now, excuse me while I'm just over here hollering that ya'll place in the contest, or win, or get new words down, but mostly, that you have fun writing!

Best of luck, everyone!

 

~A. ♥

Glad to see I'm not the only one who drafts in Scrivener and finishes in Word!  

@scott_m_sands

@joel-c-scoberg

I had the same issue/question. Jason is still setting up the confirmation email feature, but it's not available just yet. You should have received a message and submission number when you submitted your story. If you got the online message and submission number, you're good to go! ?

@aliciacay You are too kind  

It was very much improved after your proof read! If you had a shot every time you suggested adding or removing a comma from my story, I think I'd have had to call you an ambulance