I watch the ripples change their size
But never leave the stream
Of warm impermanence
And so the days float through my eyes
But still the days seem the same
And these children that you spit on
As they try to change their worlds
Are immune to your consultations
They're quite aware of what they're goin' through

Wednesday, August 8, 2007

Rejectarama

Robert's Thunder is outa there. The Assistant Editor at Baen's Universe is passing on it, not passing it up. That's the assistant editor's job, fair cop. This is my first rejection from Baen's Universe, so I don't know how form the email is, but it did end with "Please feel free to send us anything else you'd like, though." So, either very nice people or score. Either one is good.

Tomorrow it's to the salt mines and finding... well, you know, I do have my writer's group in a week and a half. Maybe I should run it through critique. Yeah. That's what I'll do. I have to admit that I didn't de-piratize it. That might have been a mitigating factor. It's time to see if there's anything else wonky with it.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hang in there, Steve. By the way, I read the part of "In the Company of Ravens" you have up, and man, I'd really really like to read more of it.

Camille Alexa said...

Did you go through the Baen's Slush Bar, or put it in there with the pros?

Steve Buchheit said...

Hey Jim, thanks. That's the novel I started writing way back when. I'm getting closer to having the skills to tell that story correctly, so I hope to get back to it soon.

Camille, I went through the normal submission. I looked at the Slush Bar, and felt (at least at this time) that the commitment to continually check the site to see what comments were being made was too much of a time sink right at the moment. I really did think about it, and it might have helped this story's chance. If I didn't have all this other stuff going on I would have done it that way. It was just the time commitment needed to run it through that process.

Walt Boyes said...

Steve, it is both form, and not. We want to continue to encourage authors to submit, because what we are doing is providing a magazine for authors and readers, not big corporations for profit. Yes, Baen is in this for the buxx but we are all fans and writers first.

As far as the slush conference is concerned, one of the very nice features of Baen's Bar (which Arnold the Evil Henchman and Rick the Geek are trying valiantly to keep working) is that you can get any or all of the conferences by email. I hardly ever visit the web-based bar, and I try to read most of the stories and comments.

So, if you'd like to join the only crit group around that leads directly to the prize: if it is good enough, we buy the story, slide on by.

And in any case, keep sending us stories.

Walt Boyes, SFWA
Associate Editor
JBU
www.baensuniverse.com

Steve Buchheit said...

Walt Boyes, cool. Thanks for that info. Today I'm a bit mind-dead from work (where I'm still at), I hope that info sinks into the long-term memory. Great, if I can get it delivered, that's a really good bonus. The major stopping point for me would be to loggin and then navigate to the topic, scroll through and see what's new. That's a lot of clicking for time-crunched people and I wouldn't want to post it and then have it appear to be abandoned by not checking every day. So I guess I'm saying "Thanks" for that functionality.

And, oh yeah, I'm going to submit more. You can't keep me away by beating me with a stick. Well, okay, maybe you could if it was a real pointy stick. Rejections never bother me, they give me direction though (this story works better here, not so well there). Like I said in the post, the Assistant Editor rejected my story (not me, btw), and that's their job, to only pass the good stuff up and reject the rest. RT wasn't good enough or did fit the mix properly at Baen's, fair cop. It doesn't mean that it'll be rejected elsewhere (and as soon as I figure out where to send the story it'll be off to there).

I'm now rambling, which means I'm tired. Thanks for stopping by with the info Walt.