Hintlord Series #2: Publication for beginners!

So I had another request for my Hintlord series!

As a disclaimer, this Hint will focus on short story publishing for those who HAVE NOT ever published anything before, or maybe they got accepted into one magazine and haven’t had luck since — maybe it was an act of God or the condition of a coven with a demon. Whatever. You wanna do it again.

The initial ask had to do with which magazines are best for someone who has not been published before, but since I wouldn’t consider any mags a “beginner’s” mag, I will just give some helpful hints and how-tos below.

I have like seven writing spaces.

So, what do you need to do first?

• Finish your story!

  • I know this sounds very DUH but no, no… finish your short story. Make sure it’s edited to within an inch of its life. Keep in mind that while typos are never a bonus, one or two will never keep you from being published if your story is really stellar and resonates with the editors, so if you later find you said effect but meant affect, chill.

• Find a magazine or fifteen.

  • Two things! One, you can either find mags by searching “lit mags” and will find some arbitrary lists, or you can use Duotrope.com which has a searchable database. It’s five dollars a month but you can get a free trial if it’s your first time. There are other sites like this, like Poets & Writers, and The Review Review, which is currently under construction. You shouldn’t have a hard time finding them.

    And TWO, only submit to mags who encourage simultaneous submission.

    “What does simultaneous submission mean?” you wonder, fearing that it sounds painful.

    It just means that you can submit your story to different magazines at the same time. Most mags are okay with this, as they understand it’s a waste of the writers’ time to sit with their thumb in their ass while one diffident mag hems and haws and ultimately rejects the piece. Any mag that doesn’t understand this is a waste of time, if you ask me, and you’re on this page so you did ask me.

    “But, Glorious Leader Robyn, how will I know if they accept sim… sima…”

    Simultaneous submissions! And you’ll know because they will say it on their…

• Read the Submission Guidelines!

  • Please read these. Please! Everywhere is a little bit different but they mostly all tell you the same shit. The only reason you read these is so you know approximate response time, if they accept simultaneous submissions, how to submit, i.e. via email or Submittable, and if they have some sort of credo that you do or don’t agree with. Some like you to put your name and info on the first page of the story, others don’t want any identifying info. Some want you to include a summary, MOST do not and don’t do it if it doesn’t specify.

• Write your cover letter!

  • All the info on that I’ve already covered. Get it?

• Don’t be afraid of submission fees.

  • Unlike finding a lit agent, it is rather normal for lit mags to charge a $3 or so submission fee, particularly if they use services like Submittable. That shit costs money. A lot of them don’t, though, and so you shouldn’t have trouble avoiding fees if you try. Duotrope is especially good at filtering these.

• Finally: PUT YOUR ASS INTO IT.

  • No, submitting to two is not enough. Nor is five. Ten is a good amount to try for a round, but if something’s open, submit to it. It’s really a numbers game. Don’t get discouraged by rejection. You have to eat it like breakfast. It feeds you. You exist from it. Acceptance is only a sugary dessert, and we wouldn’t want to rot those pearly whites, would we?

The Hole in Your Sex Scene

What the fuck’s wrong with you people?

… Okay, that’s not very nice. But it’s how I feel — and I have a lot of feelings about this hole business. I’m honestly flabbergasted whenever I see it, or maybe that isn’t even a strong enough word. Bamboozled? Is that stronger than flabbergasted? Will the world ever know?

Let’s take a step back. Let’s set the mood.

You’re feeling a little introverted tonight. Your roommates or family or dogs are either away or in another room. You’ve got a hot beverage beside you which works only as a temporary balm for the post-Christmas doldrums that have descended over your hemisphere. It’s cold outside, and dark. You’ve recently dived headfirst into a new fandom and have heard the fanfiction scene is lit, or so your white friend on Instagram says. You head over to AO3 and settle in for a night of steamy sex scenes with little to no plot because who gives a good goddamn, you just wanna imagine two hot guys going at each other like the world’s gonna end. You find a story, scan the first paragraph to make sure they can put a sentence together, and say to yourself: Good enough!

Everything’s coming up roses. The main characters find each other in the woods and are inexplicably horny. They give little consideration before tossing away their heterosexuality like ill-fitting uniforms and start rimming each other on the ground. Then—

It happens.

You see it.

And your once flooded basement shrivels painfully with the sudden lack of moisture.

Jojo slipped his fingers into Dio’s used hole…

Agh, God, why!? Why, Lord? Why would the writer do that? And you know, it’s not a sometimes thing, for people who don’t regularly debauch themselves. I’ve seen it in published novels too. I’ve honestly got no idea about why this is such a phenomena, because it’s universally awful.

And don’t @ me, okay, I’ve never done that shit. Even when I was FOURTEEN, I knew better. Holes are holes are holes, and we’ve all got them on our bodies, but first of all they do have NAMES. You don’t call what you breathe through your nose hole, do you, you degenerate? What about your food hole? Hear holes?! How ridiculous does that sound in normal tone? Now you wanna throw it into something sexy? The hell’s wrong with you?

Sexy is subjective, I get it. I’m the first one to say it. But who honestly thinks of a hole and thinks, Ooh la la?

Big holes.

Gaping holes.

Sinkholes.

It’s all either ridiculous or disgusting. Where did young girls learn this kind of language? Is there no such thing as finishing school anymore? Where are the goddamn debutantes?

It’s an easy enough fix. You literally do not have to say hole. The human imagination and context of a reader is what helps your writing along. We know what you mean when you say:

Jojo slipped his fingers into Dio.

That’s literally all you have to do. Take words out and it instantly becomes better. Readers around the world will be thankful. I’ve had tons of girls compliment my sex scenes because, as filthy as they can be, they don’t require the flicker of an image of a character fucking SPELUNKING.

Editing Out Loud

So I just joined Sundog Lit as an Assistant Fiction Editor and boy are my arms tired.

I’m kidding, but it’s been really fun so far! And I don’t even like work. I’ve been part of a magazine before, but a smaller one, when I was in my early twenties, as a reader. Back then Submittable was still Submishmash (a way better name, by the way) and things looked a lot different.

Readjusting to an editor mindset takes me right back to Emerson and grad school because I haven’t really looked at anyone else’s fiction with an eye towards YES or NO since then. And of course, I wasn’t rejecting my fellow students’ work for anything, I was just in my head reading and like, “That’s a choice.”

I’m actually living right now, getting to be immersed in writerly things because I had divorced myself from them for a good half a year this year due to depression, anxiety, hiding in other activities like drawing and binge-watching and generally being very potatolike. But if I keep this energy up, working like I’m in the cotton fields over my own novel, editing for the magazine, continuing to interact with the few writer friends I have AND also continuing my yoga teacher training, I feel like I can rock climb my way out of impending mental doom. And there is ALWAYS impending mental doom.

So if you’re a writer and you dabble in fiction, come submit! Even if your thing isn’t fiction, we also accept poetry and nonfiction as well, so try your luck before Dec. 31st, babe.