Submission Accepted!
First of all, I want to again complain about the use of the word "submission" to designate a piece of writing turned in for consideration for publication. I still don't care for the word or anything that it designates.
Second of all, SWEET!!!!!! About a year after I "submitted" a piece to a major national magazine, just tonight, after having long ago mostly given up on this one, received confirmation that the piece will be printed in the May/June 2009 issue. (I'll post a link to it when it's up.) It has been "retained for publication" this whole time, which meant that I wasn't legally allowed to submit it elsewhere, and thus it has sat. This may be, depending upon the end of the continuum of the pay scale that they choose to pay me, the most money I've ever received for one piece of relatively short writing, and heavens knows we could use it right now, especially with a new baby / decreased work hours in my very near future.
The only bad news is that, in the meantime, they seem to have misplaced all of the pictures I collected that went along with the article, despite the confirmation email that was sent to me (many, many months ago) stating otherwise. I could have *sworn* that I saved all of those pictures (really, I'm sure that I did) but perhaps deleted them after I received that confirmation -- I don't know. (Lesson learned.) It is not the end of the world -- I can recontact everyone who submitted pictures, though I felt on the "lucky" end of the spectrum to have actually gotten anywhere with publicists for relatively well-known celebrities, and hope that I am again the second time around. (Sigh.) As it was a research article for a cause, most of those I contact will probably be happy that this is (finally) getting national wide-scale publicity in this market, and so will hopefully send another round of pictures for me, which this time WILL be published in a timely manner.
Yay!!!! This was happy news!!!! But that is the way with "submissions": Just when you've forgotten about them, or at least given up, all of a sudden a mysterious check arrives in the mail along with a congratulations letter. (Thank heavens I don't try to budget around this stuff.) Perhaps the word is more fitting than I would like to admit.
Second of all, SWEET!!!!!! About a year after I "submitted" a piece to a major national magazine, just tonight, after having long ago mostly given up on this one, received confirmation that the piece will be printed in the May/June 2009 issue. (I'll post a link to it when it's up.) It has been "retained for publication" this whole time, which meant that I wasn't legally allowed to submit it elsewhere, and thus it has sat. This may be, depending upon the end of the continuum of the pay scale that they choose to pay me, the most money I've ever received for one piece of relatively short writing, and heavens knows we could use it right now, especially with a new baby / decreased work hours in my very near future.
The only bad news is that, in the meantime, they seem to have misplaced all of the pictures I collected that went along with the article, despite the confirmation email that was sent to me (many, many months ago) stating otherwise. I could have *sworn* that I saved all of those pictures (really, I'm sure that I did) but perhaps deleted them after I received that confirmation -- I don't know. (Lesson learned.) It is not the end of the world -- I can recontact everyone who submitted pictures, though I felt on the "lucky" end of the spectrum to have actually gotten anywhere with publicists for relatively well-known celebrities, and hope that I am again the second time around. (Sigh.) As it was a research article for a cause, most of those I contact will probably be happy that this is (finally) getting national wide-scale publicity in this market, and so will hopefully send another round of pictures for me, which this time WILL be published in a timely manner.
Yay!!!! This was happy news!!!! But that is the way with "submissions": Just when you've forgotten about them, or at least given up, all of a sudden a mysterious check arrives in the mail along with a congratulations letter. (Thank heavens I don't try to budget around this stuff.) Perhaps the word is more fitting than I would like to admit.