Somewhere I heard that you should keep at least ten submissions out at a time. With the first dozen being sent out last month, and two having been returned, I am picking out the next lit journals to send to.
Again, somewhere I read (it was online, and I do wish I could find and give credit) a list of the journals rated in various manners such as reputation, payment, response time, etc. that offered some manner of tiering the journals so that one could (as I did) try to hit the top choices (according to personal criteria) first and then downward in waves.
But then this nagging thought: I have since rewritten a bit, edited, polished the stories sent the first round. Which brings me to the sad conclusion that the best publishers did not get my best work. Which leads naturally to the fact that since my editing tends to be an ongoing process, by the time I reach the bottom of the publishing barrel the stories at least, shall be nearer their proper form.
So I fret. And argue with myself over whether I am doing it right by myself as well as by my stories. There’s never an easy answer as to method, I suppose, and at some point, just as each story is improved by the editing, new stories will be written as well. They will, as I have seen it to be true, be better than those sent before merely by the developing skills that come with practice. I cringe today at what I sent out a year ago. I’m happy only with the few I’m working on currently at any given point in time, and the affair ends with the next round of stories.
I can only hope that the publishers are not thinking "Wait, hold off. She’s bound to come up with a better one next month." (Note: Tongue-in-cheek here of course; they’ll not recognize or remember my writing among the thousands they go through, I know!)
The Lost Children: A Charity Anthology