Jules Jones

"Please submit again" rejection from Dreamspinner a couple of days ago for the novelette I'd submitted to their Random Acts of Kindness anthology. I'm a little disappointed, because I'd written the story specifically for the submission call, but not surprised given how long it turned out to be. And that was after I'd trimmed it down to meet the length guidelines...

I'd already had thoughts on revising it to novella length, but hadn't done anything about it while I was waiting for a yes/no. I may make that my next writing job once I'm out from under a sore throat and Interesting Times At The Day Job. I have also had an idea for another novelette about an off-stage character from this one. That will take care of my PicoWrimo project this year. :-)

What with one thing and another, I forgot to mention that the story I submitted to Barbara Cardy's mini-anthologies has been rejected. Which is not exactly unexpected, but unfortunately it was rejected for failing to meet two criteria which were not in the original call for submissions. This is largely my fault for not checking the latest version before submitting.

Time to trawl the market listings for somewhere that will take 5000 words of slapstick (very mild) BDSM, and pays in sterling or by Paypal (because my co-author has no practical means of dealing with US$ cheques).

The sub to Lust for Life was rejected yesterday, so yes, they were managing a fast turnaround on subs, which is good.

Chucked three stories at Sacchi by way of an informal advance sub yesterday, since she was foolish enough to publicly muse on whether or not to accept a guest editor stint somewhere I've been wanting to sub to anyway. :-)

Been keeping up the word count on First Footer, even if it's not that many words per day (I've been a bit sick for the last two or three days, which hasn't helped). 400 words on Sunday, 750 Mon, 1100 Tue, 250 Wed, 1300 Thur, and 650 tonight.

Catch-up...


I've finally got through all the stuff with imminent deadlines (I hope), so I can now get down to some recreational reading for the first time in... too long, really. I've started reading Alma Alexander's The Secrets of Jin-shei. I'm only about half way through, so no detailed comments yet. However, even this far in I would like to echo Mary Gentle's reaction of "fucking brilliant!" And I'm not just saying that because Alma happens to be a friend. :-) Alma, this is an astonishing piece of work. I'm not surprised you've been collecting translations. What's the count up to now? Nine, isn't it?

Pleasant form rejection letter from Best Gay Erotica 2006 yesterday, saying I'd be sent the guidelines for next year's anthology. Richard Labonte mentioned that he'd had several hundred submissions, and the number keeps going up each year. It seems to be a trend, as Maxim Jakubowski mentioned having received nearly four hundred submissions, and other anthology editors I've submitted to in the last couple of years have had a similar experience. I'm not sure how many authors that amounts to -- I typically send two submissions in different styles where the editor is willing to receive multiple submissions. I can see editors who currently take multiple submissions having to go to only one submission per author other than by invitation in future, just to keep the numbers at a manageable level.

Received a very nice piece of fan mail yesterday from someone saying how much she enjoyed Black Leather Rose in the Counting the Ways anthology. Egoboo is always good, but it's particularly nice to have someone go into detail about *why* they liked the story.

I was interviewed by Just Erotic Romance Reviews last week. The interview will be appearing in their newsletter in the near future, although I don't have a date yet.

I've got the release date for Spindrift, although as ever I'm not allowed to tell people what it actually is.

My editor's read Ship to Shore and likes it, although now she understands why I was worried about whether it would really fit in a romance catalogue. :-) We bounced some ideas back and forth for tweaking the second half a little so that it looks a bit more like a romance novella, so that's this week's writing work.

Rejection from Flytrap -- Tim likes the story but doesn't think it will suit. I'm not too down, since it was another "please keep submitting" rejection, and a suitable market has appeared in the meantime. One that I might have actually written this story for, rather than merely failing to be obviously unsuitable. :-) Off to write yet another cover letter...