via Gwenda

Claire Light posts on the HELL of the simultaneous submission penitentiary.

Anyone who submits regularly to lit journals knows the special hell of ‘we do not accept simultaneous submissions’. Your story is literally locked up until you receive the rejection letter/get out of jail free card that releases it. This is why we actually look forward to rejection letters. This is also why it takes forever to get anywhere in the writing world. Until you’ve got a stockpile of stories to rotate in and out of lit journals (and even after you do), you’re locked into the 6 month slush cycle of the journalworld with no way out. It can take a year to submit your story to a total of two zines, which means your odds of getting published before the ten year mark in this process are slim to none. And don’t think that you can do anything about it but kvetch because you can’t. This is the way the underpaid overworked lit world works. Or sort of works. And you just get to deal. Sucker!