man, this is a lot of work!

Drama at work today. Drama at work tomorrow. It took me a few months to become 'friends' with the people I work with (in that we now hang out outside of work), and I kind of wish I hadn't bothered. Drama everywhere because everyone there just has to talk about everyone else behind their backs. Blaaaaaaah.

Anyways, Loose Yarns is going strong. This is the third day I've been taking submissions, and I've already gotten 24 of them. (Rejected twelve, accepted two, still considering the other ten.) I wanted to do this all by myself, but considering the volume of submissions, I may just have to take on an editorial staff.

Any volunteers? Hehe.

I've already gotten a bitchy email from one such submitter though. See, I want to send a few lines of feedback about the stories I'm rejecting. I'm rather familiar with form rejections myself (having gotten ... ohhh... fifty or more), and while they're convenient for the editor, they don't help the author any.

In response to one story, I replied thus:

I felt the writing was a little lazy--you used too many adverbs where you could have, with a little extra thought, illustrated them better with stronger action verbs, similes, or different methods of description. Also, I found the story to be a little to pat and predictable. The idea that the MC's grandma's dog shows up all of a sudden for unknown reasons is a good one, but then it turned out to be a little too Lassie-esque for my liking. And the reincarnation of Prince at the end was a little over the top, too pat so to speak.

He didn't care for my opinion, so he sent me this:

As an editor, there was no constructive purpose in your reply. I found your comments pompous and insulting, A form reply would have been enough.

After reading this, I added an extra line to my submissions guidelines.

Also, please note that our feedback on rejections will be constructive criticism. We will never seek to insult you or your writing; we'll simply tell you the reasons it didn't work for us. If you feel you are unable to receive such feedback without sending us whiny emails in return, please refrain from submitting.

And I also sent this in the author in question:

As an editor, you should understand the purpose of constructive criticism. Form rejections don't help the author improve their writing, as you well know. You're free to ignore my comments on your story if you feel they're in the wrong. Either way, I wish you the best of luck with your writing.

Some people are just so damn touchy. I see it all the time on WF.com. They post a story for critique, and then bitch at everyone who dares say the piece is anything less than perfect.

Still though, I'm enjoying this quite a bit. I'm sure months down the line I may be whining about all the work, but right now it's freaking awesome, even if I've only accepted one story and one poem. Each of them are so good, they've made reading the myriad average and poor submissions worthwhile.