Pixel Macintosh and the Cybernetic Cannon

[redheadedfemme]

You know, once I got used to the idea of e-mailing my stories, I wholeheartedy embraced it. This was the greatest thing since pre-buttered bread, I figured. Just think of all the postage I would save! Once my stories fired their pixel streams across cyberspace and dropped hale and hearty into an editor's in-box, the editor would surely see them for the wonderful, witty narratives they were and hasten to post them on his/her site. And if not, s/he would fire off a quick regretful missive a day or two after the story was received, allowing me to shoot it out of the electronic cannon to the next website, quickly and efficiently.

Unfortunately, that hasn't quite worked out.

True, I have saved quite a bit of postage, and since first-class stamps are going up yet again, I'll be bound to save more. I can scour the Net for suitable magazines and fire off stories in one fell swoop. It's easy for me to visit websites and take the pulse of a magazine to see whether it would be suited to my story.

But all the electronic convenience in the world, it seems, can't make editors reply any faster.

So far, each story I have sent out has languished in pixellated limbo. They seem to vanish into the ether, never to be heard from again. I keep careful records, of course: where and when a story has gone out. But I've waited...and waited...and the site's stated response time invariably creeps past.

I'm sure webmagazine editors are just as overworked as their print brethren. Probably they have even more stories of dubious quality to peruse, since it is so easy to e-mail something. Still, one would hope a polite e-mail reminder (or two or three) wouldn't be necessary just to get some information. At this rate, the great time-saving potential of electronic submissions is totally wasted.

I'm not angry. I shouldn't have expected anything different. I'm just disappointed.