What a ride!
Being over at Unicorn Bell all week...Whoa. I feel like my brain was scrubbed clean.
But in a good way.
Hopefully everyone was patient with my totally lack of any sort of posting here..and I still have *some* semblance of an audience.
Because I have a question. Stemming from a dilemma born of total newbie dumbassery.
So. Here's what I did.
I submitted a short story for an Anthology call from Writer and White Cat. (YAY! Stress!) Very exciting. However...all the link says is "Standard Manuscript Format" which, go ahead. Google that. I dare you. Yah. I haven't a clue what that means either.
So I asked the ladies that I moderate with over at Unicorn Bell and the consensus was 1" margins, indent the paragraphs, double spaced, Title and name on top of first page and a header on every page of page number/Story title/author name.
Easy enough, right? Right. So I did that. No problem. Worked all the formatting into the document. Then scrolled up to the top of the first page, and thought that the header of page number/title/author name looked redundant right above the section that I had centered the Title and written by on the first page. So I manually deleted it off the first page. Then immediately went into Send as Word Doc. And e-mailed it. Done! Whew! Felt great for all of about 3 seconds when I scrolled down and realized that when I had deleted the page number off the first page, it had taken the page number/etc.. header off ALL the pages. For the LOVE OF GOD! WHY!?!?! Sigh. So I had just e-mailed a story with no page numbers. Great. Smoooooooth.
My question is this. What now? My gut says that I have to let it go, and hope for the best. But I honestly don't know. I would LIKE to send him a quick e-mail explaining what I did. But I also don't want to sound like a moron. I just want to get rejected solely on the basis of bad writing alone. Not because I 'forgot' to number my pages.
What's the opinions out there?
If anything. What NOT to do...and something I will remember to NEVER do again! HA!
I understand why you did that. I had a bitch of a time in university when I was formatting reports and the like.
ReplyDeleteI think you should just leave it. I understand that you want to get that feedback based on writing alone. but this could be chalked up to a learning experience.
The other thing you could do is resubmit the entire manuscript, in proper format with a brief email to disregard the first. You might want to follow through with this idea, providing that the closing date hasn't been and gone.
i would send the email ;)
ReplyDeleteHere's two books that might help you.
ReplyDeleteFormatting & Submitting Your Manuscript, by Jack & Glenda Neff, Don Prues (and the editors of Writer's Market).
And ... How to Write Attention Grabbing Query & Cover Letters, by John Wood.
Hope this helps. There's a good number of books to help you learn the basics and set you well on your way.
Cheers and boogie boogie.
Lots of good info and suggestions guys! Thanks! And I will definitely be looking into those books.
ReplyDeleteSo I did a mix of suggestions and sent him a very low key e-mail explaining what I had done, (the short version), and just asked simply if he would like me to resubmit.
He got right back to me and man didn't I format the top of my story wrong! I think this has a lot to do with paper v. e-mail submissions. I needed to put my name, word count, home address and e-mail on the page. Interesting! This wasn't ANYWHERE that I saw in googleland. Though...everywhere I saw was 2005 or earlier. Granted...I may still be rejected...BUT! I have a fighting chance now! :) AND now I know how to do it properly. Something I will never forget...lesson learned.
Pretty soon it will be second nature.
ReplyDeleteI hope so! Always learning... :)
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