At the end of 2017, a new anthology was announced: “Sword and Sonnet” — stories about “female battle poets”. The second I heard of it, I wanted in! Of course, my story would be science fiction, and I would totally end it with a big epic poem. I knew a poem was a risk, but if I worked really hard, it would would blow socks off. It would have to be a structured poem, for extra oomph. I picked Trochees at random. I wrote down a title “Battle Bot 18 Dreams of Trochees” and flew through a rough draft in an hour, stopping only to double-check the words to the opening of “Hiawatha” and see how many feet per line it had.
Gleefully, I changed my robot to Tactical Infantry Bot, to be more somber, and with great delight I realized I could change the number to one that was trochaic. THIR-tee SEV-en.
It was one of those glorious fast drafts that flow without pause, complete and done. I sent it straight to my writer’s workshop, and they generally loved it. Our biggest poetry hitters weren’t at the workshop that day, but Mary and Geoff provided notes when they were back in town, mostly correcting my meter.
I polished and tweaked and oh, it was lovely! It was a shoo-in for the anthology, I was sure! There was just one problem…
It was the beginning of January. The anthology didn’t open for submissions until February 1. Another WHOLE MONTH.
I couldn’t let the story burn a hole in my pocket. It was too pretty. So I sent it to Clarkesworld, where it got a form rejection within 24 hours. Fun! But that hadn’t eaten up any time at all! I sent it to F&SF, knowing it would likely be rejected within a week or two, and C. C. Finlay would give me some free editing advice, maybe. He’s nice like that.
Except… he didn’t reject it. Not for that entire month. I started to get nervous, but figured it was okay, the anthology submission period would stay open until March 1, and I could wait.
By Valentine’s day, I was stalking the submission website hard. I checked my queue position at F&SF hourly. What if I missed the anthology AND failed to sell the story to F&SF?! The market would be flooded with failed battle poet stories after the anthology closed! I’d never sell it!
I tried to write ANOTHER battle poetess story that was science fiction and I just… failed.
March 1 was a long, long day. I wavered at the edge of withdrawing the story from F&SF to send it to the anthology every second.
But what if the anthology didn’t even like it? What if the long wait meant F&SF did like it? What if I could finally break in to one of the most prestigious magazines out there? So I waited.
The anthology closed without ever receiving a submission from me. I shed a tear. At least I could enjoy reading it!
And so I waited more. That wasn’t so bad. The longer I waited, the less likely it was Murphy was waiting to drop his law on me. (Murphy’s Law is not universal. Otherwise, it would have been rejected precisely the day after the anthology closed.) I settled into a sort of resignation. To keep my spirits up, I made a list of edits to make “when F&SF rejects.”
163 days after I dashed my story off to a quick market, I received, mysteriously, a check in the mail from F&SF! What? What did this mean? There was a contract… was this really what I thought it was?
Then I checked my email. Lo, there was a message from C. C. Finlay, “I really enjoyed “Tactical Infantry Bot 37 Dreams of Trochees” and would like to buy it for Fantasy & Science Fiction. F&SF pays on acceptance, so sometime in the next few weeks you should receive a contract and check from the magazine’s publisher in the mail. “
SO, yeah, they pay on acceptance. Pretty cool, huh?
This was the weirdest I’d ever felt about a story acceptance. So much joy. So much relief. In hindsight, I feel I made the right choice to risk it. If it had been a lost submission (my biggest fear) or a long rejection, well, I would still have that story, and someone would want it some day.
So please, go read for yourself my almost-a-mistake story about a robot warrior poetess.
You can buy F&SF online:
Paper copies and subscriptions: https://www.sfsite.com/fsf/toc1901.htm
Weightless Books: https://weightlessbooks.com/category/publisher/spilogale-inc/
