Vol2 Updates 17 Jul 2011 04:04 pm by Matt

A couple deep breaths

A restful Japanese garden at the Huntington in California

If necessary, contemplate this restful Japanese garden to aid in relaxed breathing

A few hours ago, I got back from a camping trip in the Monongahela National Forest in West Virginia. I’ve been entirely off the grid for the past four days — the only news I’ve seen from the outside world was whatever was printed in the copy of Two-Lane Livin’ (“Your Home Grown Guide to Simple Living”) that we used to start camp fires. Needless to say, I saw a lot more about making apple butter than I did about the state of Machine of Death submissions.

When I left at the crack of dawn on Thursday morning, there were something like 850 submissions. When I got back a few hours ago, there were well over 1200. And I mean well over. When I got the final estimates from Ryan and David, I was pretty blown away. We’ll share a final, clean number (as well as other interesting info) as soon as it’s available. But for right now, everybody can take a couple deep breaths. You deserve them.

Clearly there were lots and lots of people who didn’t want to miss out on being considered for the second volume, and that’s amazing and flattering and humbling. It’s a huge thrill for us to know that so many people want to be involved with a project we love so much! But although this is the finish for you guys, it’s really the start for us. We want to give all these submissions the attention they deserve, so we’ve got a lot of work ahead of us. Fun, engaging, one-of-a-kind work that we wouldn’t trade for anything… But, yes, still work. So how can you help us now?

Let your story speak for itself as it is! It’s natural to want your story to be the best that it can be. But the deadline has passed, so we ask that you don’t send us new versions with corrected typos. Just like everybody else, you worked very hard on your story. And just like everybody else, your story isn’t perfect. We know that, and it’s okay. It creates a lot of extra work for us if there are multiple versions of a story in our inbox. So please trust us to judge your story on its merits, and not on its proofreading.

Only query if you have reason to believe something has gone wrong. If you have reason to believe we haven’t gotten your story (for instance, if your email program told you that your submission wasn’t delivered) then please query us and we’ll sort out what happened. But if you just want to double check, then we’d ask you first to take a couple more deep breaths. Ask yourself if you’re querying about a real problem or just an imaginary fear. As much as we love hearing from our writers and fans, our time is better reading your stories and dealing with real problems.

A note about the auto-responder: We set up an auto-responder to send an automatic answer to every submission. A lot of people didn’t get this response. That doesn’t mean we didn’t get your story — it probably just means the auto-responder was clogged up. We’ve checked up on several people so far who were concerned when they didn’t get an auto-responder email. We had every single one of the stories safe and sound. So again, we ask that you only query if you have positive evidence that there might be a problem!

And please, be patient! The earliest that we’ll be responding to anybody about the status of their story is October. If you don’t hear anything before October 31 — that’s totally normal. But if November 1 rolls around and you haven’t heard anything… First, check your spam folder. Second, make sure you’re checking the same email account that you provided us on your submission. Third, check this website for any updates in case we changed the notification deadline. If we have, then continue to be patient. In other words: please don’t query about the status of your story until you are SURE that you should have heard something.

Check this website for new information. Folks have also been asking if the number of submissions we’ve received means that anything different might happen. We don’t know yet! We haven’t made any decisions — this just happened a couple days ago. But we will always update on this site if any of our plans change. So if you’re curious about the future of Machine of Death, then please keep checking www.machineofdeath.net. There will be lots more to share with you over the coming months!

Keep the creativity flowing! We think it’s amazing that so many people want to be involved with Machine of Death — and some folks have even been asking us if there will be a third volume. That’s something else we don’t know yet. We have lots and lots to do before we make that decision. But there are hundreds of other anthologies and magazines and websites all looking for submissions right now. Now that you’ve got your creative juices flowing — go find them! It makes waiting all the easier if you’ve got another project to be excited about in the meantime!

13 Responses to “A couple deep breaths”

  1. on 17 Jul 2011 at 5:14 pm 1.Jeremy said …

    Nothing helps the anthology-inclusion-decision process like freshly made apple butter.

    Also, thanks for facilitating this wonderful, worldwide conglomeration of creativity! It’s wonderful to be part of something so dang fun.

  2. on 17 Jul 2011 at 7:32 pm 2.Steve (treelobsters) said …

    Yeah, I’ve been agonizing about my stories ever since I submitted them. Oh, I should’ve worded this like that. Damn, there’s a typo there. And on and on. But a saner side of me assumes that, in the unlikely event one of my stories makes the cut (something like a 1-in-50 chance just by the numbers), I’ll have the opportunity to fix it up a bit before it goes to print.

  3. on 17 Jul 2011 at 9:44 pm 3.Adina said …

    I’m so excited just to have the oportunity to have been read by the creators of such a groundbreaking anthology. I feel like I’ve let my baby full of mistakes attend an interview at a prestigious pre-schoo. LOL. I’m going to bury myself into other anthologies and fiction projects to quelch the anxiety in the meantime and check back here every day for new posts and updates. 🙂

    MB: Yes! This is what we love to hear!

  4. on 17 Jul 2011 at 11:05 pm 4.Annie said …

    Adina, I have to laugh at your “pre-schoo”. 😉

    I found a typo in my entry as well, hopefully nothing distracting, though. And mine was one of the last-minute rush.

    Good luck to all — particularly the editors!

  5. on 18 Jul 2011 at 4:37 am 5.Rebecca J Payne said …

    I just wanted to echo the idea that the best way to calm those post-submission nerves is to start writing something else.

    When I made my very first submission to a market over 2 years ago, it took 5 months for them to come back to me with an acceptance. After 2 months I was getting so twitchy that I decided to throw myself headlong into something new – I checked out some other markets and wrote 4 more stories in quick succession, and 2 of those ended up getting published too! So I can safely say that channelling that nervous energy into something new is definitely worthwhile.

    If you are looking for other markets, I highly recommend checking out duotrope.com as they have hundreds of markets listed, with all upcoming submission deadlines, themes, guidelines, etc. They even have stats on the % of submissions that get accepted by various publications. You can search for the kind of publication you’re looking for by genre, word count, etc. And if you need inspiration you can look at the themes wanted by publications with coming deadlines, pick one and write something to that theme – that’s what I did with a couple of mine! It gives you a place to kick off from and a deadline to get you writing.

    Good luck everyone, and happy writing! 🙂

  6. on 18 Jul 2011 at 6:02 am 6.Dan said …

    A heh huh– I was one of them fellers who sent in a revision, though not after the deadline. Thanks for being nice about it!

  7. on 18 Jul 2011 at 7:19 am 7.Jesse said …

    I figured I sent my story off and, as much I am anxious, it’s gone. What’s done is done. October is a long time off (at least it looks like it sitting where I am) but I’ll wait it out.

    Thanks for the opportunity and I hope it’s a great time reading them all!

  8. on 18 Jul 2011 at 3:56 pm 8.Daliso Chaponda said …

    I’m a twit. I only managed to finish my story today. Missed the deadline. I’ll have to save it and hope you do a part 3

  9. on 18 Jul 2011 at 8:49 pm 9.Chris said …

    Oh man, I already have three ideas for a Vol. 3. Such a great premise, it’s no wonder you got so many submissions.

    Gonna get those creative juices flowing…

  10. on 25 Jul 2011 at 10:14 am 10.Erika Hammerschmidt said …

    I’m stressing a little bit over my stories too– there are things I wish I had changed before submitting them– but I’m going to trust that Ryan & co will recognize the quality of any stories that deserve to be in the book, even if they may need some edits before publishing.

    And I’ll distract myself with other projects until October, to make the wait more bearable.

  11. on 26 Jul 2011 at 6:41 pm 11.shigzeo said …

    I’m glad it’s over and done with. If anything, I proved that I am certainly not Kilgore Trout and need a good long while on a story. Whatever, it was good fun. [Sort of] looking forward to hearing from the judges.

    Speaking of: will we ‘hear’ back (small envelope?) even if we did nothing better than practice our prose in the final standings?

  12. on 03 Aug 2011 at 2:47 am 12.Anonymous said …

    Everybody will receive a response, yea or nay — assuming we can get through to you using the email address you provided! Nobody will be left hanging.

  13. on 26 Jul 2011 at 7:08 pm 13.Harold said …

    Agggh, Daliso! “While Trying To Save Another” was my favorite story from the first anthology! I guess I’ll just have to wait a bit longer to read another MOD story by you.

    I had an idea for a third MOD story earlier this week, though the more I thought about it, the morre strained certain plot points became until the whole thing broke apart. So maybe that one was never meant to be – or maybe someone else will have the same idea and do it justice.