I’ll admit: I love learning about editors’ (or readers’) submissions reading processes.
Maybe that’s a weak admission. Maybe it’s more of a given, could go unsaid and be assumed. I’m a writer and an editor, so why wouldn’t I be interested? And it’s information that is available enough if you look for it; many journals (online or otherwise) keep blogs on their websites, and chances are, if you look for it, you can find at least a stray mention of what it’s like sifting through the slush.
(I’d like to break here and make one thing clear: When I use the word “slush,” when Avery at large uses it on our website, it is NOT meant in a derogatory sense. Sure, the term might carry some negative connotations, but to us, it’s just an old hold-over [like calling blurbs "blurbs": I read somewhere that this too was once said in only a negative way]. Most of what you read on the pages of Avery was found in the unsolicited submissions. In the slush. We read every submission we get, and they’re all given equal consideration. M’kay? M’kay.)
And I don’t just mean I like to learn about preferences or biases, wish lists or favorite writers. That’s interesting and valuable, yes, but what I’m talking about specifically is the ritual of submission reading. The habitual parts. Writers have writing rituals in spades, and I’m sure editors and readers have just as many when it comes to going through submissions.
I also love seeing writers’/editors’ workspaces. I would’ve suggested that as a feature for the new site if The Guardian UK hadn’t already done it and HTML Giant wasn’t currently doing it so well.
So, as the inaugural post for our “Eat, Drink, Slush” section, I decided to pull back the curtain and talk a little shop. Demystify the process a bit. Not that it’s a terribly mystifying one to begin with, but, you know, inquiring minds (not that I think many minds inquire about how I spend my nights, but I digress).
This is where most of my reading happens. I’ll explain why it’s only “most” later.
Living in a tiny three-room apartment means space is at a premium. This fantastic shelving unit/office solution from IKEA was just what the doctor ordered. My almost-office is across the main room from our kitchen wall; I face exposed brick and an always-curtained window. And my behemoth screen. When I finally decided that I need more computer than a laptop could offer, I figured, I spend so much damn time staring at a screen, it may as well be big. I don’t know if that’s logic or good ol’ American bigger-means-better consumerism, but there you have it. You’ll also notice that I do not have an office chair, instead using an upholstered living room chair. I like to sit cross-legged. This affords me that comfort.
My reference books live nearby (all other books living on a case across the room, near my husband’s hallway alcove workspace, with the exception of newly acquired/halfway through/for class books), as do all lit mags. The storage boxes only imply order; they contain old cords and plugs, VHS tapes, CDs, and all of my undergrad work. Hell if I know which is which.
While I’m on the computer constantly during the day (one of my day jobs is in a college computer lab, the other is freelance work for an ad agency), I do not read submissions off-and-on, all day. I imagine many editors need to read whenever they have a spare moment. I prefer to read at home, at night, and in long, long stretches.
I’m a binge reader.
Armed with my cigarettes and my Liz Lemon mug filled with coffee and Kahlúa, I settle in some time after eight. Sometimes there’s music (and when there is, it is always my entire playlist on shuffle), if there’s something loud happening in my apartment or in any of the apartments bordering mine, but only as a means to isolate myself–it can be too distracting. I log in to the submissions account (a step that’ll shortly be supplanted by our adoption of the Submishmash system, which I am totally stoked about), open the Word doc where I take notes on each piece I’ve read, and I’m ready.
I’m ready to be wowed.
I want to be wowed. I want to find stories that’ll keep me up at night they are so awesome. I want to find pieces that are so good I have to e-mail another editor and exclaim, “You must look at this immediately!” I want to find that one submission that raises the bar.
I find those pieces. That’s why I love this work so much. So many people are creating so much great writing. It really is astounding.
I try to finish every piece. Some editors or submitters might think this is crazy talk, that I must be lying, perpetuating some kind of horrible myth about the noble, do-good magazine editor. That I’m some kind of Pollyanna. Maybe. Part of it’s a hold-over from work on my undergrad institution’s annual anthology, where reading every submissions in its entirety was required. Part of it is because sometimes it takes a piece a little while to get going, but holy Jeez, when it gets going, it gets going. In any case, I get all the way through most of them.
Sometimes I read them out loud. Sometimes I laugh. I love when a piece can make me laugh. I hate when making me laugh is the only thing it’s got going for it. Sometimes I gasp. Sometimes I shake my head. Sometimes there are no words or gestures or notes I can put down to explain what a piece does to me. Sometimes a piece is so damn good, I need a cigarette afterward. Sometimes submissions are mass-mailed queries about whether or not we will read/publish the submitter’s book. That ticks me off. Sometimes we get poetry. That ticks me off more.
My binge reading sessions tend to last from two to three hours, but I’ve had longer. It’s time to stop when (1) I’m out of coffee or (2) I’m out of cigarettes or (3) I think I might be too tired to be fully receptive or (4) the sun has come up and I should really get some sleep because I have work in three hours.
This is where the above comment about “most of my reading” comes in.
My laptop lives on the box my printer came in, in my bedroom. My husband and I are not the types who believe the bedroom should be devoid of electronics, and so it’s not uncommon for me to crawl into bed after some hours of reading, only to be unable to sleep, still curious about what else is in the inbox. That’s when I drag the computer and my makeshift desk into the bed with me and start reading. Again. These sessions tend to go until my husband’s snoring just becomes too much.
And that’s it.
It’s a process I miss when submissions are closed, a process that I haven’t been able to replace by reading published work or blogs or Wikipedia (though Gawker has come very, very close). It’s the discovery of it, I’m sure. Of finding something amazing. Of seeing what’s out there, what my contemporaries are doing.
When submissions re-open soon, check back here to read more posts from me and the other editors about the process. We can’t wait to get back to the reading.