An Anecdotal Warning, or, I'm Dumb

December 31, New Year's Eve

There are several entries coming soon, but I wanted to post a brief one saying "I'm back", and to give you all an anecdotal warning against the perils of poor record keeping.

Quite some time ago (I'm not sure when, but it's been a few months, at least) I sent a batch of poems to Asimov's. I don't send out many poetry submissions, really, so I don't pay as close attention to tracking them as I should (I'm meticulous about tracking fiction submissions, but that's not much help here). Usually this haphazardness is not fatal, since I only have a few poems out at a time, and can keep track in my head. But a few months ago I did a big poetry-push and sent out almost all of my finished poems. I did track those submissions... but since I hadn't noted my earlier submissions to Asimov's, I sent those same poems to other magazines.

This is bad, because this morning I received e-mail from Gardner saying my submission had been misplaced for a while, but the good news was he liked all four poems I sent, and wanted to accept them all. That's "Glass Boy", "My Night with Aphrodite", "Muse Trap", and "How to Love a Fairy Maid". Great news! Except I already sold "Muse Trap" to Strange Horizons and "How to Love a Fairy Maid" to the Magazine of Speculative Poetry; indeed, both those lovely magazines have already paid me.

So I wrote a rather sheepish note to Gardner, telling him I screwed up, and that I hope he's not too annoyed. I really hope he's not. I like selling poems to Asimov's.

This has happened to me, as a poetry editor -- me accepting poems, then being told that, oops, they were sold elsewhere. And you know what? It annoyed me. Sigh.

So. Let this be a lesson to you. Keep good records. Even of poetry.

Of course, I'm sure all of you already do, and I'm the only dumb one.

Bleah.

Entries of more substance to follow soonish.

Tim Pratt
P.O. Box 13222
Berkeley, CA 94712-4222