every trans person I've spoken to is feeling the Drag Down right now. not everybody has fallen into despair but we're all feeling it creeping in around the edges, doing our best to fight it. things are bad. if you know a trans person, look after them.

I feel like we need a list of markets that say "no politics" in the sub guidelines as a general 'do not submit here' warning. Every press I've seen with this stipulation has been queerphobic. #writing #submissions #writingcommunity

Remember, folks: "no current events" is reasonable. "No politics" is a right-wing dogwhistle meaning "nothing diverse or woke".

So I've had an inactive Substack that I'm keeping up because I need to access drafts I've got on there. Got a notification I got added as a guest author to a blank Substack? What is this? #writingcommunity

🎯🎯🎯

Someone shoot me. I submitted to a publication and I typoed the name of the publication so bad that I'm pretty sure it's an auto-reject. I hate having dyslexia so fucking much. #writing #writingcommunity

I can safely say I've never used a spreadsheet to write specfic but here we are.

So many typos in works I've submitted. It'll be a small miracle if any of them get a second look.

Please. I literally have to choose between getting paid and not going crazy from grief. Literally anything would help at this point.

Please. I literally have to choose between getting paid and not going crazy from grief. Literally anything would help at this point.

I really hate to ask this but my bereavement leave at my job is 100% unpaid and I cannot put up with work while I'm helping my mom get my dad's affairs in order. Anything helps. ko-fi.com/ihpkmn

The fact that I have to choose between going broke in order to grieve or going to work and being fucking miserable for nine hours a day while I cannot process the death of my father is everything that's wrong with the US. Bereavement leave should be paid, in all instances. Stop exploiting workers.

Indeed is a scam company that needs to be shut down.

A $100 advance plus royalties for novel length work??? That's criminal and verges on outright exploitation of authors who don't know any better. Please take this post down. Authors deserve better treatment than this, especially in the age of AI.

Just sent off another work. Hopefully I at least get a personal rejection for once.

🚨 HOUSING HELP i haven't gotten a paycheck this month due to my director neglecting to turn our timesheets in on time ill be late on rent & my housemates are rightfully upset about this. this has already put me on shaky grounds with my new housemates gofund.me/bc153f9ed any amount will help, ty

Under-writing. My first draft of my novel, I thought "Oh 50k is enough"... then I got told 80k is the bare minimum needed to get a fantasy novel published. Current draft is about 82k I think? #writesky #writingcommunity

You can buy the anthology Weird Tales to Haunt Your Reptilian Brain now! Click on the link to read it this weekend! www.amazon.com/dp/B0F6414WM1 #weirdtales #ScareShare #Horror #Horror_Retweet #supporthorror #HorrorCommunity

fuck cancer.

It isn't fair that a bunch of Nazi scumfucks get to outlive my father.

how is it that the worst year of my life keeps getting exponentially worse

I'm considering the idea of the main character being in a polycule. Probably not a great idea if I actually want to get published, but every relationship I've had has involved one, so write what you know.

A moral billionaire. There are some things that are too absurd for fiction.

The protagonist researches their new high school.

I try to always include at least one queer character. It hasn't earned me points as far as getting published has gotten.

I love trans people! I think more people should be trans! Anyone who is against trans people should shut up and stop talking! This isn't a complicated or nuanced take! There isn't any "I support trans people BUT...." bullshit here! I love trans people! You should also love trans people!

I feel like everyone needs to work six months in retail and three months at a call center in order to learn a sense of fucking empathy.

Anyone noticing a sudden influx of bot followers lately?

Am I the only person who feels like it's only a matter of time until The Long Walk gets a game show adaptation? Look at Squid Game. Granted I think Stephen King would actually murder anyone who tries that but still.

I have only ever walked out of the theater early twice in my life. Once, I was eight and got food poisoning. The other time was tonight. Do not see Conjuring Last Rites. Poorly-written Catholic/Evangelical propaganda with abysmal pacing.

I legitimately think, at this point, I have a better chance of winning the lottery than I do of getting a short accepted more than once every five years.

The official Canadian Petition to reign in payment processor censorship has stalled out just under 10k signatures. This is a reminder for Canadians, this is an OFFICIAL petition that will be responded to. Show your support in protecting our free speech! www.ourcommons.ca/petitions/en...

Hey for real if you're posting that video or pictures from it on my timeline, I'm blocking It ain't a HOW DARE YOU BE HAPPY thing it is a HEY DON'T POST SHIT OF A REAL PERSON BEING SHOT WITH A GUN BE FUCKING FOR REAL

Animals are destroyed in order to test for rabies. It's the only way to do it, for some reason. Vaccinate your cats and dogs.

Woke up this morning to a thing that said I owed the Ohio BMV money by "October 10nd". People fall for this?

Hey, short story markets: if you don't accept genre/spec fiction, *say that explicitly in your guidelines*. Don't leave neurodivergent authors who with egg on their face like I have now.

Genuinely afraid that if I submit to a journal/market for queer folks, my male-presenting ass is going to be told I'm not queer enough, or that I'm going to be treated like that one jackass on Twitter who pretended to be trans. #writingcommunity #lgbt

I need to get better at removing artifacts from previous drafts. I just realized I was referring to a protagonist whose name I changed five drafts ago in this current one. FML, no wonder it kept getting rejected.

If I had a nickel for every fucking time I misspelled the name of a market or an EIC when trying to submit a short, I'd never have to worry about making money from short stories.

I feel as if a form rejection shouldn't be the norm for short markets. Tell me *why* it doesn't work for you, don't just wish me luck.

As someone who hopes to be pro-pubbed someday, it's hard to not snark at a book when I find it to be poorly-written or executed. But in this latest thing I'm reading, it just... feels sloppy that the editor didn't notice multiple side characters with the same name. #writingcommunity

I feel like there's a thin line between "appropriate reference" and "namedropping" when it comes to referring to other works in your writing. #writingcommunity

A Market I've been waiting two months to hear back from is open again... and still hasn't responded to the submissions from the previous sub period. It's not fair for markets to say "no simultaneous subs" if they're gonna be this delayed with responses across the industry. #writingcommunity

If I had to guess, some agricultural lobby is pushing for pickles to be used in food because sales are down. The dairy lobby gave us stuffed crust pizza. Something similar seems to be happening here.

#writingcommunity What's the general etiquette to check on a story if the market you submitted to doesn't list a "Please Inquire By" date? Six months?

Highly recommend The Cautious Traveler's Guide to the Wastelands by Sarah Brooks. Imagine a Victorian-era Southern Reach novel. It's excellent.

What I'm writing might be the dumbest thing I've ever written in my life, and I'm counting my coerced resignation letter from a job.

AI is a cancer and I think it's incurable at this point. My uncle, a Harvard-educated economist, fed a story of mine into ChatGPT and asked it for crit rather than provide his own. I have never been so fucking angry at a member of my own family before. Jesus Christ.

If this country survives, we need to seriously reconsider our worship of national symbols like the flag.

*checks Moksha queue* *sees I'm at position 67* *checks Moksha queue 3 weeks later* *only position 48* I get that publishing takes a while. I get everyone's stressed. But it's still discouraging to see a story take this long to get looked over. #writingcommunity