Firstly, apologies to those of you who sent me piles of stuff back in April and are still waiting to hear from me two months later. Needless to say, things have been rather busy and it's taking me longer than I hoped to get through the scripts. Not much of an excuse I know, but I am on the case!

Which leads me onto my second reason for posting this. I've spent the last three hours on the slush pile this afternoon (my printer has finally collapsed, conviniently rendering half my workload null and void). But in this hot weather, I fear the frustration of it may kill me. Or I may kill someone else. I know I'm preaching to the converted, but just in case someone's wandering through here looking for a few tips on submissions I'll carry on.

I'm begging you all, for the love of god, put your name on your submission. Please! I know it sounds ridiculous but so many people either scrawl an unintelligible signature, or only use their initials (which can make it tricky to pick a gender).

My other plea would be that you include a covering letter and please, please, no more handwritten letters. Not if your handwriting looks like a small group of spiders have been tangoing in a particularly damp patch of mud. (Oh and check it - a recent offering that began "I have wrote a novel" didn't do the author any favours).

And finally, give your book a title and tell me what it is! Don't waste a stamp telling me you've written 'various stories'. Pick one and tell me about it, otherwise I can't do anything.

I know it sounds daft but when you spend the whole afternoon answering dozens of letters at a time, it gets so frustrating if you can't even get the most basic information, and it's not really going to endear me to your script.

Having said all that I should add that the WW submissions are always comforting. They always tell me what I need to know and there's a merciful lack of books telling me apartheid 'worked'; letters accusing me of being a talentless moron and people demanding their work back because I haven't signed them up within three weeks.

As you can probably tell I'm not having the best day....but hopefully now I can sit back and have a read of something a little more worthwhile...

Katie

Thanks for the useful tips, Katie. My tip to you, go and sit in the sunshine with a nice glass of Pimms, and leave the slush for another day.

Adele.

Katie --

You have my heartfelt sympathy.

Your posting should be required reading for anyone preparing to make a submission - anywhere! I'll certainly bear your words in mind as I prepare my short stories for submission.

I hope you have a bottle of nice wine chilling in the fridge at home. You deserve it!

Ani

I think a lot of people are at the end of their tethers in June. My children's teachers keep reminding them how many weeks are left before the holidays. (Luckily there are only 2 and a half here). My students have been amusing themselves, tormenting me about the football result (not that I'm interested but I do have my pride) One girl said Zidane was fantastic and anyway the English players are " 'ow do you say 'moche'?"

Then I spent my last hour correcting two students who insisted on pronouncing build as it is written (oh, that English was so logical) and correcting each other - wrongly!

Roll on the hols, eh?
Elspeth

Katie, you say no initials make it hard to pick gender, but do you really need to know? Still, I guess it helps to know a little something about the person that has sent you their work, even if it is just a name...?

Anyway, more irrelevant nonsense from me - I love the term 'slush pile', but perhaps only after hearing the "It came from the slush pile" horror stories of what some people submit. It generates such wonderful images, clichéd characters slipping from the pages of one book into the post apocalyptic world of another whilst telling the story of their 84 year old grandfather who never ate beans.

Thanks for the pointers though, as obvious as they seem, I suppose they can easily get forgotten in the excitement of sending work out!

Ben

Elspeth,
I loved the spiders, people with illegible writing hardly ever know it. It reminds me of trawling through hospital notes with dozens and dozens of hand-written comments about the patients. Occupational therapists, bless them, have the clearest writing, the ones who really make work difficult are,.. yes you've guessed it. It isn't a cliche, doctors really do have insane hand-writing.
Becca.

Thanks for the sympathy. I made it home in one piece and fortunately a flat mate was on hand with the wine...

I know that you lot know what you're doing. That's the problem; if you're on this site then you're half way there already; it's the people who are unbelievably clueless that cause the headaches.

As to gender, Ben, that's more me being anally retentive - when I write back to people I address them by their surname and I worry when I have to guess about putting Ms, Mrs or Mr. It doesn't prejudice me as far as the writing's concerned, but I'd like to have some idea of who I'm talking to.

But I hope you guys can take some reassurance from all this - compared to what you're up against half the time, your work positively glows...

Enjoy the sunshine.

Katie

Katie,

When you write my letter you dont have to tell me that I mispelled the title (several times).

Oh the shame

Geoff

<Added>

Or the fact that I mispelt misspelled. Double :(

Ssshhh Geoff - I wouldn't have noticed! (And as long as the title's there, I can live without an apostrophe).
K

In response to Katie's dilemma I composed the following, I am sure she would not mind me sharing with everybody

From out of the Slush Pile

It crept from out the slush pile,
shapeless and silent,
like some amoebic monster,
from planets far distant,
it had no name, no shape or form,
black spiders filled the space
it uttered cries I'd heard before,
I could not see its face.
It had no heart, it had no soul,
and no return address,
how was I to reply
perhaps just take a guess?

Hot days spent reading others 'works of art'
whose grammar leaves me cold.
have the standards really dropped?
I can't be getting old.
Each day I face the monster,
it is haunting me
my only escape to sit in the sun
with a nice cold G & T

So if as an author you are bent
and novels you will write
before you send them off to me,
make sure your spellings right,
write your name , don't be shy
on each page, at the top
and ensure the grammars right
or before I start, I'll stop
and to the reject bin I'll send
your life times work of art
and your career will reach an end
before it's had time to start.
My slush pile monster grows each day,
without any help from you,
so please, oh please, do as I say
but in the end, its up to you.

an olebut original 2004

take care all

david

Brilliant, David! I like how you've ironically missed a few apostrophes too

Adele

That's one for the agents to put on their websites. I guess you never get to the bottom of the slush pile - I wonder what's underneath, now there's an idea for a story...
Elspeth

Underneath the slushpile: dead authors, shattered dreams and lost illusions.

Must get back to work!

Adele

or a mouldy sandwich.

<Added>

Bon appetit!

Adele

or the desire to prove the agent wrong and to rewrite refine and persevere

don't give up

oh yes well it would not have worked if it had been perfect would it and to be honest I bashed it off in about 20 minutes as it also would not have worked as well if I had spent hours working on it and refining it glad you like it

Elspeth

now that would be ironic wouldn't it the only way I get published is for thsi to appear on every agents web site still thing of the royalties

take care all

david


<Added>

oops typo sorry trying to work /work, finish an assignment drink a cup of coffee reply to e-mails an dthink about a story I am writing which keeps getting in the way of everything else aghhhhhhh ;)