A Box Labeled "Explosives"

Evidently, they're shooting Transformers 3 in Chicago and several trailers are right outside our windows. (I do not have a window. But Mighty Editors do!) I, clueless as ever, did not realize this was happening until EA was filling me in on Something Complicated and one of the AEs of a nonfiction magazine came trotting out of her office and said, "Guys, the box labeled 'explosives' is outside my window again, come see!" So we all dashed over, looked at the Box Labeled 'Explosives' and were impressed.

Having received (finally) a packet of first reader checked submissions, and having had to pick fan mail and contest winners for publication, and having been handed several books to find interesting passages from, I all of a sudden am swamped with work. I have, as of today, discovered a flaw in the (my) system.

Basically, once I have read a submission and decide to pass it on, I write up a little Reader Report. It has the FR comments, my rec for which magazine, and some comments, usually along the lines of "if you just let me HELP it, it could be so GOOD!" (Those get sent back to me with the post-it "plz reject!") Okay, so RR is done. Now what? I print out the RR and make a photocopy of the story. The RR is stapled to the photocopy. The original goes in a file folder than I must make and file alphabetically.

Whenever I file things, I get the alphabet song stuck in my head for the rest of the day.

I am that cool.

Regardless, my system is to do five RRs before I file them. If I file every time I decide to pass one on, it would be ridiculously inefficient, but if I did more than five I'd spend all my time singing the alphabet and confusedly filing.

The flaw? Every time I have four RRs done I suddenly get really picky about what I accept because I am...what's the word?...careful? nitpicky? Oh, lazy. That's right. I would say submissions that I read between RRs 4 and 5 have a much greater possibility of getting a form reject straight away.

(Note, please, that I am too much of a fraidy cat to reject anything I think has ANY chance of succeeding. Usually I pass on 20% things I LOVE, 40% poetry that I do not have an opinion on and 40% things I do not like but feel bad about rejecting out of hand. About 60% of all that comes back to me to form reject anyway. ...Also I made all those percentages up. But you know what I mean!)

So then the AE who had explosives outside her window came back and said "They have a fire extinguisher now. I feel much safer."