Firefox 4.0 now calls the address bar in their browser the “Awesome Bar,” which has me envisioning a bar filled to over brimming with editors and writers. New and seasoned alike, everyone has their nook or cranny, shoulders rub, they buy each other drinks and swap pages in a haze of purple and green neon while Duran Duran and After the Fire pulse in the background. Books and magazines line the walls. It’s a place everyone is welcome–because everyone has come to find the awesome.

When I first started submitting my fiction to markets, I felt like they were all against me. There was no way I would even reach the Awesome Bar, because too many friends of editors blocked the way. Oh, I could see the pulsing neon, but couldn’t dance in it. Rejections piled up; could my writing suck this much? I couldn’t fathom it–it had to be the editors! They didn’t like me and loved only their close circle, so there was no way I was getting a drink at that bar.

Then, logic intruded.

Editors Aren’t Against You

Having become an editor and seeing how this side of the process works, editors really aren’t against you. A rejection is never personal. It’s the words that aren’t right, not you, because trust me, editors are looking for the awesome in every submission. Editors need your stories, otherwise they have nothing to publish. They’re always on the lookout for that fresh new voice, and want to share it with the world. Believe this.

We Want to Find the Awesome

Every story has the potential to be the awesome before we open it. I look at it as Schrödinger’s Submissions; before I open the story, it can be both The Awesome and The Not Quite Right. The scales are equally balanced. To keep them balanced, I usually don’t read the cover letter first, and I often don’t look at the title. I want to get to that first page; I want to see if page one rolls smoothly into page two and keeps me hooked into the story. Get me to the end of the story. I hope I make it every single time.

Finding the Awesome

We never know what flavor the awesome will take. I point time and again to Grá Linnea’s caveman story, “20th Century Caveman” (Shimmer #9), because this was not a story I expected to find awesome. The title gave me pause (which is why I rarely look at them before I start reading now!). Caveman, I thought. What? Can that even work? Really? By the end of paragraph two, I was already sold. Likewise with “You Had Me at Rarrrgg” by Nicky Draden (Shimmer #12). Zombies…wait, no, a zombie love story. Really? Really.

Defining the Awesome?

Almost impossible for me, because it can be a hundred different things. It may be a turn of phrase that links the entire story together. It may be a clever premise. It may be a captivating voice. Maybe it’s a point of view we’ve never seen before, a daring twist, or sometimes it’s an amazing blend of all these things. One of the best things? At Shimmer, we have seven people reading submissions. Each of us likes something different so your chances are that much better that your writing will strike a chord with one of us.

Come to the Awesome Bar

From prior entries here, you might think that working through the slush is a terrible journey. It’s truly not, because every story has the potential to be the awesome, to be the one we take to our fellow editors, “Heeey, lookit this.” Make this be your story. We want to see you get to the Awesome Bar and have a drink with us, as much as you want to be there!

Rock the Casbah

What are you doing with your writing today to reach the Awesome Bar?