Today's the day of rants about newbie writers and their sometimes strange ideas about things. First, allow me to point you to Nick Mamatas's latest banning for imbecilic behavior (be sure to click on the link to the offender's blog in his post because it makes for very interesting reading and is the poster-child for what not to do when you get rejected). Maybe my mother just raised me right but I'd never think to snap off to an editor's face about rejecting me. I might rag to my friends about it privately, for commiseration purposes or because I just need to blow off steam, but it's never once crossed my mind to write back to an editor and tell them "You're so f-ing wrong, joe! And you're an idiot for not seeing my obvious genius! I shall be glaring down on you from the NYTBSL, schmuck!" But then I'm also not one to tell people, "My story is really awesome, so go read it! (like this particular person did in their very next post.). When it comes to my own work, my opinions about its quality count for nothing. The opinion of the editors who write the check (and their slush readers, because hell without them I'd probably never make the editor's desk) counts most, with readers a very close second (because chances are that if they don't like it, editor won't write me a second check for a second story). So why would anyone want to piss off editors and burn a bridge like that? And why on earth would one be proud of having been banned from submitting to a magazine and think about committing career suicide by doing something as stupid as mentioning it in a cover letter to another editor? Doesn't she realize that if she does, it will tell every editor who sees it that she's difficult to work with and the who hell wants to take on that task?

This other one isn't really a rant, but rather a smack-head-with-hand observation that can probably be blamed just as much on the admins at WotF as the poor writers. In the last couple of weeks I've seen no less than two people report sales to WotF for quarter 1 over at Duotrope, which is totally puzzling considering the finalists were just announced and the stories just went off for final judging. The admins are doing something new this quarter (though I think it actually started the quarter before) by personally calling those folks that earned an honorable mention, which is very nice of them. And it would seem that some of these poor writers are taking the call as news that they've won the contest or at the very least sold their story to the anthology. News folks: unless someone says they're going to send you a contract or outlines the terms to you when they contact you, you haven't made a sale. An honorable mention is great but it's still a rejection. A semi-finalist is still a rejection. 5 of the 8 finalists will likely still be rejections when all is said and done. So unless you hear the words "I'm going to send you the contract," don't get too excited because you're unfortunately going to be upset and bitter and foolish when you figure out the truth.