notes from behind the scenes

Greetings from behind-the-scenes! Savvy writers know we closed for submissions for the November 30, 2012 issue on October 15. We are furiously reading through all the submissions and will let writers know by the end of the month of they are rejected (sorry!) or being held-for-voting (hurray!). Then, by the beginning of November we will let folks know if they're in the issue (yeah!). Really savvy writers will have deduced that means we have our production meeting at the end of October/beginning of November. They would be right. :)

On behalf of all the editors, I'd like to say "Thank you very much." to everyone who submitted.

Since I've been reading through so many stories, I do have some tips... I apologize to faithful readers of the blog: you've seen most of these tips before.

• Only use 'said/say' or 'asked/ask' in your dialogue tags. I'm not kidding here. Why? Because 'said/say' and 'asked/ask' are invisible, while 'grunted', 'sighed', etc. takes the reader out of the story. Can you grunt words? Sigh words? We want the reader to stay in the story.
• Use specific and unique descriptions. Descriptions should always be from the point-of-view of the protagonist. For example, don't say 'She was pretty.' Be specific. How is she pretty? Maybe 'She had the most luscious lips John had ever seen and he couldn't wait to kiss them.'
  A laundry list of descriptive words often has the vagueness problem. For example, 'He was wearing a blue suit, wing-tipped shoes, an expensive watch, a red power-tie.' It doesn't really paint a picture. But 'Sally gasped when she saw his diamond-encrusted Rolex.' does paint a picture.
• Subject your work to the 'Huh?' test. After reading your story, does a person say, 'Huh?' This is not a good thing. After reading the first page of your story, does a person say, 'Huh?' Again, not a good thing. If an editor can't tell what's going on in your story, he/she is not going to buy it. IMHO, 100% of writers need to let someone else read their story, and ask them, 'What happened?' If it's not what the author intended: rewrite.
• Think carefully about writing a story about vampires or werewolves or zombies. It is particularly difficult to pull of something fresh in this arena.
• Please submit to us in rtf format, as we request.
• Please write at least a sentence or two in the cover letter. Please do not write 100 sentences in the cover letter. (Your time is valuable!)
• Please read the excellent new issue of Electric Spec when it comes out at the end of November. :)

quantum fiction

I have a confession: I love quantum physics. So, as you might imagine I'm pretty jazzed that a scientist from one of my alma maters just won the Nobel Prize in Physics. The Nobel Prize in Physics 2012 was awarded jointly to Serge Haroche and David J. Wineland "for ground-breaking experimental methods that enable measuring and manipulation of individual quantum systems". Read all about it on The Novel Prize in Physics site.

So, of course, I also love quantum fiction and often write it and read it. In case you aren't familiar with the term, Wikipedia says Quantum fiction is a literary genre that reflects modern experience of the material world and reality as influenced by quantum theory and new principles in quantum physics.

Last week I discovered author Paul Melko. His novel The Walls of the universe is quintessential quantum fiction and so good. John Rayburn, an Ohio farmboy, is tricked by his own doppelganger into using a broken universe-hopping device, sending him on a one-way trip to a dozen other, bizarre universes. He must use his wits to find his way back to his home universe, without running afoul of the mysterious forces afoot in the multiverse.

His novel Broken Universe is also very good. John and his friends have been trapped in a parallel universe while they try to build dimension-hopping transfer device, and when they finally get back to their home universe, they find that the Alarians have exploited the homemade transfer device john left behind. John and his team have got to stop them before they use the transfer device to unleash themselves upon the multiverse. Along the way, John and friends recruit an army of their doppelgangers to help them build a transdimensional company.

Besides the awesome plotting and really cool quantum physics ideas, these novels work because the protagonist John is extremely likeable. The novels also address the whole nature versus nurture paradigm. Do we all contain good and evil? Exactly what would it take for evil to win out?

What good books have you read recently?

invisible intentions

I had a funny thing happen recently. I finished the first draft of a story and followed my own advice: I asked several critique partners what happened in the story. I got several totally different interpretations!
You either have to laugh or cry. I choose to laugh. :)
A couple people did interpret the story the way I intended it. A lot of people went off on weird tangents, taking small story details and running with them. So, yes, I will be working on that story today and I will be removing all those apparently intriguing details.

This experience relates to Verlyn Klinkenborg's blog at The New York Times from earlier this week: The Trouble With Intentions. Among other things he says,
Your opinion of what your sentence means is always overruled by what your sentence literally says. and This means you’ll need to write, and revise, as if your intentions were invisible and your sentences will be doing all the talking, all on their own. This may be the hardest thing a writer has to learn.

I agree. This is one of the hardest thing a writer has to learn. The hardest thing for me, however, is divorcing my intentions from the literal sentences, seeing what is really on the page. Klinkenborg also says,
Seeing what your sentences actually say is never easy, but it gets easier with practice.

Good luck to all of us!

notes from the slush pile

I guess by now the heart-pounding thrills and chills of the August 31, 2012 issue of Electric Spec has started to wear off. Time marches on, so, we've started working on the new November 30, 2012 issue. We have a lead on a neat interview! Stay tuned for more info in November.
As a heads-up, we will close to submissions for that issue on October 15, 2012.

Anyway, I've been going through my slush pile...
I did come across a couple of head-scratchers. By this I mean I read the whole story and I couldn't figure out what happened. I strongly suggest every author get another set of eyes on their work before submission. This can be your significant other, Mom, BFF, or whatever. But, after they read it, ask them what they think happened. If all they can say is: "It was good." or "I liked it." They are a true friend BUT you probably need to work on the story some more.

I also came across a couple stories where the protagonist didn't do anything. I'm not saying they tried to do something and failed--that would be fine. I'm saying they didn't even try to do anything. I'm sorry, but this editor doesn't think that's a story. Authors should always investigate their market before submitting.

There were some stories with totally unrealistic dialogue. An easy way to spot this is to read the story out loud, by yourself, or with a friend.

There were some stories with major info-dumping. Bummer. This kind of thing went out in like the 1950s. Characters should never discuss something they all already know, e.g.

"As you know, Bob, my new warp drive bends space-time in front of and behind a vessel rather than attempting to propel the vessel itself at light-speeds."

"Yes, Joe. That was a good idea."

No. Generally, authors don't want to give the reader info in paragraphs of narrative either. The bottom line on info is: less is more. Instead, show us. For example, what happens when the Alcubierre Drive fails?

Of course, there were also some very good stories in my slush pile that made it into hold for voting. Hopefully, you'll get to read them too.

I look forward to reading your story! Keep sending them in.

optimism or pessimism in fiction

I just finished an awesome book This Shared Dream by Kathleen Ann Goonan in which the characters tried to eliminate war and suffering on Earth.

It reminded me of fascinating comments made by Robert J. Sawyer in reference to his WWW Trilogy in an interview. I asked about the idea of a moral arrow through time: "the same force-complexity-that produces consciousness also naturally generates morality, and that as interdependence increases, both intelligence and morality will increase."

He said, You may say I'm a dreamer-but I'm not the only one. My own thinking on these issues has been informed by many other people, including the Jesuit paleontologist Pierre Teilhard de Chardin and nonfiction author Robert Wright, who wrote Nonzero: The Logic of Human Destiny and more recently The Evolution of God. Bob and I were recently both speaking at a public-policy conference in Washington, DC., sponsored by the New America Foundation; it was the first time we'd met, and we've become friends. But, yes, I'm a dreamer, and an optimist, but I'm also a realist, I think-and I don't think those are contradictory things to be.
This fiction is uplifting and optimistic! Optimism in fiction can be very effective.

At the other extreme, I just started reading The Drowned Cities by Paolo Bacigalupi. This book is very dark and dramatic. The teaser copy says Soldier boys emerged from the darkness. Guns gleamed dully. Bullet bandoliers and scars draped their bare chests. Ugly brands scored their faces. She knew why these soldier boys had come. She knew what they sought, and she knew, too, that if they found it, her best friend would surely die.

This reminds me of fascinating comments made by Warren Hammond in reference to his KOP Trilogy in an interview. I asked: SF academic Edward James has said "the ability of the writer to imagine a better place in which to live died in the course of the twentieth century, extinguished by the horrors of total war, of genocide and of totalitarianism." Do you agree? Disagree?

He said, I've never heard that before, but I have to agree. I don't think it's true for all writers, but it is for me. I've seen the ovens of Auchwitz and toured S-21, the Khmer Rouge's infamous prison that held an estimated 17,000 prisoners between 1975 and 1979. Of the 17,000 prisoners who went in, there were only seven survivors. Seven.

The truly horrifying thing is knowing these atrocities were committed by regular people. Not all Nazis were monsters. And not all Khmer Rouge were monsters. Many were patriots. Many were idealists. Many were just scared to stand up to authority.

Knowing how easy it is for humans to kill each other, I find it impossible to imagine a future where our problems will all be solved.
Very dramatic! Clearly, pessimism can also be very effective in fiction.

What's your preference in reading and writing? Optimism or pessimism?

keep learning

We hope you continue to enjoy the latest edition of Electric Spec. What's your favorite story or feature? I know, it is a tough choice! :)

This week is also a big one for the Electric Spec Editors. Starting Friday Sept. 7, we'll all be at Rocky Mountain Fiction Writer's annual conference: Colorado Gold. I can't recommend this conference enough. There will be lots of special speakers and guests including Jodi Thomas, Debra Dixon, Beth Miller, Jennifer Unter, Katharine Sands, Anita Mumm, Carlie Webber, Nephele Tempest, James Minz, Erika Imranyl, Peter Senftleben, Liz Pelletier, Libby Murphy, and Terri Bischoff.
There will tons of panels and workshops besides the totally awesome "Short Story Workshop" with the Electric Spec Editors. In short there will be many, many opportunities for learning about writing. If you've signed up already: Great! See you there! If not, there are a few spots still available, or consider it for next year.

The point I'm trying to make, however is, writers need to keep learning and improving their craft. How? Well, I'll tell you. :)

• Write! This is the most important thing. Your writing can't evolve if you don't write.
• Get feedback and consider it. This can be a critique group or beta reader or whatever, but it needs to be honest feedback. As a writer, then, you need to consider this. I'm absolutely not saying you need to do what readers or critiquers tell you to do.
• Read and study fiction. Try to decipher what works and what doesn't work. Think about it. Write it down. Talk it over with your significant other or writer friend.
• Read and study writing about writing. There are a lot of good books, articles, and blog entries out there about writing. What are my favorites? That's a tough choice, but some good books include: Goal, Motivation, and Conflict by Debra Dixon, On Writing by Stephen King, Story by Robert McKee, and Writing the Breakout Novel by Donald Maass. I'm sure you have your own favorites. If not, find some. :)
• Your learning suggestion here.

Happy learning!

We're Live!

The awesome new issue of Electric Spec is live! Go check it out!
Thank you very much to everyone who helped us put this one out including authors Andy Goldman, James Bizzel, Joe Ollinger, Simon Kewin, Linda Hilburn, and this time Nikki Baird! Woo hoo! Thanks to our cover artist, Laura Givens. Thanks to all the editorial and technical staff.

And for those of you who submitted stories and didn't make it into the issue: Thank you to you, too!

Especially, thank you, Readers!

Get Ready!

Readers, get ready! Start your, uh, spectacles? E-readers? I guess start whatever you want to start. This week we will release our new issue of Electric Spec! Some highlights include:

As Dave recently alluded to, there's lots of awesome fiction! In the fantasy sub-genre, we have "My One and Only" by James Bizzell, which uses an unique story structure to explore the question of just what is a soul mate. Also in fantasy, Simon Kewin brings us "The Chronicles of Zer" which emphasizes the importance of books being read. In the cyberpunk department, we have "False Negative" by Andy Goldman, which reminds us the spam in our inbox isn't nearly as bad as it could get. Another late summer thriller for sci-fi readers is Joe Ollinger's "10,000 Bones", an extraterrestrial noir tale that will shake you to your . . . er, bones.

And as if all that wasn't enough, in Special Features, we offer an interview with vampire writer Lynda Hillburn, of Kismet Knight fame. And finally, we're excited to present a new addition our Editor's Corner: our awesome associate editor Nikki Baird shares with us the unique romantic fantasy, "The Hundred Year Storm." Combine that with dramatic cover art and you have a super-fantastic ezine issue! W00t! :)
I admit I may not be totally objective.

Check it out this week!

New Issue Almost Here!

We're putting the final touches on our August issue, which comes out one week from today. To whet your appetite, I'll mention that one of the stories I edited was unique not just in its plot, but also in its structure. Really cool how the events in the story mirror the structure of the story itself. (Okay--I won't keep you guessing. It's James Bizzell's "My one and Only.") I'm also excited because we have a great story from one our favorite E-spec authors, Simon Kewin. I believe this is Simon's forth story with Electric Spec!

writing tips from writers

Many of you may have seen this already but BuzzFeed has a nice collection of "30 Indispensable Writing Tips From Famous Authors". For our writers, here's a nice sampling:

• If it sounds like writing, I rewrite it.--Elmore Leonard
• Don't tell me the moon is shining; show me the glint of light on broken glass.--Anton Chekhov
• If it is possible to cut a word out, always cut it out.--George Orwell
• Kill your darlings, kill your darlings, even when it breaks your egocentric little scribbler's heart, kill your darlings.--Stephen King
• Remember: when people tell you something's wrong or doesn't work for them, they are almost always right. When they tell you exactly what they think is wrong and how to fix it, they are almost always wrong.--Neil Gaiman
• A short story must have a single mood and every sentence must build towards it.--Edgar Allan Poe
• Start as close to the end as possible.--Kurt Vonnegut

Read all the tips here.

In other news, our fabulous new August 31, 2012 issue of Electric Spec is coming along swimmingly! Be sure to check it out next week!

a couple good links

We interrupt our regularly scheduled broadcast for two neat links.

On Writers in The Storm Blog, Kristen Lamb explains What Star Trek Can Teach Us About Great Writing--the 2009 J.J.Abrams movie. Electric Spec readers and writers should enjoy topics such as

• Star Trek proved that imperfect characters resonate with audiences.
• Star Trek perfected showing, not telling.
• Star Trek employed parsimony.
• Star Trek showed character via relativity.
• Star Trek relied on character and story.
• World-building is something a writer must employ to assist or accentuate the core conflict.

There's lot of good advice here!

The president of Rocky Mountain Fiction Writers (RMFW), Mark Stevens, talks about Tall Tales: Rocky Mt. Fiction Writers Conference in Denver. I agree with Mark. The RMFW conference is awesome! Check it out Sept. 7,8,9 2012 in Denver if you can.

behind-the-scenes update

We, The Editors, are in the thick of things, getting ready for the new issue of Electric Spec. Personally, I finished my initial edits of my two assigned stories, and passed things off to the authors for their feedback.
What the heck? I'll tell you about them (because they're both really good). "False Negative" by Andy Goldman is a disturbing extrapolation of what could happen if human beings have to deal with their selves being spammed. "10,000 Bones" by Joe Ollinger is a tale of disillusionment and human greed--set on another planet, of course. Yes, these are both science fiction. I do tend to edit the most science-fiction-y of our stories because I'm a scientist. :) Read the new issue on August 31, 2012!

We also have something new in the upcoming issue: a story by our Associate Editor, Nikki Baird, in Editor's Corner. For those of you who don't troll the obscure webpages of Electric Spec,
Nikki Baird writes science fiction, fantasy, and horror. Her short horror story, "Devastation Mine" was published as part of the anthology Broken Links, Mended Lives, which was nominated for a Colorado Book Award. She has been a finalist in the Rocky Mountain Fiction Writers' Colorado Gold contest for the last two years in the Speculative Fiction category, and is a regular contributor to writersonthebrink.com. Read more about Nikki here. So, be sure to check out her story, too!

In other news...we have been neglecting the slush pile. :(
Sorry. We'll get back to it soon. If you've submitted: hold on!

partnership

Once in a while we get an author who doesn't want us to edit their story or they don't want to sign the contract or they want us to edit their story before they sign the contract or similar. What happens when this occurs? The author doesn't get published. Personally, I find such situations quite sad. The author has gone to the trouble to write a good story but hasn't gone to the trouble to learn about the publishing business. Editors never work with content without a contract.

It's particularly sad with regard to Electric Spec because we created the 'zine with the sole purpose of helping authors. All the editors are writers and love fiction and we all know how tough the publishing market is. We want to help you get your best work out there for the reading public! When we edit a story we always work with the author in partnership to create the best story possible.

We're now accepting submissions for our November 2012 issue. Check out our Fiction Submission Guidelines where it says before publication we may edit the story for length or readability. However, we always remain true to the spirit of the story.

Good luck! :)

production meeting

My head has finally stopped pounding enough to give you all an update. We, The Editors of Electric Spec, had our production meeting this week. We had a super-duper special guest: our associate editor Nikki Baird. Thanks for all your help, Nikki! Plenty of fun and excitement and refreshments and arguments were had by all. I admit the caber toss was probably a mistake. One of us (okay, it was me) had 8 different kinds of beer! Possibly writing the blog post about the production meeting isn't quite the high honor my fellow editors and the beer goggles may have led me to believe...

Anyway, we are smack dab in the middle of the process of emailing the authors in hold-for-voting to tell them the big news. Stay close to your inbox if you're waiting for 'yeah' or 'nay'. If you didn't make it in the issue: thank you for submitting--we appreciate it. If you did make it in: Congratulations! We will start editing the stories as soon as we get the contracts back. What else? We plan on five neat stories in this issue. We have a neat story planned for Editors Corner. Editor Betsy will do a neat author interview. We have neat cover art. Apparently, I use the word 'neat' too often. :)

There were some spirited discussions about which stories to include. What was the tie-breaker? Originality. If there was a story that included a plot idea or a world or a story structure we hadn't seen before, it had a better chance. If we couldn't predict where the story was going, it had a better chance. We also did have to address the question of issue balance: we could not have 5 stories about love triangles involving a mopey human, a vampire, and a werewolf. Darn!

Please check out the new issue of Electric Spec on August 31, 2012!

stay tuned...

This week things are cranking into overdrive behind the scenes at Electric Spec. We have our production meeting and will pick stories for the August 31, 2012 issue. So, stay tuned until later in the week and we'll post more.
We're also gearing up for the thirtieth annual Rocky Mountain Fiction Writers Colorado Gold Conference September 7-9. We, the ElectricSpec Editors, will be teaching a short story workshop among other things. I highly recommend this conference and there's still time to register, although some events are booked up. Read more about it here.

In the meantime, for your reading pleasure, Professor Gunn pointed me to a fun article in the New York Times Sunday Book Review: How to Write by Colson Whitehead. It has some good advice and some which is good for a laugh. :)

is your story memorable?

Here at Electric Spec we are very busy behind the scenes working on the next issue: August 31,2012. What's going on, you ask? Well, I'll tell you. :)

We've scheduled our production meeting for next week. Some of us are frantically trying to get through their slush. Some of us are already pondering the relative merits of the stories in hold-for-voting. We're thinking about possible movie columns, entries in Editor's Corner, cover art and author interviews. We're setting up the issue in our content management system. If it seems like a lot of work, it is.

I find picking amongst the stories in hold-for-voting to be hard. In the first place, if a story gets in hold-for-voting it is publishable. So, it's tough to think that we might end up not choosing it; I definitely empathize with authors. Not only is writing difficult, getting published is difficult. In fact, this is why we started Electric Spec--to give authors another possible market. I've been trying to pinpoint what makes me prefer a story in hold-for-voting over other stories. Yes, it has to be well-written with an intriguing protagonist that does something. Yes, there has to be some kind of interesting speculative fiction element like a neat new world. I think the extra something is being memorable. After I read the story, does it stick with me? Do I ponder it on my commute? That's a story I'm going to pick.

Of course, the next question is: how do you make a story memorable? Writing is an art so there are no tried-and-true formulas. But you might consider a never-before-seen world or a unique character with a one-of-a-kind problem. Nailing the character's point-of-view also helps; if I feel like I am the character, that's more memorable. Good luck!

Do you have any tips for writing a memorable story?

science geek-out

Maybe it's the influence of Comic Con, or maybe it's just too hot outside to think straight, but I'm a geek and proud of it. Along those lines, there's been some really exciting and interesting announcements in the world of physics in the past year. The Oscillation Project with Emulsion-tRacking Apparatus (OPERA) Project in Italy announced they'd measured neutrinos traveling faster than the speed of light. If true, this would have been beyond shocking. Of course, this was disproved when they turned out to have systematic errors... But it's still good story fodder. :)

Lately, a discovery that appears to be true is the discovery of the Higgs Boson at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN). I studied the Higgs Boson while I was young and impressionable. What you need to know is bosons are the particles that mediate or carry forces. To use an example you might have heard of, photons are the bosons of the electromagnetic force field. In other words, photons carry electromagnetism. So, the Higgs Boson works like this: it mediates or carries a force, namely, the Higgs field. The Higgs field is basically the field that gives particles mass. Cool! Again, there are a lot of story possibilities here.

Recently, I found a neat blog that discusses such topics: Quantum Diaries: Thoughts on work and life from particle physicists from around the world. This site is (mostly) comprehensible to normal folks. They have a ton of stuff on the Higgs Boson and what the big deal is. I particularly liked the post from last week on Dark matter: No model, just guesses. Enjoy!

WorldCon

No doubt some Electric Spec readers are busy getting ready for, or traveling to, Comic Con 2012. (Please feel free to drop us a comment about your experience.) But also coming up this summer is the 70th World Science Fiction Convention in Chicago, August 30 to September 3, 2012. The is the preeminent world-wide conference for Science Fiction and Fantasy. One of the Electric Spec Editors will be there (I'll let s/he tell you about it him/herself).

Of course, one of the best things about WorldCon is you get to vote for the 2012 Hugo awards, and that means you get free electronic copies of most of the works. Nominees for the best short story include:

• “The Cartographer Wasps and the Anarchist Bees” by E. Lily Yu (Clarkesworld, April 2011)
• “The Homecoming” by Mike Resnick (Asimov's, April/May 2011)
• “Movement” by Nancy Fulda (Asimov's, March 2011)
• “The Paper Menagerie” by Ken Liu (The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, March/April 2011)
• “Shadow War of the Night Dragons: Book One: The Dead City: Prologue” by John Scalzi (Tor.com)

Congrats to all the nominees.

Personally, I've only been to one WorldCon and that was when it was in Denver in 2008. It was very awesome and very crowded. There were tons of programs and parties and panels. A highlight for me was the SFWA suite, where I volunteered. It was neat seeing and rubbing elbows with all the stars of the SF/F world. In particular, I seem to recall Editor Betsy sitting on George R.R. Martin's lap...

Anyway, I bring all this up because

1. You should go! and
2. Author guest of Honor Mike Resnick has posted his Worldcon--A Beginner's Guide

He gives at lot of really helpful information, so check it out. And if you go, have fun and keep and eye out for Electric Spec!

guest post: Renata Hill

Today, we're pleased to have a guest post from one of Electric Spec's founding editors: Renata Baron Hill. Among Renata's many talents, she is an excellent editor. She shares one of her tricks with us...

---

When I’m up at two in the morning, typing a promised post for a blog, or for that matter, two in the afternoon writing a query letter or, more likely, responding to a Facebook IM, sometimes I rush to click Publish or Send without reviewing my work. Say, what? Yes, it happens, particularly if I have not devoured my daily ham-and-cheese Lunchable.

Now, Ginger, a nifty FREE download from Ginger Software helps me out. Sure, it checks spelling, but among its coolest features is the homophone checker. I’ll give you a hint if you were sick that day in sixth-grade English: homophones are words that sound the same, but have different spellings and meanings. So, when I suggest to my online friend, “Let’s grab a bear after work,” Ginger understands the context and automatically corrects my sentence to, “Let’s grab a beer after work.” Now, my friend knows that I don’t want to don camo, but actually quaff a delicious malty beverage.

Plus, for all you harried writers out there, Ginger also checks subject/verb agreement, singular/plural nouns, consecutive nouns, and basically makes you sound more like Arthur C. Clarke than Arthur Dent. Try it. There are no strings, no secret malware, and it works for PCs and Macs.

Renata, a founding editor, recently switched to a new medication that has enabled her to better appreciate the rich weirdness of China Miéville's novels, the complex settings of Frank Herbert's earlier worlds, and the strange, feminist-loves-phantasm themes in the works of Laurell K. Hamilton. When not researching obscure marketing facts about Fords for wealthy corporate clients or writing scintillating software documentation for moody SQL developers, she adores reading the genres of fantasy, science fiction, alternative history, and the macabre. She was first published at the tender age of 6, spent adolescence and young adulthood plumbing the depths of life's ironies in short story form and non-fiction articles, and some day hopes to nestle into the mantle of "famous novelist".

perfection

I've been writing and rewriting a story for several weeks now. And I keep begging my critique partners to take "just one more look" at it. Frankly, at this point, I'm surprised they haven't shot me, or pushed me into one of the wildfires. I'm dragging my feet about submitting it to the market I wrote it for because I know the editor won't change it. It has to be perfect when I send it in or she won't buy it. :(

But you are in luck. We, the editors of Electric Spec, do work with authors to make stories the best they can be. They don't have to be 100% perfect when you send them in. That should be a bit of a relief for you all. What's the most common thing we do? Besides spelling and grammar issues, we often end up shortening a story. Short stories, in particular, need to be as short as possible to tell the story. :) Yeah, I know, easier said than done.

Speaking of perfection, the awesome writer and writing teacher Kristine Kathryn Rusch, has a really nice article posted on her website: The Business Rusch: Perfection. Ms. Rusch basically says no story is ever perfect to every reader. So, at some point, quit sweating it and send it in! Good advice.
By the way, Ms. Rusch is an excellent resource for writers. Check out her archive of 'On Writing' posts.

Oh, and FYI, we close to submissions for the August 2012 issue on midnight July 15, 2012 (U.S. Mountain Daylight Time). So you still have time to send your story in. :) Good luck.