Last week, before our trip, I got Icarus ready to go to Trabuco Road.  They reopened their submissions on March 3rd, or there abouts, so my plan was to be ready and submit as soon as they opened.  But with issues stacked on excuses, I didn’t sit down to send it ’til last night.

It was all ready, but I checked the guidelines one last time before hitting send–and found they’ve been updated.  So I looked them over.  Still want Courier font, attached rtf, standard formating, email submissions . . . everything looked good until I got to the ‘Things I really don’t want to see’, or some such list.  Guess what’s been added?

‘No allusions to mythology.’

As I’m sure you can guess from the title of my story, ‘First Flight of Icarus’ has allusions to earth mythology

So.

I sat there, looking at this list.  Should I send it, should I not?  I’ve always firmly believed a writer should follow the guidelines to the T, but my story is science fiction that just uses references to mythology as a joke.  Still, they say ‘no allusions.’

I sent it anyway.  It will take me as long to figure out where it could go instead as it will for them to send me the rejection, and I also have always believed that if in doubt, let the editor do the rejecting.  S/he may not need practise sending rejections, but I need experience submitting.

Even when my story has less chance of acceptance than waxen wings in the heat of the sun.