I’m uncertain when short-story writers started doing this, but my social media feeds are regularly packed with posts from writers announcing their most recent acceptances.
I get it.
Writers have few enough victories that they want to stand on the mountaintop and shout to the world about every one of them. They want to celebrate, and they want us to celebrate with them, and we do because tomorrow we may make similar announcements.
I, on the other hand, rarely announce my acceptances, limiting most of my social media announcements to actual publications.
I’ve been burned so many times I’ve become leery of announcing anything until it is part of a finished product.
Early in my writing career—back when telephones were attached to the wall and social media involved postage stamps and months-long waits for responses—I told friends and family about all my acceptances.
And then anthologies were delayed or cancelled, magazines ceased publication or bumped my work from one issue to the next, and (these days) electronic publications disappeared from the internet, leaving my non-writing friends and family thinking I’m delusional.
So, rather than having to explain the vagaries of publishing, I mostly stopped announcing acceptances and now wait until I hold a physical product or have a URL I can link to before making announcements.
I’ve experienced the same dilemma from the editor’s side of the desk, when projects I’ve worked on have gotten cancelled or delayed. Sharing that news with writers who have already made public announcements about their acceptances leaves them in a similar bind. It isn’t fun.
So, should you announce all your acceptances or should you, like me, hold off announcements until you have a finished product in hand?
There’s no right or wrong answer.
And whether you announce your acceptances or wait until publication, congratulations for every one of them.
* * *
Earlier this week, Tough published my story “Family Business.”
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