Quote by Mandapanda2025

I don't recall getting the "It's under review and cannot be recalled." That is what I mean. We are going on Day 8, and from a notice perspective, I don't know if it's in the queue or in someone's hot little hands. Yes, I can periodically try to recall it, but I'd probably actually end up recalling it and slide down to the bottom of the queue.

Well, that's interesting.

I just went to my latest submission, Mari's Run, to do a screen grab for you to show you what the "Cannot be recalled," notification looks like, and I see that it's been demoted back to the slush pile. Hmm? Any explanation on what happened there mods? Tomorrow will be 7 days since submission.

Quote by AvidlyCurious

I don't think it'll help much.

Sorry, but I don't understand the need to know what is going on before you actually need to know something (story approved or needs fixing). It doesn't change anything for the person who is waiting. You'll end up getting more messages with a random, automated note, nothing relevant, which I'd imagine it would add to the anxiety.

Granted, I'm the notifications' Grinch. I turn all of them off.

The process has been explained several times, even in this very thread. So everyone knows they'll get the notification that truly matters. Seeing that it's 'under review' getting five messages saying 'still awaiting for verification' won't speed up the process.

In the meantime, write some more, read some more, interact some more... so many things to do on Lushland that are far more enjoyable and fun than going over this again and again.

I don't think anyone's asking to speed things up, just to be better informed of where things are.

Better communication is a beautiful thing.

Quote by Obsolete_Fox

Please keep in mind that all mods are volunteers. We're using our free time to review stories here. Your suggestion that we reach out to each individual author about the status of their submission in the queue would result in us having less time to review stories, and thus would make wait times even longer.

I'm not suggesting that the mod reach out, rather, set up a simple automated notification procedure. (like the one that lets the author know their story has been assigned to a mod) It would take a simple click of the mouse or trigger automatically when the story is opened. A little time to set up the system, but potentially no muss, no fuss for the mod at all.

Quote by AvidlyCurious

We already know that we'll receive a message when it's verified or if it's returned for whatever reason. So why would the wording change anything?

Granted, I'm not clear on the process behind the curtain here, but I would assume that there are stages of interaction that a reviewer has with the submission?

1. There's the automatic notice when the submission is made saying it's under review and can be recalled.

2. Then there's the notice of when the story is assigned to a review and can no longer be recalled.

3. Then the wait begins until we receive the notice of acceptance or rejection.

I find myself wondering if the reviewer has even begun to look at it, or if it's sitting in their own personal slush pile. This makes me think there might be a place there where the reviewer can let the author know they've got it on their desk and are actually reading through it. I think it would also be helpful to the site to know if there are bottle necks occurring at any of those levels if they were to keep track of the time and the flow.

I mean, I've had longer delays IRL and on other sites, but it never hurts to look at ways that increase communication and provide helpful insights.

Quote by Laura_SM

I know someone with a spreadsheet — filters, tabs, the whole thing. Iconic. I didn’t think of that in ’97, when I was busy believing every hookup was either a rebellion or a love story.

I have tried to do the math. Which led to what can only be described as advanced sexual calculus — complete with estimations, rounding errors, and a deep dive into the “was-that-technically-sex?” category.

Final number? North of 120. Which feels... dramatic probably. Until you divide it by 28 years. Then it just looks like I was consistently bad at saying no.

In that same spirit I offer the following:

I try to avoid a backstory puke. If one is provided early, all that's necessary is to ground the reader in the moment and place so they can enter the flow of the story. Then, as the story unfolds, it can be worked in as unobtrusively as possible so the reader feels they're simply getting to know the characters or situation better without having it "splained" to them.

Writing a story is like having sex... too much too soon is a turn off. It's nice for intimacy and familiarity to grow as you progress and, little surprises here and there add to the experience.

One of my first lessons in writing was how important it is for me to allow myself to write a really shitty first draft. The reason it's so important that I do that is because ALL of my first drafts are really, I mean REALLY, shitty.

Try Mandi's suggestion above, and see if you can't get it moving that way. Don't expect to have much of a "real" story, but I guarantee that you will likely have what most of us start with: an overall idea and a few plot points. From there, you start filling in the gaps and revising what doesn't work. People don't usually just sit down and crank out a story when they begin writing, they learn to nurture, coax, and grind a story out of themselves.

After doing what Mandi suggests, set aside an hour to put your words down on paper. Don't worry for a minute how it looks or sounds - the main thing is to just get it down. Set it aside, give it time to germinate, then set aside another hour and come back and review what you wrote down. Resume filling in the gaps and revising things so they better match your vision. Don't ever expect to be satisfied, but if you keep cycling back to it, sooner or later you're going to read somethin you wrote and smile.

If you find yourself struggling, feel free to DM me and let me take a look at what you were able to come up with. Like Mandi, I won't write it for you, but I'm happy to try to ask some helpful questions that might stir your imagination.

Soul to Squeeze - Red Hot Chili Peppers

How does the charge appear on the account? I thought I read somewhere that it says "story service," or something of that nature. If so, that would blend in with other subscriptions and services I use for my writing.

Quote by AngelWorthy

As a non-paying member you only have 8 Lushmail per day. It resets each day. Maybe, you can use your last Lushmail message to ask the story mod into the chatrooms, where I believe you may be able to chat with the mod in private message. I know that non-paying members can chat with the chatroom mods in private message. I'm just unsure about story mods. Maybe a story mod can try, to let us all know.

Thank you for answering. It's been a day since I posted and I was able to get back in touch with @AvidlyCurious to follow up on things. I'm so much happier with the level of communication here than on the last site I was at. It's so refreshing!

I'm a new author here and am eager to get my story up for everyone. I was having a great conversation with an Admin, AvidlyCurious, who was being a big, big help. She responded to a question and I found I couldn't answer her unless I upgraded. I will likely do so once I get the story up and running, but am wondering if there's any other way to continue the convo since there may be more to work out on the story. Does the limit reset after a period of time, or is that it for my being able to follow up with her?