Just to let you know the exact deadline of Tesseracts 18: Midnight, Dec 31, PST, the corner of New Year’s Day.

I remember submitting to Tesseracts before and wondering–now when IS the exact last moment?–and so I wanted you to know that all of Canada gets till Midnight of the last day of the year.  (Vancouver says, YAY! Whitehorse says YAY!) I think I’ll watch the Pirates of the Caribbean marathon to keep awake till 3am.

How this works:  it’s a dropbox, and at 12:01am on Jan 1st PST, Liana and I will download whatever is in that box and we will never come back to that box again.  It’s just a deposit spot. What’s in the box is in the mix!

I say this because I had a wonderful, albeit frustrating and learning moment, with Claude LaLumiere when he was editor of Open Season.  I am the KING of procrastinators!  Of making it just under the door!  If you tell me you want it by Saturday at 1pm, by golly, it will not be to you any earlier than that.  🙂  So I’m with you.  And yet, I think I sent my manuscript in around 12:30. Claude thanked me kindly but did not let me submit it.  It was after the deadline.  Maybe it was only 12:10…..  ten minutes!  He could have had the greatest story in the world, I thought!  But noooooo!  Ten minutes was too late.  I probably felt self-righteously angry for a few weeks—I can see myself muttering in a very Scrooge-like way, “Ten minutes, what would have been the trouble? Ten minutes…”— anyway, I was a goofball and I learned.  Claude was right (Claude is often right, not always, but very very often).  So please understand that if your manuscript comes in at 12:02 PST, I will never ever see it.  Neither will Liana.  It will be orphaned.

So, amazing writers, submit now and soon!  You have approximately 3 and a half days!  Have Faith!