Somewhere between the heady optimism of drafting your book and the promised lands of being a published author, there lies a black pit of despair. It is the yawning abyss that swallows your energy, time, and very soul.

 

We call this the slushpile.

 

For aspiring authors who are trapped in this desolate place, it can seem endlessly gruelling and senselessly cruel. Worse yet, there is a creature who haunts this dark place, growling and gnashing its teeth. It approaches, and you feel its hot breath on your face and your nose prickles with the stench of decay of the corpses of the hopelessly naive writers who have tread this path before you, many of whom never left the slushpile.

 

The light shifts, illuminating a great and terrible beast. He subsists entirely on the unrealised literary dreams of the masses, and his appetite is bottomless. Many have faced him, few have survived. Even fewer can bear to recount the terrifying tale.